Stick Your Landing (All In #3)

31. Finley

31

Finley

My parents lecture me for the duration of our drive to Maine. Yes, we drive . Matthew Harris, Sr. has never been a fan of airports, which would be fine, except his reluctance forces other people into a car for sixteen hours.

Their lecture follows a predictable pattern—an airing of anger and frustration, layering on a healthy dose of guilt before wrapping up with how I need to change.

We’ve hit Virginia when they finally finish venting their frustration, repeating everything I already know.

“We reluctantly agreed to let you attend college out of state because you promised to follow our agreement,” my dad goes on from the driver’s seat. “You said you understood the importance and you would make smart choices.”

I try to remember they have good intentions, but resentment still simmers. A text from Zach fuels those flames, stoking them higher until they threaten to consume me.

Zach

I miss you already.

“Finley, are you listening to me?”

I drop my phone into my lap and meet my father’s gaze in the rearview mirror. My dad grew up with a mother who had undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder. She was labeled a bad mother and alcoholic instead. I try to be forgiving with my dad, knowing he experienced the challenges firsthand, along with the consequences when an individual with my condition doesn’t receive and follow medical care.

But it’s unfair, the way he projects his childhood trauma onto me.

“Yes,” I mumble. “I’ve been listening to you for the last hour and a half.”

“Hand your phone over,” my dad says, as if I hadn’t responded to him. “That way, you’ll have no distractions.”

I suppress a groan and focus on quickly typing a message to Zach. Who knows when I’ll be granted the privilege of my phone again.

Me

I’m counting the minutes until I see you again

Then I click over to my text thread with my brother and blast out an angry message.

Me

I’ll never forgive you for not having my back

Then I block him. If he respected me, Matt would’ve handled this situation with me directly, not ratted me out to our parents, jeopardizing everything I’ve been working toward.

I place my phone in my dad’s waiting palm. I feel sixteen again.

The two people in the front of the car hurt my faith in myself. They’re biologically designed to think I hang the moon, but instead, they think I’m not capable of caring for myself.

My mother turns, her head leaning against the seat while she watches me. “Honey, we want what’s best for you, you know that.”

“I know.” I bite the inside of my lip to keep tears at bay. “But Mom, I’m happier now than I’ve been in years.”

“You look tired,” my dad says. “Too much time doing flips and staying out all night with your brother’s teammate.”

“Matthew.” My mother says his name gently, but there’s an unmistakable warning in it.

“Doing flips?” I repeat. “You mean the incredibly challenging sport of gymnastics? Unless we’re boiling down all sports to their simplest form, in which case, your three sons move around on knives, smashing people against a wall. What noble careers they have.”

“Same career as your boyfriend,” Dad retorts.

“I don’t want to talk about him with you.”

I lean my head on the window and watch the world zip by. It’s how I felt the last two years—stagnant, witnessing everyone else taking steps toward their goals. I’m not going back to that existence, even if it means losing my family. I love them—of course I do—but I can’t love them at the expense of my mental health.

“Too bad, because tomorrow we have a session with Dr. Warren.”

Fantastic .

My parents and I sit on the familiar green couch in Dr. Warren’s office. This couch and I bonded over the years I came here for therapy—daily in the beginning, then twice per week, eventually dropping to weekly.

“It’s good to see you in person, Finley.” Dr. Warren crosses her legs, resting them on a footstool in front of her. Black frame glasses sit on top of her blond curly bob; she only uses them when taking notes in the book in her lap. “Did you have a nice holiday?”

The weight of my parent’s stares burn the side of my face, but I keep looking straight ahead. “It had its moments.”

Waking up next to Zach Briggs, for one. He slept with a smile on his face, and I hoped it had something to do with telling him I love him. I could picture every day like that, opening my eyes to see him beside me. I want it so badly, it hurts to think I might lose him. The decision he needs to make about our relationship isn’t an emotional one, it’s logical. It’s why I’m forcing him to think it through while I’m gone.

“What’s that smile about?” Dr. Warren probes.

Unsurprisingly, my dad interrupts, impatiently tapping his foot. “She has a secret boyfriend— another hockey player—and went back to gymnastics without telling anyone. Unless she told you?”

Dr. Warren shakes her head once. “You know I can’t answer that, Matthew.”

“I didn’t,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and sinking further into the couch.

Dr. Warren slips her glasses onto her face. “Why is that, Finley?”

She waits, poised with her pen pressed to paper to record my response. Omitting details makes me uncomfortable. Lying to Dr. Warren is out of the question. This woman pulled me back from the brink. I owe her so much.

“Because I’m happy, and I didn’t want you to tell me I need to give up what I love.”

My mom’s hand lands on my forearm. “You love him?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You don’t know him,” my dad protests from the other end of the couch. We’ve come to therapy dozens of times as a family, and he’s never behaved this belligerently. He’s angry I lied, sure, but he’s fighting every word out of my mouth. I don’t understand. “And does he know you ?”

I turn toward him. “Yes, Zach knows I have bipolar disorder. So does my gymnastics coach, Veronica. And it’s thanks to Dr. Warren, I had the courage to tell them.”

“Oh, Finley, that’s a big deal,” Dr. Warren says while scribbling something on her notepad. “I’m proud of you. Can you tell us how those conversations went?”

I cross one leg over the other. “Telling Veronica was easier, because it was transactional, at least at first. I need her to watch out for any signs while I train. I don’t trust myself to spot them.” Dr. Warren taught me how bipolar disorder could skew my perception of reality. “I put off telling Zach for a long time because I didn’t want to lose him.”

