Page 12 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

“Here you go,” my new academic advisor says, standing on the other side of a long counter. She sets down a thick folder and flips it open, pointing to one side. “Your schedule is here. Your login for our portal is here. We have an online program the professors sometimes utilize for assignment turn-in, which is here. Your meal plan…”

I nod along until she finally stops talking, and I retract the folder off the counter.

Outside the administration building, across the quad, the residences are buzzing with life. Students are moving in today, and older ones who volunteered to help wear bright-purple t-shirts. They’re all swarming around the cars that pull up, unloading in a fervor.

Like ants.

“Sydney…”

I glance at my father.

A lot has changed in six months, but most of all, us. I don’t know if he took pity on me or if he heard whispers about what happened, or?—

“It’ll be okay,” he says.

He said it then, too. Before I finally caved and asked for help.

I couldn’t go out without running into an FSU student. I had more drinks and food dumped on me in two weeks than in my entire lifetime, because that seemed to be a go-to maneuver. My apartment front door was splashed in bright-red paint. Handwritten threats were shoved in the mailbox.

It was obvious they knew exactly where I lived—it was only a matter of time before things escalated.

Lettie went away. As soon as her last final was done, her bags were packed and a driver helped load her things into a blacked-out SUV at the curb. She hugged me goodbye, but even that felt too… superficial. She said we had the apartment through the summer, that her father had taken care of rent with the landlord.

I didn’t say anything to that. I couldn’t, because it was very clear that my best friend would not be returning. Yet, I waved as her driver spirited her away. I waved, knowing that she was taking the easy way out. Of living here, of being my friend.

Dad called me out of the blue shortly after that, sounding raspy and a little sad. Maybe it was disappointment. But his number wasn’t even in my contacts. And when the call came in, early on a Saturday, it took me a moment to place his voice.

“Sydney.” He paused. “I should’ve reached out sooner. But I’ve caught wind of what you’ve been going through, and just wanted to extend an olive branch. I’m not mad, honey, and no matter what—it’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t.

It isn’t.

And while he thinks he had his finger on the pulse of what was happening, like many adults, he only gets the tip of the iceberg.

People can be vicious.

Over the summer, my mother disappeared. I thought that living in the targeted apartment was bad—it’s nothing compared to walking into the trailer we used to live in together and find it…

Horrible.

Abandoned.

She had stopped responding to texts, stopped answering her phone, but it still took me a while to get back to Emerald Cove to check in on her.

Once I did, I wish I hadn’t.

I spent the day at the police precinct, trying to file a missing person’s report. Except I couldn’t tell them anything useful. When was the last time I talked to her? Three weeks prior. When was the last time I saw her? Winter break. To which they reminded me that it was July.

I hadn’t seen my mother in seven months?

Correct, Detective.

He gave me his card, took my contact information, and said he’d look into it.

Then… nothing. Not from him, not from my mother. I moved her stuff into storage and let go of the trailer, thinking that, at least, would make her reach out when she returned. But she hasn’t.

Once the lease on the two-bedroom SJU place came up, I moved into a new one-bedroom apartment in Framingham.