“Why are all these songs about boys ?”

Dad barely knocks before coming in my bedroom. He’s on a FaceTime call using Mom’s phone. 

“They are not all about boys, Rhett!,” Aunt Amber laughs from the FaceTime window. “You clearly need to listen to Taylor’s Reputation era.” 

Dad extends his arm so the front facing camera shows my vanity– where Laci is filming herself putting falsies on my outer lid. I don't know why he refuses to use the back camera.

Laci wanted us to make a get ready with us Instagram Reel that used this sappy song from a viral concept album. It was a super old TikTok trend but Laci wasn’t allowed on TikTok so it was just getting to her on Reels.

“Laci, please tell your mama that J and I are taking good care of you,” Dad prompts my cousin, pulling her into a half-hug. He has to get on one knee to get he and Laci's face in the frame at the same time because she’s so ridiculously petite.

“Mama I–”

“Hiiiii girls!,” Aunt Amber shrieks. She’s sitting on a hotel room bed in a floral robe. “Oh, you look gorgeous, Spencer! I see you back there too Peyton. Hey, girlie!” 

My 10-year-old sister Peyton was sitting as quietly as she could in the corner of my bedroom on her iPad. She probably thought I forgot she was there but I was allowing her to stay in my room as long as she wasn’t bratty.

“Sorry to interrupt the glam session ladies! Daddy and I just got done with the pickleball tournament. He got second in men’s and I got first in the ladies, woot, woot!” Aunt Amber raises the roof and then gets back to business. “Anyway, Rhett said ya’ll went to the Waffle House for breakfast ? I can DoorDash you something from that acai bowl place if you’re still hungry, Lace–”

“I tried the Waffle House and it’s really good, Mama,” Laci smiles. “I had a waffle and a hashbrown bowl and some of–”

“Didn’t I tell you, Amber ?,” Dad interrupts. 

Aunt Amber laughs like he told a joke. “Okay,  well…make sure to do some stretches, Laci Bear. I know it’s hard being off your conditioning schedule, I told Daddy–”

“I went to a barre class yesterday with Spencer and her friends,” Laci tells her. “It was even harder than Coach Missy’s class. I looked and they have a studio in Missisi--

“Oh, Lace, you're being such a good soldier! I’m so proud of you, girly girl,” Aunt Amber beams. Her voice gets low and serious. “I know this isn’t the start of summer we planned but I promise Daddy and I will do something super fun just for you next.”

Dad takes the phone and stands. “Alright, Amber, we gotta go.”

“Oh wait, West! Weston! Laci called!,” Amber yells behind her.

Uncle West appears on screen and starts doing a full on wellness check with Laci.

Laci had never spent the night away from her parents and they were being absolute freaks about it. 

As if my 17-year-old cousin wasn’t having the time of her life staying with my family for a week.

Her parents usually carted her around to the most boring shit. She’d almost ended up in The Hamptons at Uncle West’s work retreat but the firm had a new rule that only wives could attend out of state retreats.

My other cousin, Noah Presley, said his mom heard from a lady at the salon that the reason they created the rule was because too many of the other executives were bringing their mistresses.

Dad leans over me to look at himself in my vanity mirror.

He’s wearing service dress. 

“Wait, should I be in uniform?”

I’d picked up my second year uniforms when I left the Coast Guard Academy for summer break last week. I still hadn’t opened the box to iron them.

“Nah. It’s ain’t the kind of event, baby girl,” Dad says, his accent suddenly thicker after having just talked to someone from Freeport.

“But you’re—”

“It’s a work event for me.”

I’d thought of us attending this fundraiser as more of a social event. 

Sure, it was being hosted by Master Chief Bernadette Dresden–the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s new Command Master Chief--but I figured it was tied to her personal life. 

She’d invited her leadership team–which included my Dad– and when she’d heard that I’d just completed my first year at the Academy with honors she told Dad to bring me along. Command Master Chief was the second highest ranking position at the Academy and the fact that she wanted to meet me met a lot.

Back when I’d floated even the idea of applying for the Coast Guard Academy, Dad had said “No. Academy’s not for girls like you.” 

It was such bullshit after I’d watched him aggressively recruit my older brother, Mason, to the Academy two years earlier. 

So I applied behind Dad's back, got accepted, worked my ass off my first year and earned three honor awards.

