Read Whatever Life Throws at You for Free Online

the interview, so I improvised.”
    He rolls his eyes. “ Stands five foot ten inches …wrong again, I’m six feet. His favorite food isn’t sushi. His best pitching advice for kids wanting to follow in his footsteps is to always throw toward home plate .”
    “Cute.” He shakes his head and folds the paper, tucking it into his gym shorts pocket. “Real cute.”
    My homework speed gets cut in half watching Brody on the treadmill. He’s all muscle and hotness but at the same time I can’t help studying his stride and analyzing his technique. “You should really relax your shoulders more. You look better with a neck.”
    He starts laughing, stumbles a little, and almost falls off the treadmill. Dad shoots a glare in my direction, and I decide to zip my lips and spend the next hour listening to the pounding feet against the treadmill while lying on my back and catching up on my American Lit class by reading The Great Gatsby . Finally, Dad leans over me and kisses my forehead. “I’m all done.”
    “Good because I’m going to throw a childish tantrum if I don’t get an entire large pizza all to myself in the next twenty minutes.” Pizza. That’s carbs, right? Coach Kessler told me to load up on carbs. I sit up again and begin tossing my books into my overflowing backpack.
    “Nice work today, Brody,” Dad says, before turning back to me. “I hear the showers running. Better stay here for a minute, Ann.”
    “Twenty minutes, Dad. Then it’s tantrum time.”
    “I know, I know.” He walks off with his non-leg tapping against the floor.
    Brody stops the treadmill and rolls off the end, bending over to catch his breath before grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat off his face. His T-shirt is soaked, front and back. He walks over and picks up my algebra book. “So you’re in high school?”
    “Did the outfit give me away?”
    He lifts his eyes to meet mine. “The outfit is…well…yeah, it gave you away.”
    I’m trying not to laugh because he was totally about to say something else and then got all embarrassed. I might be bold, but I’m not quite bold enough to truly flirt with a guy like Jason Brody, so I quickly change the subject. “Please tell me you didn’t act all high and mighty and petulant, like Mr. Starting Pitcher during my dad’s coaching session?”
    “No way,” he says. “I’m on trial so no boats will be rocked. Besides, I like your dad.” He hesitates and then asks, “What’s the deal with his leg?”
    “His leg or his non-leg?” I can’t help being snappy and defensive about Dad. After years of questions from friends and random kids that I played with at the park, it gets old.
    Brody keeps his eyes on my textbook and eventually he starts flipping through the pages. “His non-leg.”
    “Have you ever heard of osteosarcoma?” Brody shakes his head. “It’s bone cancer.”
    “Cancer?”
    I nod. This is the hardest part for me to deal with, too, because his leg is gone, but the cancer can still come back. “Yep. When you get a tumor in your bone, they sometimes can’t remove it without taking the whole bone off.”
    “But he was pitching already, right?”
    I hold up my right index finger, imitating Frank’s response when I asked him this same question nearly ten years ago. I’d been curious, but too afraid to ask Dad. “One regular season game with the Yankees.”
    “And then it was over?”
    “Yep.”
    “I wouldn’t have done it,” he says firmly. “I wouldn’t have stopped pitching. Wouldn’t have let them take my leg.”
    I snatch the algebra book from under his hand and stuff it in my bag. “Well, you don’t have a wife and a baby, so maybe that makes your perspective a lot more selfish.”
    After jumping off the table and grabbing my school stuff, I can feel him watching me. He probably thinks I’m some crazy girl, but he hit a sore spot just now. Truth is, I’m not sure me or my mom were the reason Dad chose losing his leg over pitching a little longer