Chapter 5
MYLES
“Where’ve you been?” Sam asks, draping his arm around my shoulders as I walk toward the front of the school.
Samir Kumar was the first friend I made after Emma. We met on the first day of high school when I caught him reading a special edition copy of League of Lost, one of my favorite comic books, hidden behind his textbook.
He came over that day and we hung out, talking about comics and video games. I felt so out of place when I started high school without Emma because she was the one who did all the talking. But she was a grade behind me, still in middle school, which meant I was on my own for the first time.
Sam was kind of like her. He loved to talk, and I liked that about him.
But I’ve never been able to open up to him, or anyone for that matter, the same way I did with Emma. There’s a part of me that’s afraid to let someone in because what if they push me away too?
I fall into step with Sam and shrug. “Around.”
He raises an eyebrow. “That’s all I get? Come on, man. You missed movie night and you’re not going to tell me why?”
Knowing Sam, he probably invited the whole baseball team over, and if it was anything like his other parties I’ve been to, I bet they spent hours playing video games and stayed up way too late. I won’t lie, I wish I had been there.
“Trust me, you weren’t missing out,” I say.
He lowers his voice. “Did something happen? You look off.” He pauses, staring me down, and lowers his voice. “Don’t tell me your mom found out.”
Last year I tore my UCL in the middle of a game.
I’d been feeling pain in my arm for weeks, but I couldn’t stop practicing.
I had just made varsity and I was determined to prove myself.
Mom took me to the doctor and even though he told me I needed to rest, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my coach.
Not when it was my first varsity game and I had so many people expecting me to pitch.
A sharp pain shot through my arm as I threw the ball, and in an instant I watched the game I loved slip through my fingers. I couldn’t finish the rest of the season and I had to get surgery because the tear was so bad.
Mom still hasn’t forgiven me for hurting myself. I begged and pleaded with her all summer to let me play again after the doctor cleared me, but she refused to sign the consent form. This is my senior year, so if I don’t play, I can kiss the chances of getting a baseball scholarship goodbye.
Mom doesn’t understand how badly I need to be on the field. It’s so much more than a sport to me. It’s more than running outside from base to base or hitting the ball. It’s the only thing I have left of my dad.
My dad loved baseball. Even though I was young, I remember playing catch with him and going to baseball games. We’d sit on the bleachers, eating hot dogs and cheering on his favorite team. He taught me how to hold a bat and how to pitch. It was our thing.
But after he died, Mom moved us across the country and everything I had of my dad was left behind. It was like she was running away because his memories made her so sad.
She’s doing better now. She’s spent the last few years “finding” herself again. She even started dating, but I didn’t think anything of it until she introduced me to Adam. The whole time they dated, I told myself she wouldn’t replace Dad, but then she did. The recent wedding is proof.
Adam moved in and while Mom seems happy, I can’t ignore the way Dad isn’t in any of the pictures on the walls now. Every picture is of my new “family.” Adam, Mom, and me. It’s like he’s been erased, and I feel bad talking about him because I remember how devastated Mom was when he died.
She smiles now, and I don’t want to see her cry again.
I can’t tell her the reason I need to play baseball is because I miss Dad, and when I’m on the field, it’s like he’s still with me. It’s the only place I can still hear his voice in my head.
Instead of arguing with my mom more, I signed her name on the paper and turned it in.
Even though I felt guilty about it at the time, I had to do it.
I had to play. I’ve managed to keep her in the dark through tryouts and our first few practices.
Our first game of the season is Friday and Coach has me as the starting pitcher.
I clear my throat. “She doesn’t know.”
He raises a brow. “Really? Wow. Hasn’t she noticed you’re always gone?”
I shrug. “I think she’s too distracted by Adam—”
“You murderer!” an unmistakable shrieking voice pierces through the air. A voice I haven’t heard in years. A shiver runs down my spine and my heart goes into overdrive immediately.
Emma.
My heart plummets to the ground and my lungs deflate the second she fills my mind. I’ve tried so hard to block her out, to forget what she did to me.
Sam jumps behind me like I’m supposed to protect him. “What in the world?”