He should have been proud that I wanted to follow in his footsteps. Dad loved the Coast Guard. 

It had changed all of our lives.

***

We’d always been kind of poor in Louisiana

Aunt Savannah got me a scholarship to a private school so I noticed we were poor way more than anyone else in my family. I was good at sports and making friends so I hadn’t been picked on but I was always deeply anxious about it.

Then, a few years after Dad shattered his hip during a mission, we’d moved to Connecticut for him to take a leadership position at the Coast Guard Academy. I don’t know how much he made after all his promotions but it was significantly more than we’d ever had. 

It wasn’t just that there was name brand cereal; we had a 6 bedroom house in a nice subdivision, there was a home gym in our basement, each of my sisters had their own iPad and I’d gotten a new car for my 17th birthday. 

My youngest sisters, Anabelle Grace and Carter, would have no memory of how we used to live.

10-year-old Peyton was kind of in the middle. I knew she had some memories of life in Louisiana but she was turning into such a spoiled little brat. 

***

“Here try this, Daddy!,” Peyton gleefully starts. Dad is still looking at himself in my vanity mirror. She’d  jumped up from where she’d been sitting quietly in the corner and picks up a lemon-shaped Korean moisturizer off my vanity.

She’d been staring at it all day and I knew she wanted any excuse to touch it. She was always bothering me when our foster sister, Grady, was visiting her family in Louisiana. 

“God, Peyton! I said you can’t touch that!,” I remind her, snatching the moisturizer  from her hand. 

“Spencer,” Dad scolds me. Me.“You don’t talk to your little sister like that–”

“It’s mine–”

 “I don’t care. You don’t get to decide what someone does and doesn’t touch in my house. You have to share with your baby sisters. Understood ?”

“She’s–”

“Spence.”

Right. I was working on not talking back. 

“Yes, sir,” I mumble even though it was insane that at 18-fucking-years-old, I had to share anything with a 10-year-old.

“ And Peyton. You ask before taking something that belongs to your big sister. Understand ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright,” he stands and interrupts Laci’s FaceTime  with her parents that was somehow still going. “We gotta go, West. Ya’ll relax. We ain’t going to turn her into a heathen.”

The exact second Dad ends the call Mom slides into my room. She’s wearing the butter yellow wrap dress and black heels she wore to most Coast Guard events because someone told her it complimented Dad’s uniform well in photos.

“Is everything okay ?,” Mom asks him.

“Yeah, just the usual.  You’re lucky you look so damn pretty,” Dad smiles. He pretends like he’s going to underhand pitch the phone to her but then he gently places it in her palm. He turns back to us. “We gotta leave in five minutes, girls”

“I’m going to do the pants,” I tell Laci once my parents are gone. 

“Nooo, you look so cute in my dress.”

She’d let me borrow one of her Love Shack Fancy dresses for the fundraiser and while it looked regal on her tiny munchkin frame, my long legs made it look too slutty.

I needed to make a better first impression if this was less a social event and more a  Coast Guard event.

I settle on a crochet sweater over an ankle length mauve slip dress  and a pair of nude heeled sandals. I didn’t love wearing sandals but I thought the height was sophisticated.

We finish the Reel and take some pictures for Instagram, which, fine having a little sister does come in handy for that. 

***

After dropping Peyton off at a sleepover and the little girls with Grandpa Reese and Ms. Tess, it’s a 45 minute car ride to Dresden’s property out in the country.  

Dad is telling Mom some work story and Laci and I have our obligatory nonverbal phone time. 

She plays Candy Crush with her mom and I go through my Instagram, replying to comments on the post of Laci and I in our fundraiser attire.

Noah Presley leaves a disappointed face because I’d declared I’d embrace my curly hair over the summer but had instead resorted back to the flat iron, hair gel and claw clip.

Comments were flooding in from all the different universes of acquaintances I collected; 

My eclectic church youth group friends from Louisiana who taught me about finding radical joy in faith.

The Discord nerds who made feel connected to the world and created my entire sense of humor.

The volleyball girls from Connecticut who made high school less hellish.

But most importantly, the girls at the Coast Guard Academy who had my entire fucking heart right now. Almost one-third of my company was female and we made a point to always root for each other. Even if we didn’t always get along.

“We gotta get out,” Dad calls, snapping me out of the phone. 

