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I nod slowly, triggering low laughter from him But for the first time since I was a fifteen-year-old kid, ry It only makes me…confused

“Why do you hate me so damned much?” I ask

“What?” Sooes out of his eyes, but his smile stays in place

“Why do you hate enuinely curious “I’m your only relative left in Bliss River, and I was a star when I was a kid”

He snorts “I don’t knohat you’re talking about”

“Yes, you do,” I say, refusing to let him off the hook “Most uncles would have been proud to have their nephew playing first string on the basketball tea at the top of their class Why not you?”

His s closer to a snarl “You really think you’re so, don’t you?”

“A lot of people thought I was so But not you, not Don Parker Why not? Were you jealous?”

Uncle Parker’s eyebrows lift “Of you?”

“Of me” I stare him dead in his cold, flat eyes

“I ain’t jealous of jack shit I was you, boy,” he says, his save it up to stay here and keep your mama out of trouble God knows our h “If it were up to her, we’d have been out on the streets by the tiet the things me and Tanya needed, while Mama sat on her ass in front of the TV I paid for”

“Did e?” I try not to seem too interested In all the time I lived with my uncle, he never talked this much about his childhood

Or my mother

He scowls “Of course not She didn’t have to A real ave up my chance at a better life to stay here and protect her, but she nant anyway” He turns to his beer “I saved up the et rid of it, but she said she was in love,” he continues with a sneer “She and Mike Stewart convinced Mae That lasted about six months before your daddy ran off and Tanyayou with her And then I had two ain and one ass to keep in diapers”

His hands tighten around his glass as he looks back atI could have played professional ball or been a doctor or whatever I wanted to be Instead I got you, and your little nose in the air and that look in your eye that ht you were than the rest of us Truth told, I think that’s why your mama ran off She couldn’t stand to stay here and be looked down on by her own damn kid anymore”

I blink That should hurt All of it Everything he’d just said