Chapter 18 Brody
eighteen
brody
I have a game tonight.
I should be thinking about defensive formations, Chicago’s offensive strategy, how to shut down their power play.
Instead, I’m sitting in my car outside Serenity Hills Treatment Center, staring at my phone, wondering if it’s possible to die from missing someone.
Probably not. But it feels like it might be.
My dad is getting released today. Thirty days sober. Completed the program.
And I should be celebrating that. Should be focused on him.
But all I can think about is that today is also day thirty of not talking to Chloe.
Day thirty.
The contract is officially over at midnight. Thirty days of mandatory silence. Thirty days of torture.
I’ve written and deleted the same text message forty-seven times this morning.
The message keeps changing:
Brody
I’m sorry
(too simple)
Can we talk?
(too casual)
I miss you
(too weak)
I love you and I’m an idiot
(too desperate, also true)
My thumb hovers over the Send button for the forty-eighth time.
Then I delete it again.
Instead, I do what I’ve done every morning for the past month: open Instagram. Find Chloe’s personal profile. Stare at her latest post like it might give me answers.
I’m not following her anymore. I had to unfollow after the breakup, couldn’t handle seeing her face in my feed, smiling at events I wasn’t part of.
But I check her profile every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.
Like an addict.
Today’s post is from this morning. A photo of her sketchbook. A dragon with scales falling away, revealing something soft and vulnerable underneath. The caption:
@Chloe.D: Sometimes the armor has to come off.
I’ve stared at this post for twenty minutes. Tried to figure out if it means something. If she’s trying to tell me something.
Or if I’m just a desperate idiot, looking for signs that don’t exist.
The dragon. Just like the one in Barcelona. The day we met. When everything was possible and nothing was complicated.
Is she thinking about that night too?
Or has she moved on?
My phone buzzes.
Dad
Ready for pickup. Last day.
Right.
I pocket my phone, get out of the car, and trudge through the cold March morning toward the building that’s supposedly given my father his life back.
The Serenity Hills Treatment Center smells like industrial cleaner and hope.
I’m not sure which is more overwhelming.
The visitors’ lounge has uncomfortable chairs, motivational posters about “one day at a time,” and a coffee machine that dispenses something that’s technically coffee but tastes like regret.
My dad is waiting by the window, holding a small duffel bag—everything he came with plus some workbooks and a thirty-day chip.
He looks better than I’ve seen him in years.
Clearer eyes. Steadier hands. Actually present.
“Hey, son.” He walks over, and for a second I think he’s going to do the awkward shoulder-pat thing we usually do.
Instead, he hugs me, his arms enveloping me like I’m a kid again.
I’m so surprised, I almost don’t hug back.
“You ready?” I ask when we pull apart.
“Not yet.” He sets the bag down. “There are some things I need to say first. Walk with me?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
We head outside. It’s one of those mid-March days that feels like a promise—the sun bright and almost warm, melting snow dripping from the building’s eaves. The air still has that sharp edge of winter, but there’s something softer underneath. Spring, maybe. Hope.
The facility grounds are quiet. A paved path circles the main building, lined with bare trees and dormant flower beds. Patches of dirty snow cling to the shaded areas, but the sidewalk is clear, wet with melt.
Dad starts walking. I follow, hands in my pockets, watching my breath cloud in the air.
For a minute, we just walk. The only sounds are our footsteps on wet pavement and the drip-drip-drip of melting snow.
Then Dad says, “I’ve been thinking about what happens next. After I leave here.”
I’ve been planning this for weeks. “I was thinking I’d move back to the house for a while. Keep an eye on things—”
“I think it’s time you stop babysitting me,” Dad says.
I glance at him. “What?”
He pauses on the path, turns to face me fully. “Son, I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me all the times you’ve come to my rescue. But…that’s got to stop.”
He drops his gaze, clearly reciting something practiced. “I’ve spent thirty days learning about myself. About my addiction. About the lies I told myself and everyone around me. And one thing I know for sure—you can’t control me into sobriety.”
The words sting. “I’m not trying to—”
“Yes, you are. And I don’t blame you. I put that on you.” His voice cracks. “I made you responsible for my mistakes. Made you grow up too fast.”
A bird lands on a nearby branch, sending down a small shower of water droplets that catch the sunlight.
“I want you to know how sorry I am,” he says quietly. “I’m so sorry, Brody. For all of it. For every time you had to bail me out. Every time you had to lie about why you were late. Every dollar you spent cleaning up my messes.”
