Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

“Your parents spelled your name wrong on the birth certificate. Your way looks like Rise. So if anything, I fixed it.”

She stops there, but the unspoken words are just as loud. The look in her eyes says I wanted to help, and this is all I have and I see you.

wonder if I could convince her to She’s the Man herself onto the men’s hockey team so I never have to be on the ice without her.

“For the record,” I say, looking out along the lake, across all the life around us. “I am offering.”

“I like anything when it comes to you,” he confesses,

If you play it, I’ll listen.

have to smother the urge to bang on my chest.

“If you’d picked up a basketball all those years ago, I’d be courtside for the rest of my life with one of those big foam fingers. If you take up a paintbrush, I’ll buy every piece that we have wall space for. If you use that big brain of yours for engineering or law, I’ll do whatever I can to show I support you until my last breath.”

The kid pokes his head out of the car, where he’s already strapped himself into his car seat that I definitely hadn’t purchased before the gala when I first realized being with Sadie meant being responsible enough to handle her brothers. My dad and I spent the entire morning trying to get the car seat installed properly. The thing is like a fucking spaceship.