I look up to see my parents are already  out of the car and handing the keys to a valet. I didn’t even know houses could have valets–everyday I learn a new thing about wealthy people. 

The house was one of those gigantic modern farmhouses set in gravel. On either side of the house is an expanse of perfectly manicured grass. Live cello music floats from the open french doors off the side.

 I thought Laci and I would be the youngest people in attendance at this thing but I see a ton of people in their early 20s.

Most of the guests  are wearing garden party attire but a lot of them are in Coast Guard uniform. 

“Spence,” Dad addresses me. “Stay off the phone. Talk to people. Don’t have an attitude–”

“Dad, I know,” I remind him. I’d gone to the Coast Guard Academy formal with a senior I’d gotten friendly with at the gym. I knew how to act at nice events.

“Clark!,” someone calls from right behind us. I turn at the same time Dad does because I was so used to being called that while at school but the guardsman approaching our group has his eyes locked on Dad.

He was a lieutenant in his late twenties. Maybe a grad student.

He salutes dad.

I don’t bother saluting him since I’m not in uniform.

“Simmons, this is my wife and daughter and my little niece from Louisiana."

Laci was technically Dad’s cousin but in our family the designation of niece and nephew seemed to have more to do with your age gap.

“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Simmons greets Mom and then nods politely at Laci and I “What grade are you girls in ?”

“Laci’s a senior in high school,” I tell him. “I just finished my first year at the Academy.”

“Oh,” he seems a little surprised. “That’s great.”

I’m not totally offended by his surprise. 

One of the few civil conversations Dad and I had about me attending the Academy is that I did not want people to know we were related. It could be a small community and I didn’t want to be treated differently because my Dad was in leadership at the Academy.

We start in the direction of the house and every few steps Dad gets pulled aside for conversations which begins even more introductions. Someone hands him a drink and I watch he and my Mom have a subtle tug of war over it after he takes a sip.

My phone vibrates in my bag and I take a quick glance at my Apple Watch to see Nova had texted Laci and I three flame emojis

He didn’t use social media and instead directly texted all his reactions to his friends social media posts. 

Laci gives me a knowing look and  giggles. We’d both crushed hard on Nova but he was way too old for her. She'd decided she'd be just as happy if Nova and I had the cliched brother’s best friend thing. 

Nova FaceTimes me and, since Dad isn’t paying attention, I open my phone.

While Nova was unbelievably attractive and could be a lot of fun, he did things that drove me insane.

“Hey, so...I was supposed to tell you something earlier but I totally forgot what it was,” Nova answers the Facetime call.

Shit like that. 

I settle the Airpod into my ear. “Seriously ?”

“I thought if I saw your face I’d remember,” he says. He’s behind the counter at the gas station where he works. It was in a sleepy town near his college in Albany and he spent most of his time on the phone. “Oh! Okay, so you’re not going to believe this crazy Sour Patch Kids flavored drink we just got–”

“Um, I’m kind of busy–”

“Right. Damn. That place looks like Bridgerton.”

“Right ?,” I do a quick pan of the giant yard.  “Okay, I have to go.”

“Make good choices,” he smiles and hangs up.

I walk into the house and find Laci and Mom together at the refreshment table.

Mom is clutching the bourbon Dad had been drinking and Laci is pouring herself a cup of iced tea from a floral patterned drink dispenser with a framed chalk sign that reads ‘Wild Raspberry Iced Tea.’

“Hmm,” Laci says, smiling tightly after she takes a sip. Which is her way of showing absolute disgust.

“I told you,” I nudge her. “The entire iced tea situation is tragic up here.”

“Ooh, I can hook you up,” a man behind us says. I turn around and see Maverick. He was a social media personality and also Nova’s Dad’s…boyfriend ? I didn’t even know what you call it at their age. 

 He’s holding a travel size bottle of cane sugar syrup between his fingers. His eyes land briefly on Mom behind us.

“Oh, wait–Juliana! Hi! Oh my god, can I hug you ?” 

When she nods Maverick pulls her into a hug and then does a double take at Laci and I.

“I see it now. You must be Mason’s little sisters!” 

He holds out his arm to hug us and we oblige. He smells amazing. 

“This is Laci,” Mom explains. “She’s Mason's cousin.”

