I had to drop out of track and lost any remote possibility of being on the team and thus, varsity this or next year. My dad was disappointed. He took it personally. I think he thought that now I couldn’t be a Marine Like Him. My mom was only grateful I wasn’t going to be ‘out there with those rough boys’ but it put her and Dad against each other, and I of course, felt like it was all my fault. It could also prevent me from getting a scholarship to college, which I really needed and wanted.
Tonight at dinner was the worst yet. I was eating left-handed because of how much my wrist still hurt, so I’d already dropped potatoes and gravy on the clean tablecloth. You’d think it was a mortal sin. My sister Maggie snickered, but at fifteen she still didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and I was s
