He scoffed, playing the tough-guy role he probably thought he’d perfected, but I heard the loneliness behind it. I wanted to turn around and hug him, tell him I was sorry, but I knew he wouldn’t want that. So, I stayed where I was, clenching and unclenching my hands.
“Anyway,” he continued, “when I was a kid, one of Dad’s vendors had tickets to the game where they retired Dierker’s jersey. I never really knew why, but for some reason, Dad let me tag along.”
“2002,” I murmured without thinking.
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
I blew out a breath, cursing my stupid mouth for interrupting. Turning around, I found Justin gaping at me and I shrugged. “Sports fanatic for a father, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” He frowned at that, then shook his head and glanced back at the ball. “I got to meet Larry that day. He signed this and even showed me a proper grip.”
Justin stretched his arm back, miming a perfect throw, and the harsh lines on his face faded away, transforming into a boyish grin. He dropped his hand and sighed. “Baseball’s been my life ever since.” He waved the ball in his hand. “And Larry, my favorite player.”
I smiled. “He’s one of my dad’s favorites, too. I’m actually shocked he didn’t name any of us after him, but then, that’d be pretty weird whenever we saw him over at the house.”
Justin’s eyes cut to mine. “What do you mean?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Dad’s friends with him and he comes by the house sometimes. Mostly after a school visit to go over drills with the team. Dad brings him home for dinner. As you know, he’s really active in supporting local youth athletic teams.”
As I spoke, every muscle in Justin’s body turned to stone. I scrunched my nose, clueless as to what I could’ve said to make him catatonic, and waited five, maybe six heartbeats before he closed his mouth and then asked, “Team?”
Now I was really lost. “Well, yeah.”
He had to know… right? I thought back over all our conversations, at school, at the ranch, and over text, and realized I’d never specifically said anything. I also never told anyone at school. The teachers knew, of course, but it never came up in class, and it wasn’t like I wore a neon sign over my head that said I was the Coach’s daughter. I’d just always assumed Justin knew.
Judging from his current frozen form, I wasn’t so sure.
Will this matter? Praying it didn’t, I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Justin, you know my dad’s your baseball coach, right?”
A giant step back and a harsh, cynical laugh gave me my answer.
SATURDAY, MAY 24TH
2 Weeks until Graduation
?Senior Year
PEYTON
SWEET SERENITY RANCH 1:35 P.M.
“Hey girl, you ready to ride?” Annie Oakley’s wise eyes peer at me from her stall, saying more than she could even if she could speak. Everything I’ve already been thinking myself. “Yeah, I know. It’s been a while.”
The ranch at least is quiet today. Dad already left for the ballpark and Mama is out buying supplies for the business. Trevor has a golf event, Faith and Cade are inside working, and I’m out here, trying to resurrect an old dream.
“Don’t worry if you’re scared,” I say, gently tugging Oakley toward the barrel course Cade and I laid out just last week. “That’s perfectly normal. In fact, if you want to know a secret, I’m pretty scared, too.”
Her soft whinny makes me smile and I comb my hand through her long, chestnut mane.
It’s not as if the two of us haven’t ridden together since the accident. We’ve gone on walks around the pasture, even made it up to a slow trot. Easy instructional things with the kids. But slow and easy ain’t gonna cut it for the exhibition. It’s time for me to put on my big girl panties.
We make it out to the course way too soon. A quick check around the field is enough to know we’re still alone. I can still back out if I want to. Walk away, give Annie an apple, and pretend this never happened. No one would be any the wiser. But even as I think it, I know that’s not true. I would know.
Justin is a hell of a lot of things, but one thing he’s not, at least in this case, is wrong. There is a huge part of me that lives beneath the fear that wants to do this. Wants to break out of the steel prison of anxiety and feel the wind slap across my face again. My heart rate picks up speed just imagining it.
A question bubbles to the surface, the same one that’s taunted me for years. What if?
What if I really can do it again? What if I can find greatness, find that missing piece that’s been absent for so long, and be whole again?
What if I’ve wasted my best years on the circuit for nothing?
Obviously, the “what if” game is a double-edged sword. Not only the back and forth of doubts but the chance that things can go horribly wrong. I could fall again, get hurt worse than I was before. Or I could find out, once and for all, that it really is all over.
That certainty is something I’m not sure I can handle.