Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Brayden
The next day. An afternoon game. “That big ol’ thing in the sky is the sun, boys,” Coach says as he sends us out on the field. “Don’t let it fool you. It’s as much your enemy as the other team.”
I tip my sunglasses down over my nose, jog out to right field, alone in a sea of grass.
Adler sets up in center a hundred or so feet away.
I won’t watch him. Not the hang of his uniform on his shoulders or the cling of his pants or the way he spends time between plays waving to people in the stands who shout highlights from his time playing for Chicago’s other team. It’s easy to love someone who leaves.
I shouldn’t be looking at him. Thinking about him. Last night was just a temporary lapse in judgment. What Blake called it when he’d bailed me out of a Georgia county jail at three in the morning. This was clearly just another instance of that. It didn’t mean anything. Doesn’t mean anything.
I can’t let it mean anything. I just need to get back to myself. Who I am. Who I’m supposed to be, anyway.
So I don’t look toward Adler. Or not more than is strictly necessary. Except my eyes keep drifting to him like I can’t focus anywhere else, as if I’ve been suddenly magnetized. I’m in sunglasses, my face shaded by the brim of my cap. Who could even tell? I can and that’s bad enough.
Sometime during the third inning, the afternoon goes from sunny to hot. In between plays, I pull off my hat and fan myself with it. Think about cool ice water on my skin, a cascade of them, a drop of sweat rolling down Adler’s chest—
No. Stop.
I shake my head to get rid of the image. Distraction leads to defeat. One of the many things Brad liked to say. I won’t let myself be distracted, I won’t.
And I’m so focused on that I almost don’t hear the sound of the ball coming off the bat—not hard enough to be a home run. A fly ball careening back toward the outfield wall. I race toward it as Adler does the same, yelling, “I got it, I got it.” Not again.
He doesn’t wait for me to respond—just runs back, dives, body momentarily aloft before he crashes into the outfield wall.
What a showboat, turning a routine play into something that’ll be on every highlight reel.
I’m about to yell just that when he ricochets off the wall onto the dirt warning track ringing the field, then collapses in a heap. He’s…not moving.
Fuck.
I run toward him. Did he hit his head? Twist something? My brain floods with a hundred possibilities, each worse than the one before it.
I arrive, kneel on the dirt. His eyes are shut; his breath is coming shallow. “Adler—” I start, then remember the flash of hatred in his eyes when I’ve called him that before. “Asher, wake up.”
The words come out softer than I’d like. I run my hand on his chest feeling for the reassuring beat of his heart.
Asher’s face does something. For a moment, I worry he’s having some kind of seizure but then I realize he’s smiling.
His eyes blink open. “Hey.” He pushes himself up, or tries to, when I splay my palm on his chest.
“Wait for the trainer to clear you,” I tell him.
“Careful,” he says, “someone’ll think you don’t want me dead.” But he lowers himself back down.
I bellow for the trainers to come out faster, even if they’re already on the way.
Other teammates jog over, in part to form a human wall between Asher and the TV cameras.
Only Crawford remains stationed at first base, squinting up at the afternoon sun adding another layer of sunburn to his already sunburned face.
Finally, two trainers arrive. “Don’t sit up,” one says to Asher. “We have to check your neck.”
They poke him for a minute, shine a light in his eyes, ask him questions about if he knows his name—“Asher”—the state he’s in—“flat on my back in Illinois”—and what just happened.
“I embarrassed myself in front of Brayden Forsyth,” he says as if we’re not also in front of thirty thousand or so people.
The trainers laugh. “We’re still gonna advise that you come out of the game,” one of the trainers says.
“I’m good. Just came down too hard.” He tries to sit up again. This time, he goes slightly pale under his tan. “Maybe not.”
“Do you need the cart?” the trainer asks.
“No, just give me a sec.” Asher winds a fist into the grass nearby, fingers tugging at it like he’s trying to hold onto the Earth.
I’m still crouched beside him, my knees blocking my hand from view. Carefully, I nudge my knuckle against his until Asher’s eyes go wide. “You good?” I ask.
He nods this time, surer. His breathing is more even, not that I’m noticing. Except I am and he knows I am and I know it too.
“Here.” I extend a hand and help pull him to his feet. Around us, the stadium claps, a smattering of applause. “Good hustle on that play.”
For some reason, he laughs, sudden and sharp. “Thanks, Forsyth.”
“No problem, Asher.”
“Thanks, B.” His mouth tugs at the edge in that infuriating way that would normally make me want to rub his face in the dirt.
Now it makes me want something else. To wrap my arms around him. To know he’s okay. But I can’t do any of that, so I just stand there as the trainers walk Asher away, scrubbing my hands on my uniform pants so I can forget how empty they are.