“Cute, I love it! Haley told me you all might be coming to this fundraiser too. He said he told Nova to mention we might run into each other.”

“Do you know Master Chief Dresden ?,” Mom asks.

“Not at all,” he grins. “I guess the DCEC has some strategy where they want content creators to make videos about voting while at fundraisers? Apparently this Paris Prince guy is really pro-sex work and they thought it fit my brand.” 

He cracks the lid on his mini syrup bottle and dumps it into Laci’s tea. “I’m originally from Texas.” He pulls his black leather purse to his chest and pats it. “I’ve got simple syrup, hot sauce and a packet of cajun seasoning ready to go at all times.”

Laci, Maverick, Mom and I settle at a standing table and just…chat.

When I was in my YouTube fangirl era I’d watched everything Maverick posted on YouTube. It turns out in real life he was only a step down from the high energy personality on his videos. 

He was closer in age to Mom but could easily switch between talking about things that related to her and to Laci and I.  He takes a couple of videos with Mom and I and then has to leave for his two minutes with the candidate.  

He tells us he won’t post Laci on his social media since she’s underage but I would kill for her parents to see how much fun she was having at a liberal fundraiser.

“This is nice, Spencer. I can’t remember the last time we did anything together,” Mom says to me once Maverick is gone.

“Probably never,” I think out loud. 

In high school I'd always kind of pushed my mom away. She hadn’t had a regular childhood and I resented how she couldn't relate to anything I was going through like other moms did.

I’d rationalized that she had to take care of the little girls and it was better that I relied on myself and my friend’s moms.

But now I knew none of my high school bullshit mattered and we could have navigated my teen and preteen years together. 

“You should let Aunt Juliana use your guest pass at the barre studio,” Laci suggests. “Mama and I like to work out together.”

“We might have to start with something a little bit easier,” Mom laughs. Her gaze flicks to me and she stands up straighter. “Your Dad is coming this way with Master Chief Dresden.”

I turn to see Dad walking towards us, accompanied by two women in Coast Guard dress blues.

Master Chief Dresden is shorter than I expected, with a mousy brown pixie cut and a solid, compact build. 

The other woman with them is Petty Officer Whitlow, Dad's friend from AST School. She comes to Connecticut a couple times a year for missions and usually has dinner at our house. I stand straight, keeping my hands in a parade pose behind my back. 

"Cadet Clark,” Chief Dresden greets me warmly.

“Ma’am.”

She does a broad wave to the table. “Look at this lovely family. You must be Juliana, I’ve heard such amazing things.”

“Your house is beautiful,” Mom says, offering her hand for a quick handshake.

“Well, I was just  telling Clark I grew up in a small town like he did. My husband and I were  in New York City for a while but…we like our peace.” 

Dresden’s attention turns back  to me. “Your father was telling me you earned the Spirit Award this year.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Atta girl,” Whitlow taps my shoulder. 

Dresden nods. “That’s a true honor. It means the cadets in your company recognize your leadership skills. That tells me a lot about you.”

“She's always been like that. Spencer doesn't join anything without becoming captain or president. And she keeps a 4.0 GPA,” Dad adds, putting his arm around me.

It was so weird. He almost never said anything about my accomplishments at the Academy.

“What are you majoring in ?,” Dresden asks.

“I haven’t declared, ma’am. I’m between Engineering or Marine Sciences.”

“She won’t listen to me but I think she’d be good at government,” Dad adds. “She’s always reading about history.”

I give a forced smile because my interest in American history started because of the Hamilton musical and I read about 50 fanfics on my Kindle between every American history book.

“Second year can be tough and I hope you take some time this summer to enjoy your family before it gets into the thick of it.” She claps me on the shoulder. “If there is anything I  or the Academy can do to continue to support your continued success please let me know.” 

“Yes ma’am. I will,” I say. I’m sure she said all that as a nicety but I decide to just go for it. “I’’m actually about to apply for the AST Prep Program.”

I hadn’t really talked to anyone about how I was considering going to AST School and becoming a rescue swimmer after graduation. 

I wasn’t my dream  or anything but I wanted a challenge.

She nods. “That makes sense. Happy to be a reference. I’m sure that would be an excellent prep program for you.”

“I hope so...this would be my third time applying.”

The Academy offered a 3 month AST prep program as an extracurricular for cadets to get a taste of  AST training. It even included an overnight visit to an active stations. 

