Without a word, we make our way to her room. I kick off my sandals, dusty from the baseball field. I’m going to have to throw them away, I realize as I crawl onto her bed. They’ll remind me too much of Garrett. Both of us curl toward the other, except this time with a box of Kleenex between us. She doesn’t say anything, just waits while I pull a tissue and mop up my face one more time.
“It hasn’t been the best birthday so far,” I say.
She cracks a tiny smile. “I always thought adulthood might be a scam.”
I try smiling, but that only makes my eyes leak again. I’m going to miss Mai so much. She just told me the other day about a summer program in California she plans on attending. She’ll be gone three weeks after graduation. How do I survive that on top of everything else? The thought does nothing to help the tear situation. I take a deep breath and blink a few dozen times.
“I made myself a sign. It said fill out the ASU schedule and go tell Garrett that you want to be a team.”
“And?”
“I surprised him at the school field. And then he surprised me.”
“Uh-oh.” She bites her bottom lip, and that reminds me of Garrett, too.
“He isn’t trying to pitch again, Mai. He’s hitting.”
I know she’s running through everything she knows about baseball—which takes about two seconds. “So?”
“So he was never going to make it back as a pitcher. But he could make it back as a position player as long as he can hit well enough.”
“And can he? Hit well enough?”
“No.”
“That’s good.” Her eyes brighten.
“But he could.” I swallow thickly.
“Yeah, except today is his last day, right? So it’s over.”
“That’s the point. If he knew, it wouldn’t be.”
“If he knew what?”
“That there’s a chance.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not making sense. There’s always a chance, right? That’s why guys hang on too long.”
“This is different. You know my dad is a hitting coach—he’s in charge of all the minor league players for a major league organization for a reason. He knows his shit. I saw him work with guys like Garrett. I saw him fix them.”
“You can fix a player?”
“Sometimes.” The tight ball in my stomach unravels with the truth I don’t want to face. The decision I don’t want to make. “I think I can help Garrett.”
“But.” She shakes her head. “He’s got a coach, Josie. Don’t you think if it was that easy, Masters would have done it already?”
“It’s not a technique thing. It has to do with how he sees the ball. My dad struggled with the same thing.”
“And you think if you showed him, then he would be able to hit the ball, and he’d go back to playing baseball?”
I nod because that’s exactly what I think. What I know. “Broadcasting, teaming up with me—I’m the consolation prize. The team he really wants is a bunch of guys wearing pinstripes and spitting seeds.”
“Can’t he have two teams?”
A sob rises from low in my chest. “Baseball isn’t just a job. It’s a life. I’d be forever competing for his time and attention. Always wondering when I’d be left alone with my packed suitcase.”
Her frown deepens. “But he said he loves you.”
“He loves baseball more.” I press wads of tissue to my eyes. “Is there something wrong with wanting to be first, Mai? With wanting to be most important?”
She squeezes my shoulder. “Of course there isn’t.”
I cry harder. I cry the way I did when I realized my dad didn’t want me. And I know that whatever it takes, I’m not going to give Garrett the chance to not want me, too. It takes a few awful minutes, but finally I get control over my emotions. “Sorry,” I mumble.
Mai answers by shoving two more tissues into my hand. “Don’t be sorry. You just broke up.”
“Not officially.” I blow my nose. “I have to tell him.”
A long pause follows as various expressions chase themselves across Mai’s face. Confusion. Surprise. Calculation. “You didn’t tell him you could help him?”
“I couldn’t.” I roll to my back. The familiar stain is there, but it gives me no comfort. “I’d just filled out my schedule of classes. All of it was in my head, you know? The future. Us. I couldn’t do it.”
“And do you…have to?”
My breath catches. “I can’t lie.”
“You’re not lying. You’re not even sure you can help him. As far as he knows, he’s given it his best shot and it didn’t work out.”
My heart grasps onto her words. A lifeline. A way forward to the future with him I want so much it hurts. And really, there’s no guarantee he makes it no matter what I show him. So many guys don’t. Who’s to say he doesn’t go play college ball and get a career-ending injury? It already happened to him once. And by then, the broadcasting opportunity would have passed him by. It might be the best thing if I don’t say a word.
The stain on the ceiling shifts like a Rorschach image, and I’m suddenly seeing Garrett leaning out over the window of the booth, his need to be on the field so strong I can feel it myself. Is it right for me to keep what I know from him? If I won’t follow him, is it fair to make sure he follows me?
“Should or must,” I murmur. But I know what I have to do. I haven’t told him I love him, but I do. Too much to lose him.
And too much to keep him.
I sit up.
Mai does, too. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to tell him.” I pull my phone from my back pocket. I’ve turned it to mute and see now that there are four texts from Garrett. “I’ll always feel like I trapped him if I don’t.”
“You going to be okay?”
“Eventually.” The heart is a muscle—it can get injured like any other muscle. But it’ll heal in time. Just
