Page 95 of Grizz

It didn’t escape his notice, though.“Don’t you cry,” he snarled.“Champions don’t cry.Champions don’t come home losers.”

My dad gripped the wheel tighter, voice lowering into a hateful and controlled register.“You want a second chance?You want to be worth a shit?Then you stop making it about your feelings and you start making it about winning.About more than you.”

The truck kept moving.The salt-streaked streetlights kept sliding by.And I sat there, small in my seat, trying to shove every feeling down into a place where he couldn’t see it.

It’s about more than you.

I kept repeating that phrase in my head, over and over again, knowing that this wasn’t the end of it.I’d physically feel my dad’s fury when we got home.

It’s about more than you.

I blink and I’m back, Daisy’s hand still on my arm, her mouth still forming the last word like it’s nothing.Like she didn’t just reach into my chest and pull out my heart, rotted and raw.

“It’s about more than you,” she repeats.

I stare at her, the blood roaring in my ears again.My skin feels too tight.

Daisy frowns.“Grizz—”

“Don’t,” I say, my voice different now.Rasping.Ice cold.Wrong.“Don’t say that.”

She looks genuinely confused.“Say what?”

“That,” I snap, jerking my arm slightly, but she doesn’t let go.“That exact—” My throat closes.I swallow it down just as I always have.Like I’ve been trained to.“Don’t.”

Her eyes soften, and that softness—God, it makes me angrier.

“I’m trying to protect you,” she says, quieter.“I’m trying to protect the team.There are fines, there are—there’s the league office, there are headlines, there’s—”

“There’scontrol,” I cut in.“There’s always control.”

Her brows knit in confusion.She’s in the present and I’m in the past.“This is my job,” she says.

“No.”The word comes out harsh.“This is you telling me to swallow it.To take it.To pretend it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she insists, voice rising now too.“I’m saying you can’t go on live TV and call someone a fuckwad—”

“Ijust did.”

“And it’s not just about you,” she says again, frustrated, and she doesn’t even realize she’s repeating it, doubling down.

Daisy’s eyes widen slightly, like she senses the temperature drop but doesn’t know why.

I study her face—the way she’s so sure and righteous, so convinced she’s saving me from myself—and inside me, I make the ugliest connection.

The words.The tone.The demand that I be bigger than my pain because other people’s comfort matters more.

My dad’s voice overlays hers so cleanly it makes my stomach turn.

I pull my arm out of her grip with a sudden, violent jerk.

Daisy flinches.“Grizz—what—”

“You sound like him,” I say, and the words come out before I can stop them.

She freezes.“Like who?”

“My dad.”I laugh, but there’s no humor in it.“That line?That exact line?You think you’re the first person who’s ever said that to me?”