4. Evan #2
The truth. Yeah right. He doubted his mother wanted to hear how he’d felt the room tilt beneath him when he’d seen the trade notification in November.
Or that he’d spent the rest of the month pretending not to care while every article and off-season analysis seemed determined to remind him that CJ Hartman was coming to San Diego.
She definitely didn’t want to hear how seven years had somehow been enough for the hurt to scar over but not long enough for it to disappear.
“I don’t feel anything,” he said. “I barely remember him.”
His mother laughed outright. “Oh, that’s definitely a lie.”
“Ma.”
“Mijo.” She pointed her fork at him. “You know what I remember? How that boy came home with you from Nebraska a few times during college and sat at this table eating everything in sight and talking up a storm. I remember him helping you carry groceries in because he thought it would impress me.” She smiled softly.
“And I remember you being happier when he was around.”
Evan wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed it on his plate. “He’s not that person anymore.” Maybe neither of them was.
His mother was quiet for a moment. “Whatever happened between you two,” she said eventually. “I hope this gives you a chance to work it out.”
She shifted slightly, and her eyes focused on something over his shoulder. He turned to look as well. An old photo of a young man, his head tossed back in a laugh, leaning against a cherry-red El Camino, was held to the fridge with a single magnet.
“You have his smile,” she said. “I wish you shared it more.”
His father had been a catcher too, with major league dreams of his own that had never materialized.
He became a mechanic who played guitar on weekends and told stories too wild to be true, even if no one called him on it.
He had stuck around just long enough to teach Evan that a curveball didn’t care if you were ready, and how to work his glove to the outside corner, snap it closed, and trust his grip.
Evan was eight the day his dad had kissed him on the forehead and promised him a trip to the beach “next weekend,” and then mailed a postcard from Tucson that said someday in his messy handwriting. Nothing ever came after that, and Evan learned early that leaving is easier than being left.
By the time he flew back to San Diego after the holidays, he’d settled on the only strategy that made sense: avoidance. He’d spent seven years getting good at it. Surely, he could survive one baseball season.
January slid from one day to the next. Evan trained with three different pitchers from the team, at three different parks, so no routine would take hold.
When Matt texted him about the upcoming season, he answered with thumbs-up emojis and short replies, and when Matt tried to push for a call, Evan pretended the message came through while he was driving and then somehow forgot to text him back.
Which wasn’t fair to Matt, and Evan knew he needed to do better.
January slid into February, and Evan trained harder than he ever had.
He chased exhaustion with workouts that would have made some of his teammates cry.
The weight room at the stadium was always open to the players, and he found himself there most days, loading the bar with more weight than he should have.
He knew he was being reckless, but he dropped onto the bench anyway, exhaling before he pressed more weight than his arms had any business handling.
The strain was better than thinking, and he needed the distraction of the fire in his muscles, burning everything else away.
He stretched out on the bench, the leather cool against his back, and gripped the steel bar so hard that his knuckles turned white.
Inhaling deeply, he kept his feet flat on the floor and pressed upward.
Once. Twice. Again. By the third rep, his triceps screamed and his shoulders wobbled under the load.
Sweat rolled down his temples and forehead, stinging his eyes.
His pulse roared in his ears, but he shoved the bar up one more time, his teeth clenched as every muscle fiber shook.
He welcomed it because it was a pain he could name and not one that lived in memory.
The scrape of gravel behind the cages. Matt’s raised hands. CJ’s voice flat with fear before he walked away.
Evan pressed harder and faster, his chest burning.
When the set finally ended, the weights clanked loudly into the rack, echoing through the silent room. Evan lay flat for a moment, his lungs working double-time to drag in air. His arms felt like rubber, but the sharp and honest ache would fade by morning.
A voice cut through the quiet. “Take it easy, Delgado.”
Evan rolled his head and spotted Jaime, one of the team trainers, leaning against the wall a few feet away, brow furrowed and a clipboard tucked under his arm. He’d clearly been watching longer than Evan realized.
“You’re going to bench press your way into early retirement if you keep going like that.”
Evan sat up slowly and dragged a towel over his face, hiding behind it for a second longer than necessary. When he dropped it, his expression was neutral. “Just needed a push.”
“That was a heavy push,” Jaime said, skeptical but not unkind.
Evan shrugged, grabbed his water bottle, and stood, already moving toward a different station. “Feels good,” he said. His tone made it clear that the conversation was over.
Jaime didn’t press, but Evan could feel the trainer’s eyes on him as he completed his workout.
By the time he showered and drove home, the burn in his chest had faded to a dull throb.
It was too early to go to bed, but the silence in his apartment was too loud to be comfortable.
He turned the TV on for noise, left the lights low, and collapsed onto the couch with his phone in his hand.
He scrolled through the usual apps first, catching up on league news and checking the team’s social media accounts, before finally answering Matt’s texts so his friend wouldn’t show up at his apartment in person. Matt had done that before.
The silence in the apartment settled around him again, and Evan stared at the television before grabbing the remote.
He navigated through streaming services until he found something loud enough to drown out his thoughts.
He turned the volume up higher than usual, stretched out on the couch, and within minutes, half a city was on fire and someone was driving a sports car through three buildings that definitely weren’t made for cars.
A helicopter exploded for some unknown reason, and men in tactical gear shouted at each other over the spray of automatic weapons.
It was exactly the kind of distraction he needed.
The movie demanded just enough attention to keep his brain occupied, and every time his thoughts started drifting toward spring training, an explosion rocked the living room.
When he caught himself thinking about when CJ would arrive in San Diego, a building collapsed.
The one time he started imagining the inevitable moment they would see each other again, a car launched from the roof of a skyscraper, aiming to land on the roof of a neighboring building.
He wasn’t even sure the movie had a plot.
It didn’t matter. The point was that for two hours, nobody said the name CJ Hartman.
Nobody talked about trades or reminded him that the man who had broken his heart seven years ago was going to be living in the same city.
When the credits finally rolled, the apartment felt too quiet again.
His phone buzzed with a notification, but he ignored it.
Whatever it was could wait until morning.
With a quiet sigh, he pushed himself off the couch, turned off the lamps in the living room, and headed down the hall. For tonight, sleep was the only distraction he had left.