Boys who had worse times in the pool than me had gotten in and some of my female cadets and I thought it was maybe one of the few  unspoken boys clubs still left at the Academy.

I hadn’t pushed because I didn’t want to make it seem like I thought I deserved get in because of Dad. He still taught for a few weeks each year A-School 

But, at this point,  if I could name drop Dresden I would.

“Really ?,” Whitlow says to me. “I don’t even remember reading your appl–”

“Master Chief, this is my niece,” Dad interrupts Whitlow. “She’s turning 18 this year so we wanna show her a little more of the world before she registers to vote."

While Dresden exchanges pleasantries with Laci, I make direct eye contact with Whitlow and she steps towards me.

 “You review the AST Prep applications ?,” I ask her.

“My lieutenant commander likes us to read the essays. We’re more impartial since we’re pretty far removed from the Academy cadets,” she explains. “I feel like I would have said something if I saw your name. We always need more women coming through.”

“I applied twice-- my first year and for this summer. You didn't see my application ?”

Whitlow looks slightly distressed but then just shrugs her shoulders and smiles, patting my shoulder again. “Don’t worry about it.  You’re a strong candidate and you still have two more chances.”

I try to remember everything I’d learned in therapy. But the idea that I have to control my gut reaction makes me want to cry–which makes me even more pissed.

The AST Prep application was in ACCESS, the centralized system The Academy used for all application processes.

The system that all Academy staff have administrative access to.

I hadn’t gotten any communication about my applications, not even a rejection, so I’d chalked it up to bureaucracy. 

It had never crossed my mind that Dad could interfere. 

Until now.

“What did you do ?,” I ask a little louder than I mean to once Dresden and Whitlow are walking away. 

Dad swiftly turns towards me and grips my forearm, pulling me close to me. “Don’t you ever raise your voice at me, Spencer–”

I try to pull away and his hold tightens.

“No! You did something to my–” 

He clamps his palm forcefully over my mouth. I slap it  away on instinct and wrench his wrist back so he can’t cover my mouth again. “I’m reporting you! You violated the honor code–”

“–we’re going to the car–”

 “No…we’re…not!”

 He tries to pull me along but I dig my heels in and claw his hands off my wrist.

“Stop it, both of you,” Mom hisses, removing Dad and I’s hands from each other.  I catch a glance of Laci. She’s flushed pink and staring at the floor. 

Her family did not do conflict. 

“I thought we were past your disrespectful attitude, Spencer,” Dad says, getting all up in my face. Again. “I don’t know what has–”

“Don’t change the subject!” I scream. It’s the first thing that gets the attention of some of the people around us.

Dad pauses and smiles, waiting until the attention fades before speaking under his breath. “Shut up, Spencer–”

“No.”

“That is the last time you are going to tell me no.”

Before he can say anything else, I turn my back on him and take off at a full run away from it all.

It’s not that I give a fuck about his empty threats. It’s just I know this is the only way I can win. Running.

I hear someone on my heels and turn to see Laci steps behind me,  followed by Dad speed walking with Mom even farther back, holding her dress and struggling to walk down the grassy hill in heels. 

“Spencer, are you okay ?,” Laci asks,  sprinting the last few feet until we are next to each other. Her agility in heels was hard won from years of pageants.

“My Dad is a fucking asshole,” I say under my breath. "He's a fucking asshole."

“...I’m sorry,” she says in a quiet voice.  

“Go back, it’s fine. I won’t be mad at you. This is just what he does. He’s fucking controlling and I’m so done.”

I was stubborn and  always gotten into it with my parents but it had always been worse with my Dad–even now that Mom had banned alcohol from the house. 

But I was an adult now. He couldn’t punish me anymore and I was going to fight back until I won.

“Do you know where you are going?,” Laci asks. I was following a gravel path I assumed we’d driven up and was hoping it went to the main road.

“Yeah, I’ll get a ride. You have to go back.”

She hugs me and I pick up the pace. I heard Dad snap at my sweet cousin to go back to Mom and it makes me angry all over again. 

I reach the end of the path and come out on the main country highway. I’d forgotten we’re in the sticks and when I open my phone  there isn’t a single Uber within 30 minutes. 