My back stiffens, and I pause. I turn my head enough to see her racing towards me, but it’s like I’m seeing it in slow motion because she hasn’t acknowledged me in forever.
Her wild hair is in her face, and her socks are falling down with every step.
She’s just as untamed as she’s always been with her war-cry face.
Maybe that’s why I can’t move even though Sam is trying to pull me out of her trajectory.
She hits me full force, tackling me to the ground. My head slams into the gravel, scraping my cheek against the rocks and knocking me into reality.
She kicks me in the side as she towers over me. “You monster! You killed my sister!”
I cover my face, scrambling to get out of the way, unable to register what she’s talking about.
Emma is like a volcano. Once she erupts you can’t stop her.
You can’t reason with her, and in the end I found keeping my distance was the only way to break free from her.
She lives life without caring about how others feel.
She doesn’t even take two seconds to think about how her actions affect someone else, and she definitely doesn’t take responsibility when she hurts them.
“Emma, are you high?” I yell, using my arms as a shield. “Your sister is literally in Calculus right now!”
“Tell me how you got out of prison!”
Prison? What in the world is she going on about? And killer? Does she know who she’s talking to or does she have me mixed up with someone else? The worst thing I’ve done in my life is sign my mother’s name on my baseball consent form. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a criminal.
Sam grabs on to her from behind, trying to hold her back. “Emma, look up! Mallory is right there!”
She freezes, eyes wide like she’s a deer caught in headlights, with her fist up and ready to fight. Her dark bangs fall into her face, eyes barely poking through the strands. “What?”
“Your sister is right there!” Sam points to the second floor.
She sucks in a breath, frantically looking around like she’s taking in the whole world for the first time. She locks on to her sister in the window. Mallory is clearly visible with her dark hair pulled back with a red ribbon, sitting at her desk, completely oblivious to the fiasco below her.
Sam lets her go.
“But how? She can’t—” Emma covers her mouth, muffling her words. She staggers back, digging her feet into the gravel. Her body wavers, stepping side to side like someone who’s seasick and just stepped on dry land for the first time in days.
She breathes in, practically eating air like she’s starving, and takes a step forward.
Her eyes start to roll back and she sways seconds before her legs buckle.
Sam jumps forward and catches her like a limp fish in his arms. His jaw drops and his eyebrows fly up, tightening his grip so she doesn’t fall. “What’s wrong with her?”
I roll my eyes. “A lot.”
I scurry to my feet and brush off the dirt from my pants.
They’re covered in brown filth and dust. I should make her clean them, but I don’t want to have a reason to talk to her again.
I’ll pretend this never happened because I’ve spent too much time redirecting my life to let her take the reins again.
Emma’s hair is sprawled out over her face, and when I look at her, all I can think is she’s overdramatic.
She’s probably faking, trying to get out of trouble since she did just beat me up.
It’s not like this is the first time she’s done something like this.
One time when we were little, she broke one of her mother’s vases so she pretended to have a stomach ache to get out of being grounded.
The veins in Sam’s arms pop as he tries to keep her upright. “What do I do?”
I can’t do this. I’ve moved on. I hardly notice her when she’s here, and yet she always seems to weasel her way back into my life when I think I’m finally in the clear.
I was a sophomore when she first came to school as a freshman, and every time I saw her, anger bubbled inside of me because part of me wanted her to change.
I wanted her to mellow out and apologize for what she’d done, but that never happened.
If anything she acted out more, creating a reputation within days of starting school.
To this day everyone knows Emma is the troublemaker and Mallory is the one who runs after her cleaning up the messes.
That used to be me, and it can’t be me again.
“Drop her. She’ll wake up,” I say.
Sam gives me a disapproving look. “Since when are you so heartless, man? She needs to see the nurse.”
I stare at the dysfunctional duo in front of me, and I can’t ignore Sam’s puppy dog expression pleading for me to help as he struggles to keep Emma upright.
Sam is nice, probably too nice for his own good, which is why everyone likes him. He has the entire senior class eating out of the palm of his hand.
“Fine,” I say. “But I’m only doing this for you. Not her.”
“Okay, you hate her. I get it.” His face is turning redder with each passing moment, and he shifts his foot to keep his balance. “Now, help me carry her.”