We start walking again, slower this time.
“In treatment, they made us recite the Twelve Steps every morning,” Dad continues.
“And for the longest time, I couldn’t get past Step Three.
‘Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.’ I kept thinking, ‘I don’t need God, I just need to be better. Stronger. More disciplined.’”
He laughs, but it’s not a happy sound.
“Your mother used to say the same thing to me. Before she got sick. I was always chasing the next big thing—the business idea that would make us rich, the investment that couldn’t fail, the dream that was just around the corner.
She’d say, ‘Robert, you can’t outrun reality.
You can’t charm your way into success. You have to do the work. ’”
The path curves around a stand of pines, and we follow it.
“She was right. But I didn’t listen.” He looks down at his hands. “Then she got sick. And the medical bills piled up. And I couldn’t fix it. Couldn’t charm it away. Couldn’t dream it better.”
“Dad. That wasn’t your fault—”
“I know. But grief doesn’t care about logic. I blamed myself. Started drinking to numb it. And then I couldn’t stop.”
We pass a bench, and he gestures to it. We sit.
“Then I came here,” Dad continues, “and something changed. I realized I can’t control this.
I can’t white-knuckle my way to being okay.
I can’t dream my way out of addiction. I need help.
From God, from counselors, from AA meetings, from people who understand.
And it’s okay to need that help. It’s okay to not be okay. ”
He looks at me, and I feel my throat go dry.
“But here’s what I learned—we don’t need to hide anything from God. We’re already broken, and He loves us anyway. That’s what grace means.” He pauses. “Your mom understood that.”
“Mom?”
“She knew I was a dreamer. Knew I was selling her castles in the sky when I could barely afford a one-bedroom apartment. But she loved me anyway.” He smiles.
“I asked her out seven times before she finally said yes. She kept saying no because she wasn’t sure I was serious.
But finally she said, ‘Okay, Robert. But promise you’ll never stop trying.
Not for the dreams. Just to be a good man. ’”
I’ve never heard this story.
“She was something, your mom.”
“I know.” My voice comes out raw.
“We went to one of your games,” Dad says quietly. “You remember? Junior year, state championship. She was so sick by then, I had to carry her into the arena—wheelchair wouldn’t fit in our section. We sat there and watched you play. You scored the winning goal.”
I remember that game. Remember seeing them in the stands, Mom wrapped in blankets, Dad holding her hand.
“After you won, she looked at me and said, ‘We did this. We made him.’ And I said, ‘He’s nothing like me, thank God.’ And she grabbed my face—weak as she was, she grabbed my face—and said, ‘Don’t give up on God, Robert.
Don’t give up on yourself. The only thing that matters is what He thinks of us. And He already loves us.’”
He looks at me.
“I lost sight of that.” His voice breaks as he puts a hand on my shoulder. “And I think I made you lose sight of it too.”
“Dad…”
“I wasn’t a good father, Brody. I know that. But I want to be. I have to ask, can you forgive me?”
My eyes are burning, throat stinging. “Yeah, Dad. I forgive you.”
Dad gives me a watery smile. Wipes his eyes. “I love you, son.”
“I love you.” In that moment, I don’t care that I’m a twenty-eight-year-old man. I hug my dad. I hold on to him, bury my face against his shoulder.
God, please let this be real. Please let this last.
At last, he pulls away, clasping a hand on the back of my neck. “All right, now I think it’s time we talk about you.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“The girl,” he says, standing up. “I heard about what happened at that wedding. There are a lot of stories going around. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
We start walking again, and his words echo back inside my head.
I lost sight of that, and I think I made you lose sight of it too.
“I pushed her away. I told myself it was to protect her, but I wound up doing the one thing she was most afraid of. I ran her over. Made the decision for her instead of letting her in, letting us figure it out together.”
Dad winces as we round a corner. “So what’d she do?”
“She…uh.” I run a hand over the back of my neck. “She told me I was just like you. Said I was a charmer who makes people love them and then leaves them to pick up the pieces.”
“That’s fair,” he says. “That’s exactly what I taught you to do. To protect yourself. To charm people so you can keep your walls up. So you don’t get hurt.” We stop at the entrance. Dad picks up his bag from where he’d left it. “So you hold all the control.”
He stops outside the facility. Turns to face me again.
“Do you love her?”
I nod. Can’t trust my voice.