Chapter 8
eight
Maddox
There’s a soft knock on my bedroom door, and I glance up from where I’m sitting on my floor, my study materials scattered around me. “Yeah?”
The door slowly creaks open, and Alvarez’s head appears through the small gap. “Hey man. You got a minute?”
I close my exercise physiology and kinesiology textbook, the thwack echoing through my room. “Of course. What’s up?”
He steps inside and quietly shuts the door while running a hand through his short dark hair. He leans against the door and drums his fingers against the wood. I cock my head. He won’t meet my eyes and is just being all…shifty.
“You’ve been up here a lot lately,” he tells my lamp.
“I’d hope so, considering its purpose is to light my room. I think it’d be more concerning if we found it walking around.”
He lets out a sigh like I’m the most exasperating person in the world, but his lips tilt up, and he finally meets my gaze. “You know what I mean, Barnes. I just… Are you okay, man?”
It’s my turn to avoid his stare. An iron band locks around my lungs, and my body goes into panic mode.
I dig my fingers into the area rug. Breath, Maddox.
But I can’t. It hits me sometimes, and I’m helpless against it.
Have you ever taken a ball to the chest or gut?
All it takes is a second, and then you. Just. Can’t.
Breathe. You don’t even have time to register what happened.
That’s me every time thoughts of Easton surface.
“Maddox,” Alvarez says softly. “I… Man, I hear you at night.”
My pulse stutters. I’ve tried to be quiet, to smother the emotion that is wrenched from me under the cover of darkness beneath pillows and blankets.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I just want to make sure you’re okay. That you’re not… Ah, you’re not falling into too dark a place.”
My head whips to his. For the first time, I register the fear radiating from him. His paler-than-normal skin, his clenched fists, his shifting feet.
“Shit, Gare. No. It’s not like that. I’m not… I’m going through some shit, but I promise I’m not going to do anything.”
Fuck. I’m not going to do anything drastic.
I’m not going to harm myself. My stomach twists painfully tight.
Self-harm. Suicide. The things we’re not voicing but are deafening in the silence of my bedroom.
Things that aren’t talked about enough. Very real issues that could be prevented if only people did talk about them. Like Gare is right now.
“Join me?” I ask and point to the floor.
He pushes some books aside and drops to the floor. He’s hefty, but agile as all hell. Most catchers are, spending the majority of their time in a crouch. His brown eyes meet mine, and there’s no less concern shining in them than before.
“What’s going on with you, Madz? I know I’m not Winters, but I’m here if you need someone to talk to. Or if you need to talk to a professional, I’ll help you find someone. GCSU has a hotline, you know?”
My heart breaks further and fuses back together at the same time.
With the feelings this conversation thrusts to the surface, the loneliness of being without East for the first time in my life, the devastation that comes from destroying my own heart with the severing of contact I recently made.
But the support and care of my roommate sitting across from me is relief on the wound.
It’s small and simple, him coming in to ask if I’m all right.
Small gestures like that are rare, rarer than they should be.
“Thanks, Gare,” I say quietly. “It means more than I can say, you making sure I’m okay. I’m…I’m not. But it’s not entering dangerous territory. Things have been…really fucking difficult. Harder than I thought they’d be.”
His dark brows are scrunched together, and he studies me like he’s trying to figure out which pitch to call next. “It’s Winters, right? I know you two were really tight. Does it have to do with him being gone?”
My gaze drops, and I pull at a pill in my rug. “Partly. I, uh…” I blow out a breath. “We’re not currently speaking,” I whisper. It’s all my throat will allow. “My choice,” I choke out.
“How come?” There’s no judgment in Alvarez’s tone. Just a soft reassurance. That he’s here for me, that I’m safe to talk about what I’m going through.
My eyes sting, both for what I’m about to admit and how much I appreciate Gary’s friendship.
“I—” I break off as my breath stalls. I clear my throat and try again. “I, um… I kind of am in love with him.”
And just like that, the storm comes to life again.
