First Chances by Komal Kant

appearing uncomfortable, and looked over at Luca who gave her a reassuring nod. She turned back to me. “Well, she was with someone else. A guy around her age. They looked close .”
    My chest clamped up and I realized why my friends were acting like this was a big deal. They didn’t know my dad had abandoned us, so to them it seemed as though my mom was doing something wrong by getting close to a random guy.
    “Oh, yeah?” I asked, as though it wasn’t a big deal. I took a deep breath, trying to make the tightness in my chest go away. “Who was it?”
    I’d had a suspicion my mom was seeing someone, and I was curious myself as to who this mystery man was.
    Elly’s brows knitted together. “I’m not sure. I was too far away to see him. He was tall, had brown hair.”
    Brown hair, huh? Just like eighty percent of the people in this goddamn town.
    “It was probably just a friend from work,” I said with a shrug. “People have friends.”
    Stacey shifted around on the couch. “Elly said it looked like they were being intimate. That doesn’t seem normal.”
    A small wave of anger swept through me, and I stepped forward a little aggressively. “It’s really no one’s business what my mother does, okay?” There was no way in hell I was going to let them condemn her behavior. They didn’t have a fucking clue what she’d been through.
    “Hey, man, it’s okay,” Luca said, cutting in and placing a calming hand on my arm. “We were just making sure everything was fine at home, that’s all. It’s no big deal. Let’s drop it and practice.”
    “Yeah, okay.” I was breathing a little too heavily. I turned away from my friends so I could calm down before we started practice.
    “Be back in a sec!” Riley cried out, hurrying out of the garage as though nothing had happened. It was probably his way of trying to smooth things over.
    Ashton was still standing behind me, and gave me a probing look with her sky blue eyes. “Eddie,” she began in a low voice, “I’m always here for you if you need to talk about anything. I know all about disappointing fathers.”
    With that, she gave me a small smile and walked past me as though our exchange had never happened.
    She was right, though. She did know all about disappointing fathers. Her biological father had chosen not to be a part of her life, and I’d heard from Luca that her step-father—who wasn’t with her mom anymore—had been an asshole, too.
    Still, this was something I wasn’t ready to talk about yet. Not with anyone.
    “Eddie?” came a soft voice from behind me.
    I turned around to find Elly standing there; a distraught look was on her face. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
    I could tell from the way her bottom lip was quivering that she was genuinely upset about it, so I gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, honestly. I gotta practice, okay?”
    She nodded, and I walked around her, meeting Stacey’s eye as I made my way to my drum kit. Stacey gave me a small nod, as though she was apologizing too, and I returned it, feeling a little guilty. I knew my friends weren’t gossip-hungry jerks, and I didn’t need to react like that.
    Taking a seat on the stool, I waited for Luca to tell us what song to practice. He slung his guitar over his shoulder, and walked towards me, flicking his long hair out of his eyes in the process.
    “Eddie, did you get anywhere with that song you were working on?”
    “Oh, yeah, I worked on it a little more.” I pulled out a scrunched up piece of paper from my pocket and handed it to him. “It’s not quite there yet. I want to play around with the second verse some more, but I think we definitely have something to practice.”
    Luca’s eyes glided over the words on the page, before finally landing on me again. “This is about her, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.” I felt a little self-conscious, but this was my best friend, and I knew he wouldn’t judge me.
    Luca had known me since we were