“Did that happen?”

“No, but I asked him to take some time to think about it without me there to distract him. It’s not an easy life he’d be choosing. It’s hard to picture my life without him, but I’d hate it more if he jumped in blindly and felt saddled with my baggage, you know?”

Dr. Warren’s mouth opens to respond, but my dad beats her to the punch.

“That’s not healthy.” He looks to Dr. Warren for confirmation. “Attachment for someone with her condition can be dangerous.”

“So you want me to live a lonely life? By that logic, I should cut all ties with my family in case ‘losing you’ sends me down a spiral.”

“That’s different, and—”

“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”

Dr. Warren shifts in her seat and redirects our conversation. “That’s a big statement, Finley. Why don’t you tell us about Zach? What do you love about him?”

The tension in my body deflates with thoughts of Zach. “Well, there’s the obvious. He’s handsome and talented and he has this surety about his life, like he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be, doing what he’s meant to do… but it’s so much more than that. He understands me—my life as an athlete, why my sport means so much to me.

“And he’s supportive. He came to the gym to watch me train when he was sidelined with an injury. He helped me to loosen up, to stop taking every little thing so seriously. I remembered what it was like to enjoy gymnastics, and relax and take things as they come instead of planning every little detail. I like being around him…”

I take a deep breath, exhaustion creeping in with my vulnerability. “He’s light, and after being in darkness for so long, it’s what I crave—pure, undiluted happiness. He gives that to me.”

The room remains silent for ten seconds… fifteen… thirty.

Dr. Warren employs her favorite tactic—silence—to force us to think and speak first.

Mom’s the first to break, as usual. “He sounds wonderful, honey. I’m sorry we didn’t spend much time with him at Christmas.”

“There will be other opportunities, provided he chooses me.”

Dr. Warren’s brow scrunches. “Why do you think he won’t?”

My dad scoffs. “He’s a twenty-year-old professional hockey player.”

“He’s twenty-one,” I correct. “And that has nothing to do with it. Zach’s the most loyal person I’ve ever met, but his perspective could change while we’re apart.”

“Why do you consider yourself such a burden, Finley?”

An involuntary laugh bursts from my chest. “Because I am. Do you have any idea how much gymnastics costs? How much they invested in my Olympic dream, only to watch it fall apart? Then their lives became consumed with my health and caring for an adult child. I hate that they think they need to watch over me.”

Dr. Warren turns her attention to my parents. “Matthew, Grace, how does hearing that make you feel?”

“Horrible,” Mom chokes out, bringing a finger to dry tears before they fall. “Finley, being a parent never stops… and I don’t want it to stop. You—and your brothers—are my greatest joys in life. Nothing you can say or do will ever change that. You have to know that.”

Her arm wraps around me, pulling me to her as she squeezes my shoulder. My head rests against hers. All I can think is how lucky I am to have their support, but it also generates a familiar stab of guilt for the problems I bring to their lives.

“Matthew?” Dr. Warren prompts.

“We love Finley, and we want what’s best for her. Deep down, she knows that’s not what we think.”

Dr. Warren tilts her head. “Does she?” She waits for a beat, but my dad doesn’t answer. “I’d like to explore this a bit more next time. How does that sound?”

“Good,” I say, and I mean it.

My dad holds up a hand. “Wait—we came here to talk about how to get her back on track. We had an agreement in place. She went behind our backs to the sport that almost killed her. And now she’s dating another hockey player. We all remember what the last one did.”

Dr. Warren clears her throat. “What I’m hearing from Finley is we need to rethink that agreement.”

Dad launches out of his seat, raising his arms in the air. “That’s bullshit. These rules keep her safe.” He strides out of the office, the door shutting loudly behind him.

My mom places her hand on my knee. “He’s scared, honey. He doesn’t want to see you hurt again.”

I take a steadying breath. “Ironic, right? Since that’s what your rules are doing.”

“We’ll talk this through,” Dr. Warren says in her patented calm voice. “I’m proud of you, Finley. You’ve made so much progress. It’s not easy, speaking your mind.”

My mom squeezes my hand. It’s the first gesture from any of my family that doesn’t smother me for as long as I can remember. All I can do is hope Dr. Warren can help us work through this predicament. My family loves me. I don’t want to lose them, but I also can’t keep living my life on their terms. I need to make decisions and take risks again.

I need them there when I fail and when I succeed, even if they don’t agree with every choice I make.

I don’t remember how I withstood this before. It’s been a week and a half of journaling my food intake, sitting for an hour in the sun while life passes by, and talking to Dr. Warren about my mood. It’s plummeted since coming here as I mindlessly follow the routine set for me. But I listen to my parents until I can figure out what to do.

No solutions have come to me yet.

Despite multiple therapy sessions with my parents, we’ve come no closer to reaching an understanding that would allow me to go back to North Carolina, continue training for gymnastics, and dating Zach. At least not one that involves my parents paying for college, and I’ve checked—my second-semester payment remains outstanding, so this isn’t a bluff.

With exactly zero credit to my name, I’d need a cosigner for a loan. With a corporate accountant and a school principal for parents, our family doesn’t qualify for financial aid, so my parents never applied.

Let’s not forget that I burned a bridge at Casa Matt, Jr., which means I don’t have a place to live.

And I have exactly a week and a half to figure it all out before my life constricts to this meaningless existence for the foreseeable future.