I slam my mouth shut, try to keep it inside, but it rages and shakes in my chest, tries to claw its way out.
My hands tremble. I think my blood does too.
It feels like my skin is vibrating. I bury my face in my hands, my erratic breaths bouncing off my palms. My body jerks from the force of trying to hold it all back.
The floor shifts slightly, and then Alvarez’s shoulder bumps into mine. “I’ve got big shoulders if you need one, man.”
Ah, fuck it. I nod and turn blindly to him.
The minute my forehead hits his shoulder, the dam breaks—my sobs rip free, rushing forward like a team storming the field after a win.
But this is nothing like a win. I’m the losing team.
I’m the one watching the winner celebrate while being buried under crushing defeat.
Gary pats my back stiffly. “Uh… It’s going to be okay, I think,” he says hesitantly. “Uh, there, there…” Everything about this is awkward and clumsy, and it has my sobs morphing into hiccups of laughter.
We’re so out of our element right now. It’s such a shame the world raises men to fear emotions, to see them as weakness.
Rage is acceptable. Using our fists—violence—is somehow preferred over tears.
Vulnerability? Forget it, not allowed. I know it’s just toxic masculinity projecting on me, but it’s so ingrained that every time I fall apart, a tiny voice underneath it all whispers I’m less of a man for getting upset like this.
I can’t silence it, even though I know it’s wrong.
Which is why I can’t stop the, “I’m sorry,” that falls from my lips when I pull away from him. I shouldn’t be sorry. I don’t need to be.
“Dude, I don’t care. There’s been a lot worse shit on my shirt than your snot.”
I grimace and side-eye him. “I don’t even want to know.”
It breaks the tension, though, and we both smile.
“So, you kind of love Winters, eh?”
I groan as I lean back against my bed and stare at the ceiling. I talk to it instead of Gary, because somehow it makes it all a little easier to voice. “No kind of about it. I’ve been in love with the stupid man since we were like twelve. I can’t keep doing it, Gare.”
My shoulders bend under the weight of it all.
The fatigue is a hand around my neck trying to press me down, submerge me under water.
It’s fucking exhausting—loving someone who can’t love you back.
The constant need to bury your feelings so no one, especially them, will see.
The never-ending heartbreak. Seeing them with other people, other people in the position you’ve always dreamed of being in.
And even when that spot is up for grabs—you break.
Because that spot won’t ever be open for you.
“I’m just really tired. I don’t want to love him anymore. I want to move on.”
I don’t want to feel so alone anymore.
“I’m sorry. That’s a fucking shitty spot to be in. How can I help? Do you need a wingman?”
A slightly hysterical laugh bubbles up in my chest. It’s horribly ironic in a sick and twisted way.
It seems Easton doesn’t want sex until he’s formed an emotional connection.
The only sex I’ve ever wanted is completely void of it.
Meaningless sex. I don’t want emotions and intimacy.
Not unless that’s with East. That’s the only way it’d ever mean something to me.
And it’s so God-damned lonely to be that close to a person—and feel nothing.
I want connection. I want someone who will love me back.
“I don’t think someone else is the answer. I’ve tried that. I think the only thing that’s going to work is time. Time without him.” And that reality fucking sucks.
“You know what will help?”
I turn toward Alvarez and lift a brow.
A sly smirk spreads across his face. “Batting cages. Nothing feels better than crushing a ball. Bash away all that emotion.”
Is that…is that lightness I feel in my chest? Fuck, I think it is. “That’s brilliant, Alvarez.” Will it magically make all this disappear? No. But will it provide an escape? God, it will. A glorious escape.
He dusts off his shoulders like he’s hot shit. “Yeah, you know. I have a few of those now and again.”
“It’d be closed now. Tomorrow?”
He grins. “You know what I’m also brilliant at?”
I narrow my eyes. “What?”
“Flirting. I’m in pretty…ah…tight with the owner there. She gave me a set of keys.”
My eyes shoot wide. I’m…impressed.
“So, you in?”
Pshh. Am I in? “Let’s fucking go.”