It's half past seven and the sun is making its way down in the horizon, obscured from our view. The clouds over the buildings are tinged in a majestic array of purples and pinks.
Ava and I take our seats and for a while, we're both too distracted looking around the stadium at sights around us to talk much. Our seats are on the seventh row of a balcony area behind the home plate. We have the perfect view of the field in its entirety, though any figures on the field resemble dolls from this height.
"He used to bring us here a lot, when we were younger," Ava says. Her voice draws my focus on her, chewing on a cheese fry as she stares out onto the field, absently.
"He?"
"Uncle Finn. He was a huge baseball fan and would bring us to as many games as he could. Giles never cared about baseball and just came for the food. But me? I learned the game inside out. Those nights, I got to pretend I had a dad and a brother for a little while. Giles hasn't been to a game in forever..." She trails off and throws another fry into her mouth, chewing for a few minutes before looking at me sideways. "Do you love him?"
My mouth parts in surprise, confused for a wild second about which of the two men she means. Though it's obvious that she could only be referring to one.
"I do," I say, nodding through the tightness in my chest, the truth squeezing me there until I can no longer ignore it. I do love Giles. We may never be able to be together the way I want to be, but there's no denying that I love him.
"Good," Ava says, not looking at me. "That's good."
She's wrong. It's the worst kind of torture, realizing you're hopelessly in love with your best friend. A guy who can't give himself to me the way I need, the way I want. A guy who will always be just out of my reach.
The seats around us fill and the sky starts to dim, notch by notch, as the sun finally sets somewhere over the ocean. All this time, music plays over the speakers, catchy tunes to excite the crowd. And everywhere around us, people sit with huge containers of food and tall cups of beer. From our seats, we can see the Padres pitcher warming up just off field.
I'm sipping from my drink and staring at the sky when Ava jabs her elbow into my side. "He's looking for you," she says, nodding over to the front of the rows.
"Huh?" I say, eyes trained on the large form of the Padres mascot standing at the end of our section, his back to the railing.
The friar costume looks even more ridiculous in person. Massive, oblong eyes stare out, unblinking, over an enormous nose. His smile is wide and permanent and his protruding chin nearly lost in the roundness of the face. A single row of thick, black hair runs over the top of his forehead, ear-to-ear, comical in the way it serves as both his eyebrows and what's left of his balding head, which pokes out on top.
He wears a shapeless monk gown with the Padres logo on it and flip flops on his abnormally large feet
Catching my attention, he continues to wobble a large arm, signaling me to come down to him. I point at myself to make sure it's me he wants and he nods vigorously, large head bobbing so violently I'm worried it might fall off.
"Go see what Luke wants," Ava says, laughing a little.
I consider for a moment just ignoring him. The mascot is a beacon for attention. A few people in the rows in front of us are snapping pictures of him with their phones. But Luke is adamant in his cartoonish gestures for me to come up to the railing. And so I do, squeezing past people in my row and lowering down the steps until I reach him.
"Hey, Luke," I say, without much enthusiasm.
Overhead, the announcer's voice chimes from the speakers, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for the presentation of the flag." There's a scramble of fabric and movement as everyone behind me gets to their feet.
Luke leans in, the freakishly large face of the smiling friar inches from my own.
"I've got something to show you," he says.
"Right now?" I ask, self-conscious that I'm standing in plain view of our entire section.
"Yeah, right now," Luke says, turning to look at the field.
Unable to gauge anything of Luke's expression from behind the mascot suit, I turn in the same direction as him. My hands close over the cold metal bar of the railing as I gaze out intently, though unsure what I'm really looking for. The color guard, a group of uniformed US Navy sailors, march the flag onto the field, stopping just beyond the pitcher's mound.
The announcer comes on the speakers again. "Ladies and gentleman, he first sang at Petco stadium when he was just twelve years old. Here to perform the national anthem again, San Diego's own Giles Caldwell."
My heart skips a beat and lodges somewhere in my throat. Mouth parted, I watch Giles approach the infield, microphone in hand.
I can't see his face. He's facing away from the crowd, and me, looking toward the flag and the outfield beyond. But my eyes move over every inch of him, marveling in how he looks so small from this distance and yet larger than life.
The giant screen over at the end of the stadium switches from a live shot of the color guard to a close up of Giles as he raises the mic to his mouth with a faint echoing sound.
My hand moves to my chest and beside me, Luke's does the same. Except mine didn't move there in anticipation of the national anthem, but instead because my chest literally swells at the sight of Giles. Up on the screen, the face I know so well is in crisp focus.
I can't help but stare. He's gorgeous and radiates a confidence that fills the entire stadium. I battle the urge to run to him now, to run down however many flights of stairs I have to in order to reach him. But I stand, frozen, watching.
Giles opens his mouth and the very first note he sings erupts with such a strength that it drives right through me. My heart thumps madly against the palm of my hand as I listen to his powerful voice. It's deep and rich, with a tremble that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Incredible. It's incredible that he sounds like this. Incredible that he's here singing. Something about his performance is haunting and exorcising all at once.
You should do something special that day, something to commemorate his life.
He took my advice.
Deep in my gut, the truth rings out that he's singing this song for his father. He's singing it for me, too, his eyes staring back at me from the screen as if he can actually see me where I stand. All of this makes my own eyes burn and a small breath catches in my throat.
God, I love this guy. My heart's about to burst from my chest as though offering itself up as proof. It aches at the thought that I might never feel those lips on mine again, that we might return to the time when we tried to be just friends.