He woke Will up early Saturday morning to stack crates. Coach would be pissed that he was missing practice, but this wasn’t the time for Will to argue with his dad. Working in the warm barn, Will sweat out his hangover quickly. The anxiety was harder to shake. He spooked at every sound from outside the barn, sure that it was the police arriving to arrest him.

He was also sensitive to the brewing storm that was his father. There was nothing quick and clean about Mr. O’Connor’s anger. It always built slowly, as if he savored it and didn’t want to rush it. While they waited, Mrs. O’Connor and the boys tiptoed around the house, tense and jumpy.

It was elbows on the table at dinner that night that set it off. Mr. O’Connor had served in the marines, and he couldn’t stand sloppy manners. When he started yelling, it was all the usual complaints: Will was careless, he was entitled, he thought the world owed him something. Running around with the Finch boy had given him the mistaken impression that he was a rich kid too. Well, he wasn’t.

Will kept his eyes on his plate and let his father’s anger wash over him. Repeated exposure had taken some of the sting out. At this point, his father would usually retreat into what Will thought of as the brooding phase, and everyone would tread carefully, trying not to provoke him. But this time the storm seemed to clear the air rather than muddy it.

Mr. O’Connor leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Look, Will, you’re not a bad kid.” His eyes were careful to avoid Trip, who had sat silently through the whole thing, waiting for his turn, which hadn’t come. “I know you work hard. You’re just blowing off a little steam. I get it. But there’s a lot on the line here, and when you have a lot going for you, you have a lot to lose. You’re going to college next year. Not just college. Princeton.” He shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “You worked hard for this. And you earned it, unlike a lot of kids around here.” Thinking about Hunter, Will knew. His dad had a real chip on his shoulder about him.

His father was staring at Will’s hands, and Will looked down and noticed the two split knuckles on his right hand. There’d been a fight, just before they left the party. He had a hazy memory of crashing through a screen door, his fist connecting with the other boy’s jaw. His father didn’t comment on it, though. He never minded the boys fighting.