I take a look at my contact list and shoot a text to any friend I knew lived nearby, begging for ride with a promise to explain later. 

“SpencerCeceliaClark.”

Dad had somehow caught up to me. His cover had fallen off at some point and he’s breathing so hard it sounds like he’s hyperventilating. His hand is pressed deep into the hip he’d had reconstructed after the accident.

I take out my phone and text Mom and Laci.

“First of all….that behavior back there was…completely unacceptable,” Dad wheezes. “You do not–”

“You removed my  AST Prep application from the system. You had no right!”

“Baby girl–”

“Twice. You removed it twice.”

“Fuck!,” he grunts. He grabs the edge of  Dresden’s brick mailbox and slumps down to sit in the grass breathing hard. “Spencer–”

“Just admit it,” I whine. “Why can’t you believe in me ?”

He won’t look at me. But then he seems to realize he’s not looking at me and his hardened gaze meets mine.  “I was trying to protect–”

“I don’t need you to protect me. I got in to the Academy without you. I survived my first year without you,” I remind him. “You love the Coast Guard. Why do you think I'm not worthy? I know the world hates women but I didn’t think you--”

“Princess–”

“OH MY GOD! DAD–”

“You did good, Spence. And I’m so proud of you, baby girl,” he says, not at all answering my question. “But you are not going to A-School. You are not even going to think about it.”

I just look up to the sky to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

I was going to kill him. 

Thankfully my friend Kelsey’s Jeep pulls up. I get in the front seat and immediately shut the door. She looks a little alarmed that my Dad is lying on the ground out of breath.

We wait a second until  I see Maverick’s car slowly making its way down the drive. 

“Go. Please,” I tell Kelsey, watching from the rearview mirror as Maverick helps lift Dad into his front seat. 

 ***

“Mom wants you stay with me,” Mason says over my Airpods. 

“I just need some space,” I tell him.

Kelsey had driven me into town and after a quick stop at a shopping center for necessities I’d had her drop me off at Grandpa Reese’s Airbnb in Hartford. I cleaned it over the summer for extra money so I always had an extra key.

Mason’s studio apartment was only 10 miles away but it was way too 20-year-old boy for me to stay. Sharing a bathroom with him when we lived in Louisiana had been traumatic enough.

“Dad’s always been an asshole but its  fucked up if he messed with your application,” Mason says. “Are you going to tell the school ?”

“I don’t know…I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“That’s not your problem. Just stay with me this summer. Until things cool down.”

Mason and I could both commiserate about our issues with our Dad but the difference was Mason had never wanted his approval. 

I did.

“I have to go back, I left Laci…hey my food just got here. I gotta go.”

“Okay, let me know if you need anything.”

“I got it. Bye.”

I pick up my Chinese from the front step and plug in the Playstation that Nova left behind when his family was living here. 

I find an old game and play until my eyes give out.

***

I’m woken up by my phone ringing.

 It’s Dad. 

The picture I have for him on my phone is of him holding me as a baby at my Gran’s house during one of our chaotic extended family functions.  He’s talking to someone off camera with six-month–old me as his copilot in a pastel rainbow dress that will be passed down to every one of my sisters.

When I don’t pick up, the image goes away and then comes back when he calls again.

When I don’t pick up the second time, there is a knock on the door. 

He has a key to the AirBnb so I decide to accept that he is at least making an effort to respect my space and call before barging in.

He’d definitely aggravated his injury chasing after me yesterday, he has his cane strapped to his wrist and a brace on his hip. In his free hand is a cardboard drink tray with two iced triple shot sugar free lavender oatmilk lattes and a pastry bag.

“We need to have a conversation,” he says. 

I take the latte tray and he limps inside, giving the AirBnb a once over.

“Jesus Christ,” he says under his breath when he taps his cane against the wobbly panel in the storm door. “I told your mama if Mr. Reese isn’t going to put effort into renovating she needs to sell this shithole.”

The apartment had it’s creaks. It hadn’t been updated since the 70s, but we always got guests because of it’s location in the city and the cheap rate.

I sit in the armchair and look in the pasty bag. 

Inside is the sprinkle croissant from Son of A Batch–the single best pastry created in the history of the universe. There was deep lore in my friend group about the one time I bought the last three they had for the day and when the bag accidentally fell in the trash I had seriously considered going after it.

