Chapter 3
Idug the toe of my cleat into the dirt on the mound, my shoulder throbbing even though I’d only thrown forty-five pitches.
I rotated my shoulder once, hoping to loosen it enough to throw a pitch that didn’t sail fat and straight.
There was no chirping on the infield, probably because we were already down seven.
Gavin threw down one finger, calling for a fastball. The pitch had been getting crushed all day, but so had every other offering. I wound up and fired the ball as hard as I could muster, only to watch it get plastered to the gap for a double.
As the ball got tossed back to me, I looked around the field for help that wasn’t there. No Tanner, the heart of the team and leader of the infield. No Maddux or Silas, the only real arms we had, both graduated and gone. No Ricky, either, who chirped with the best of them.
Sure, Gavin was on the team now. And he was trying to make up for the silence around him, yelling out between every pitch in that voice of his that hadn’t dropped yet, like nobody had told him the score.
Even in his catcher’s gear, he couldn’t have been a buck twenty, and he looked exactly like what he was—someone’s younger brother who was tagging along with the bigger kids.
Not that it was his fault we didn’t have an older catcher.
Our defense still fielded everything hit at them, and my shoulder wasn’t hurting my batting any, but we had no pitching.
That was why I was still on the mound, struggling through this god-awful outing with a shoulder ready to explode at any moment.
The team needed me to figure it out, maybe not today, but definitely before the high school season, when games mattered more.
The rest of the day didn’t get any better; we ended up losing 12-1 and 9-2, with Zach and me scoring the only three runs.
“That was awful,” Zach said when we got back to the Quinns’ house, uniforms and eye black still on. He sat on his favorite loveseat in the basement; I took the couch with Gavin, who’d been unusually quiet since the games had ended.
“I hate pitching,” I said. “There’s nothing fun about it.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have anyone else since Maddux and Silas graduated. It’s you and Joe and a pile of trash.”
“I pitched like a pile of trash today, too,” I said. Eight runs in three innings. The worst I’d pitched in my life. My shoulder ached just thinking about it. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to fix my performance.
Chip Caray’s voice rang through the basement from the game on TV. We all knew we were awful right now, and wallowing in our self-pity wasn’t the best way to spend a Saturday in the middle of summer.
I nudged Gavin’s rib with my right foot. He swatted away my toes without looking at me, his head turned to the inside of the couch.
“Gavin.”
“What?” he mumbled.
“Why aren’t you talking?”
“Just don’t want to talk right now,” he said as he raised his knees closer to his face.
Zach caught my eye, his raised brow telling me we were thinking the same thing—Gavin had never once not wanted to hear his own voice.
“Spill it, Gavin,” Zach said.
“I suck,” he said.
“Yeah, you do,” I said before I could help myself.
Zach shot me another look, his eyes sharp. “No, you don’t.”
“I have one hit this summer,” he choked out.
“You’re fourteen playing against eighteen-year-olds. What did you expect?” Zach asked.
“I’ve never sucked before,” Gavin said, sitting up, his face filled with pain. I felt it, too, wishing I could help him.
“Join the club,” I said.
I watched the kid slumped next to me, smaller than usual, his eye black smudged halfway across his cheek.
My mind fumbled over what to say. Gavin was the easiest of the Quinns to talk to—always had been.
But this version of him, quiet and crushed?
That was Tanner’s territory. Tanner, who had no idea how awful we’d looked today.
How was I supposed to help? I didn’t have a clue what it was like to have a hitless summer. I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t gotten a hit in a game. But then again... hadn’t I spent the whole day failing, too?
“You’ve been playing well behind the plate,” I offered.
“Big whoop,” Gavin said.
“I didn’t shake you off once today,” I said, finding a second compliment.
“Maybe you should have with the way they lit you up,” Gavin said, catching my eye, almost smiling.
I jumped on him, finally seeing the Gavin who was easy to make happy. I pinned his shoulders down with my knees and flicked his ears—huge targets to hit.
“How about we go outside, and I’ll throw to you?” I said. “Turn you into a varsity-level hitter one of these days.”
Gavin’s laugh vibrated from under me as he failed to kick me in the back to get me off him, and Zach just shook his head.
For a second, I almost forgot how badly we’d played today.
The following Saturday, I walked out of my grandparents’ house when Zach beeped the horn from the driveway.
I pulled open the mailbox on the way to the car—I was still waiting for an invite to a showcase—and I saw a plain white envelope with my name on it.
As I unsuccessfully checked for a return address, my foot nailed one of those stupid gnomes; I always hated how those damn ugly statues stared at me as if I was doing something wrong.
Tanner called them his favorite jury, but I was pretty sure they creeped him out, too.
“I’m getting two hits today,” Gavin said as I got in the car and shut the backseat door behind me. One batting cage session after his confidence dip last weekend, and he was back to being Gavin.
“Sure you are,” I said as I stared at the envelope. I vaguely recognized the handwriting, and the back of my neck went cold.
I ripped open the right side of the envelope. Inside was a folded piece of loose-leaf paper, as white as the envelope.
Gavin continued to ramble as I unfolded the paper and started to read, my stomach churning from the first sentence, sweat dripping onto the page.
Dear Easton,
I’ve missed you, son. I read about you in the papers and how good of a season you had up until that last out. Sucks you couldn’t come through; I bet if I’d worked on your swing last year, you would’ve gotten a hit.
I thought I’d have seen you here by now. It’s been a year. I expected at least a letter.
My lawyer says I’ll be out before you graduate. Then you can come home and live with me again. Right where you belong. We’ll get back to how things used to be.
Please write back, as it’s very lonely in here.
Dad
The page shook as I read the letter a second time before jamming it into my bat bag, unable to look at it anymore.
There was a part of me that missed him, that wanted to see him and tell him how I’d failed in the state title game. There was a part of me that wanted him, not Mr. Quinn, to be the one who found me in those woods. There was a part of me that wanted to act like things were normal.
But things weren’t normal. Mom was dead. He hadn’t even mentioned her or apologized for all the years of damage he’d done. He probably didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.
I pulled out my phone to text Tanner. He’d want to know Dad had written to me, even if he was swamped with class.
But what could I say? My dad sent me a letter, and I’m sad he didn’t mention Mom and didn’t ask how I was doing? We both already knew Dad was an asshole.
Gavin and Zach didn’t need to know, either. Zach would want to act all tough, and Gavin would try to give me a hug when we got out of the car. Not exactly helpful. I could tell them after the game, so they wouldn’t get distracted.
The doubleheader went by in a whirlwind, Gavin beaming after his second infield hit of the day. We won both games, more so because our hitting was on point than because we’d figured out anything in the pitching department.
But two wins worked, and I decided the mood was too good to kill by bringing up the letter.
I didn’t want to make anyone feel like I did, which meant completely avoiding the Quinns’ house after the game and instead spending the night trying to help Grandpa with his crossword puzzle as Grandma knitted a scarf for her daughter who had died a year ago.
I escaped them as the sun started to set. Even though I’d read the letter at least a dozen times, I yanked it out of my bag and read it again.
This time, I ripped the letter when I got to the end—once, twice, then, somehow, a seventh time. I let the pieces stay scattered where they fell.