I took a slow sip and said, “I’m not driving you. I have my appointment.”
He stopped halfway through the living room, yanked one AirPod out. “What appointment?”
“The specialist. The lump in my neck. The one I’ve been waiting nine months for.”
He actually laughed like I’d told the world’s weakest joke. “You’re serious right now. Call them and move it. This is Perfect Game National, Landry. Every single MLB team is sending scouts. I’m not missing my shot because you have some random doctor visit.”
“It’s not random. They’re doing a biopsy. It might be cancer.”
He rolled his eyes so hard his whole head went with it. “God, you’re so dramatic. You’ve had that thing for ages and you’re walking around fine. Cancel it.”
“No.” Just that one word. Calm, flat, final.
The air in the room changed instantly. He dropped his bag, took three steps toward me until we were toe‑to‑toe. His voice dropped to that ugly whisper he saves for people who dare tell him no. “Get your keys. Get in the car. Drive me to the [ __ ] airport.”
“I’m not doing it.”
His hand moved faster than I could track—open palm, full force—cracked across the left side of my face like a major‑league fastball. The impact spun me. My hip caught the sharp corner of the island. Coffee exploded across the counter and I went down hard on the living‑room rug, ears ringing, vision flashing white.
Mom and Dad were already standing there. They’d walked in while we were arguing and hadn’t made a sound. Dad folded his arms, looked down at me on the floor, and delivered the only words he would ever say to me again: “His future actually matters. Yours doesn’t.”
Mom didn’t even glance my way. She was too busy making sure Dylan’s boarding pass was pulled up on her phone.
I stayed down for maybe four seconds, tasting blood, feeling the perfect outline of his hand burning into my skin. Something inside me that had been cracked for years finally shattered clean in half. I pushed myself up, slowly, wiped my mouth, and walked past all three of them without a single word.
Up the stairs into the bedroom I barely used anymore. Grabbed the go‑bag I kept for last‑minute work trips. Threw in three more days of clothes. My laptop, charger, toiletries, the thick folder with every medical record I owned, and the envelope with $4,000 in cash I’d been hiding in a shoebox for emergencies.
Fourteen minutes from the second his palm connected with my face to the second I was back downstairs. Dylan was already in the garage screaming about traffic. Mom was holding his shaker bottle like it was made of gold. Dad never turned around. I walked straight to the front door.
Dylan yelled from the garage, “Landry, what the hell are you doing?”