Dad takes one of the iced lavender oat milk lattes and makes a face after sipping it. 

“Why did you order that ?,” I laugh.

“I’m just trying to understand why you’re always drinking this shit,” he says, grimacing before drinking more. “What happened to black coffee ?”

“Um, nothing ? Did Laci tell you my favorite treats were so you could bribe me ?”

“You think I don’t  know my daughter ?” he says. “I was going to hire that Harry Styles boy to have this conversation with you–”

“Oh my god,” I try to stifle a laugh. “That was like middle school.”

“Fine, Jacob Elordi–”

I  just smirk and Dad laughs. I guess he did know ball.

“Spencer,” he sighs. “You know...I don’t love the Coast Guard. Yesterday you said I loved the Coast Guard. I don't."

That shocks me.

I could see the edges of his tattoo of the AST Rate badge on his upper arm. The Coast Guard was his whole life. Everyone knew that.

“You always said the Coast Guard changed your life–”

“I did. It benefited me financially and academically,” he says. “And in exchange I did my service. But your Mama and  you and your brother and sisters. Ya'll changed my life. Ya'll are who I love. Everything else is...a transaction.”

“Then why did you try to recruit Mason so hard ?”

He pauses and takes a breath. 

“Because your knuckleheaded brother needs to learn some discipline and would benefit from having a clear path to follow,” he says. “You never needed that. You were so good at forging your own path. I didn’t want you caught up in military service.”

He’d said similar things to me before.

“But I can do it,” I remind him. 

He motions for me to sit next to him and I do. He puts his arm around me and rests his head on mine.

“Do you remember when I got hurt ?”

I nodded. I was 9-years-old.  He’d slammed into the side of a helicopter while on a call.  I’d had to move in with Laci when Mom went to help him recover in Alaska. 

It’s when Laci and I became besties.

“There was an investigation by the insurance company. It took a couple of years to resolve but in the end  the Coast Guard was found to be operating negligently at that base,” he says. “The insurance company strongly advised to bring a lawsuit. The Coast Guard lawyers brought me in and essentially told me if I kept quiet they would work on the issues and…I would be taken care of.”

My stomach drops.

“I’m not saying I didn’t earn my promotions but exceptions were made for me. Raises were offered. I figured if I stayed in I could do good. But the whole thing reminded me that The Coast Guard is a system and you can’t love systems, baby. They don’t care about you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before ?”

“Legally, I don’t think I’m supposed to,” he says. “But there is  good in the Coast Guard, I believe that. You need to believe that to get through the Academy.  But they are always looking out for the bottom line. There's so much you can do but I don't want you to go to A-School–”

“How can you say that ? You literally instruct there–”

“Because I want to make it as safe as I can but I can't fix the dangers of the job. I've seen too much. It’s high risk for little reward. I don’t want that for my daughter.”

I nod. 

“Your mama and I have been talking….once Peyton graduates high school I’ll probably retire.”

“What would you do ?”

“Find something new to believe in,” he says. “I’ve been in it since I was 18-years-old, I’ve given them almost 25 years of my life. I want you to graduate and finish your commission but don’t give them your whole life.”

I hadn’t thought much about graduation. I knew I was obligated to a 5 year commission but after that I didn’t know if I saw myself staying. 

Dad turns on the TV and we watch the end of a 90s action movie over our breakfast. Dad walks around the Airbnb making inventory— fixing things where he could and making a list where he couldn’t.

When we drive back to the house everyone is away at church.

“The physical therapist has an opening for me today,” Dad says, idling the car in the driveway.

“Sorry, you got hurt.”

“That was my fault. I was being stupid.”

I’m shocked by the admission. 

“I love you, Spencer,” he kisses my forehead. “You are my whole world.”

I just nod and get out of the car.

I go up to my room–which Laci had organized last night.

I open my laptop and find my AST Prep Application. I download the file and e-mail it directly to the director of the program with a note that I would follow up with a reference from Command Master Chief Dresden.

A/N

IDK, I don’t have much to say. I just wanted to write Spencer. I’ve been tinkering at this whenever I get the writing itch and decided to just finish it back in December.

Now I'm tinkering on another story this length about Maverick. I thought Maverick was going to show up in the end of Severance with the whole sex work/Vegas/politics thing!

And of course the Nova sequel but that is SLOW going. SLOW.