“You know who I am, just let me through.”
“Mr. Chase, if you could just step to the side.” The man had an attitude, the tone one used on misbehaving delinquents, and it pushed tacks into the thin skin of his self control. Any minute, Ty and her dad would come outside. Any minute she’d be feet away, her eyes on him, those begging eyes, and he would lose his mind.
One of the guards stepped to the phone, his eyes on Chase, and who the fuck could he be calling, why the fuck were they keeping him here, and they needed to fix their machine and open the damn gate. He pushed forward, past the man and reached for the handle, the man shouting a protest, and when hands closed on his arm, the final thread of his self-control snapped.
A little known fact about Chase Stern: At fifteen, he was an amateur boxing champ, a career that could have brought him much success, had he not instead focused his fast hands and hand-eye coordination on baseball. It didn’t take much to drop the three-hundred-pound security guard. One right cross on the man’s left jaw did it.
One right cross that changed everything, instantly, for them.
57
“This isn’t like you.” Dad was worried, I could hear the strain in his voice. I pushed open the door to the bathroom and came face-to-face with him. I ended the call and dropped it in my bag.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” I lied. “Something I ate. You know. Diarrhea.” It was a crude but effective answer, his face relaxing, though worry still pricked his eyes.
“Want me to get the team doctor? He can give you—”
“Oh my God,” I interrupted him. “I am not going to Dr. Z about this.”
“It’s a long way home. Do you think you’ll make it?”
“I’ll be fine.” I nodded to the door, ready to get out of here. “You ready?”
There was a commotion at the end of the hall, a group of security guys hauling someone away, and his eyes flickered to that before returning to me. I swallowed, hoping that all traces of my cry were gone, the last few minutes spent fixing my makeup. “Okay,” he said slowly, suspicion lacing his words. “Let’s go home.”
We rode home in silence, the only break when he asked me, twice, how I was feeling. It felt wrong to lie to him. But on the other hand, I’d been lying to him for a month. But those lies hadn’t been so blatant. They’d been lies of omission, me telling him goodnight and then walking out of my hotel room. He’d never asked me, the next day, if I had done anything other than go to bed. He’d had no reason to.
But now, the air in the truck thick with distrust, I felt the pain of lying, the guilt of everything I had kept from him. I hadn’t told Chase about Tobey, and look where that had gotten me. Chase stormed off, and I couldn’t even call him and properly apologize. Not until I got home and had some privacy. Dad wouldn’t storm off if I told him about Chase. But he would be disappointed. And hurt. And would probably never let me stay in my own hotel room ever again. The thought of going on the road and not spending time with Chase … the concept was a physical ache in my chest. Before, I had loved our life on the road, Dad and me, the team, the life. But love had dulled that. Love had made everything brighter, my smile bigger, my days longer. Every secret smile from him, every stolen touch, had been a shot of happiness. Every night we’d spent together had been a step deeper into our friendship, a cut deeper into my heart. I should have told Dad. Right then, before anything else happened. But I couldn’t risk ruining the remaining weeks of the season. I couldn’t risk a moment away from him.
After the season. That was when I would tell Dad.
At least that had been the plan.
When I got home, I called Chase, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and took a quick shower, washing off the clay and dust of the game before putting on pajamas and getting into bed. I tried to call him again, with the same result. I opened a text and struggled with the words, part of me still stubbornly mad, a month after that night, about what I had seen in his room. We hadn’t been dating, so I hadn’t, technically, done anything wrong, especially not after what I had seen.
But I knew where his hurt and anger lay. In the lost opportunity. I knew because I felt the same way, I hated myself for not giving that moment to him, to us. I hated that I’d lost my virginity through anger and resentment and not in a night of love and passion. I hated that it had been Tobey pushing into me, and not Chase. I hated the look I had seen in Chase’s eyes. The loss of some bit of reverence that he had had for me.
I turned on the TV as a distraction, something to keep my mind off him. Instead, with a somber Scott Van Pelt speaking into the camera, I watched our fairy-tale summer shatter.
58
The facts known were little, a few sentences that the newscasters discussed on repeat, each flip of the channel bringing the same maddening three sentences.
Chase Stern was involved in a physical altercation with a member of the Yankee organization.
He was not arrested.
The Yankees have not issued a statement at this time.
We have no further information.
I’d been in the walls of that stadium long enough to know what would happen if this information was true. A member of the Yankee organization? Was it a coach? Another player? A member of the crew? Who it had been wasn’t really crucial to the outcome. This wasn’t Los Angeles, where it took punching a fellow teammate after fucking his wife to get a rise out of management. This was New York, where every person on the NYY payroll was family, and we protected our family. We loved our family. We fought for our family. And we fought against any discord in our locker room, in our stadium, in our family.
My fear was confirmed at 2:17 AM. I was bleary eyed, my fingers numb from pushing buttons on the remote, from redialing his cell and getting voicemail. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, my psyche raw and brittle, when an update finally happened, one thin line of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen, mid-commercial.
UPDATE: Chase Stern traded to the Baltimore Orioles.
Seven simple words that brought down everything we had.
The phone dropped from my limp hand, and I fell back on the bed, my eyes closing in defeat.
59
I couldn’t stop crying. At first it was small leaks coming out at inappropriate times, my hands wiping at my cheeks while stirring Carla’s spaghetti sauce. Then it was giant, gushing sobs, impossible to hide, Dad’s wide-eyed confusion not helping. I locked myself in my room, not eating, not working, not talking to anyone. The week ended, and then the next, and then the Yankees were back on the road, Dad leaving for Chicago, his knocks on my door unanswered, his calls to my cell ignored. I was in bed when he kicked in my door, the frame splintering, my head turn too slow to suit him, my quiet study of his flushed face one that seemed to make him more upset.