Chapter 34
She left one. Three words. Please call me. He listened to it once and put the phone down and went to the facility and ran and did lower body work for an hour because his right hand was in a brace and working around an injury was what athletes did when standing still wasn't an option.
It was almost eleven now and the phone had been silent for two hours.
He took his hand out of the ice. The fracture was almost a week old.
He still wouldn't call it a fracture. He'd played through worse.
He could have played the next day if he'd had to, but Morgan had made him go to the doctor and the doctor had taken an X-ray and pointed at the hairline running across the fourth metacarpal and said "fracture" and Beck had said "it's a bruise" and Morgan had said "it's a fracture, Beck, shut up" and that had been that.
The brace was on the counter. He flexed his fingers. Sore. Tight. Functional. The Braves workout was pushed to next month. Addison had handled it. He hadn't asked how.
Hudson was at the back door, waiting. Beck let him out for one last trip before bed. The night was cold and clear and the moon was up and the island had gone quiet in December, the tourists gone, the winter settling in, everything still.
He saw his phone light up on the table as Hudson trotted down the steps.
He should have left it. He didn't.
I understand if you don't ever want to see me again. But I want you to know I love you. I never stopped loving you. I can't take it all back. I would at least like to see you before you leave the island if that's ok?
He read it twice. He put the phone in his pocket and went outside to catch up with Hudson.
He stood on the grass and watched Hudson circle four times before finally doing his business. Hudson trotted back toward the porch and up the steps and into the living room. Beck stayed outside.
The air was cool and it reminded him the season was coming.
Pitchers and catchers would be reporting in a few weeks.
Everyone else soon after. This year, after a year away, he was going to be reporting with everyone else again.
Standing on a major league field in a couple of months. Playing a game he'd play for free.
That's when it hit him.
He wanted to throw his phone against the oak tree in the front yard. He wanted to put Hudson in the Range Rover and leave the island for good.
But that wouldn't fix a damn thing.
He needed a fight. He needed a fight with Kirstin Green and he was about to pick one.
He pulled the phone out.
You ran when you heard the numbers. You heard the numbers and whatever you thought I was changed like I was someone else. But here's the thing. Nobody gave a shit about the numbers but you.
He sent it. It felt good and it felt bad.
But it felt better than it felt bad. He had to get it off his chest because it was true.
The moment she heard what he was worth to the organization, she'd changed.
No. She hadn't changed how she saw him. She'd changed how she saw herself.
Like the money mattered. Like she had to fit inside some box that matched whatever life she thought he lived.
The phone came back out.
I'm the man you fell in love with. The same man that made more money than that before you ever laid eyes on me. The money never meant anything to me. I told you that but you didn't believe it. Which means you never believed in me. Which means we never had a chance because you never gave us one.
That one didn't hurt. That one felt like truth finally released from wherever it had been locked up inside him.
He fired another.
I loved you. God knows I did. But I love baseball too and I'm going to play baseball. Just like you need to take the damn test and be who you're meant to be and you shouldn't give a shit what anybody thinks about it but you.
That one felt even better. He'd watched her for months. Watched her deny herself what she'd earned. It pissed him off and finally telling her felt good.
The last one got a response.
You loved me? Past tense? You don't love me anymore? If that's the case you never loved me at all.
His fingers flew.
You got no right to tell me what I do or don't feel and if you got anything to say to me say it to my face instead of a damn screen. Or just run away again. Your choice.
He didn't go inside. He paced the yard. He didn't send another message. He'd offered the arena. Whether she stepped in for the fight was up to her now.
The moon was bright and it was getting colder. He couldn't make himself go in. Not yet. He wasn't going to sleep anyway. He walked to the edge of the property, the side that opened toward the water. The water was invisible in the dark but it was there, salt and mud and cold and the tide turning.
He took a deep breath.
Then he heard the engine before he saw the headlights.
He didn't turn around. He stood at the edge of the grass with his back to the driveway and his face to the water and he waited.
The tires slid to a stop on the shell drive. The door slammed. Her feet were loud and out of rhythm on the gravel and then the grass.
He felt her hands hit his back and he lurched forward.
"You never loved me, did you?"
He didn't move. Didn't turn around. He let the anger build and he held it because holding things was what he did. Baseballs. Patience. Pain. He held them all the same way.
"I hate you, you asshole," she said. "You never loved me."
He tilted his head back. The moon was there. Bright. Lighting up the world in black and white. The marsh. The tree line. The edge of the water he couldn't quite see. Everything in two colors. No gray.
He heard her breathing. Heavy. Ragged. He didn't have to see her face. He knew what it looked like in this moment. He stayed with his back to her.
"I do love you," he said. "I love you more than the game."
He squatted and picked up a rock from the grass. Turned it over in his hands. Thought about Luke on the steps of this same rental, throwing rocks at the oak tree, the beautiful arm angle, the conversation about the swing. The harder you swing. He stood. He threw the rock toward the water.
"I came down here to try to get my life back and I found a new one." He listened to the rock land somewhere in the dark. "At least I thought I did."
Her breathing slowed. It didn't even out but it slowed.
"You did," she said. "You found a new life and I gave it to you and then I stole it."
He didn't move.
"Turn around, Ethan."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because if I do I'm going to forgive you."