63. MATTHEWS

MATTHEWS

M y hand shook around the microphone, but Bobbi and Ella both gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. “You got this!” Bobbi mouthed with a big smile and love in her eyes.

God, did I want to believe that. Momma gave me a nod of encouragement.

The phone call that had gotten me to Rhode Island had come a week before Christmas.

“It’s for you,” Bobbi said, handing me the phone. She shoved her hands beneath the covers of my bed against my face.

“Make them go away,” I whined and settled down into my sheets, wrapping my arms around myself and tucking my face against Cael’s bunched-up shirt. It had been two weeks since I had left Harbor, one since I had gotten in a massive fight with Julien and kicked him out for good, and three days spent wallowing in my bedroom with takeout and bad television. Christmas was a week away and all I wanted to do was melt out of existence so the guilt and heartbreak would cease.

“Not this time, it’s important.” Bobbi ripped back the blankets, fighting against my grip but eventually winning out. “I swear,” she growled and stared at me. Her lips pressed into a tight unimpressed line. “Stop acting like you’re dying and answer this call.”

I grumbled and snatched the phone from her as I struggled to sit up in bed and pressed the receiver to my ear. “Hello?” I snapped.

“Clementine?” Ella’s voice was sweet as honey even over the phone.

Panic flooded me.

“Is he alright?” I asked, putting the phone on speaker, suddenly much more awake and aware .

“No,” she said and then followed it up quickly with a “yeah, but no.”

“Alright?” I said, confused about the reasoning for the phone call if everything was fine.

“Cael is…” I hadn’t heard her stumble before. She was too quick-witted and eloquent for her to stutter her thoughts. “He’s sad.”

“He’s a big boy, Ella,” I said, tucking a strand of dirty hair away from my face and ignoring the twinge of pain that flickered through me at the thought of him being sad enough for Ella to reach out to me. And then like a tidal wave, his voice washed over me. ‘I made you sad.’ And I hated myself for doing that to him.

“I called because I need to know something. He won’t talk about it, but I need to hear you say it so I can help him,” she said.

“What?” My fingers found my wrist, rolling the threaded bracelet between them to keep my mind from spiraling to dark places.

Bobbi sank into the bed across from me listening and watching intently.

“Do you love him?” Ella asked.

Yes.

The silence stretched on. Bobbi groaned and leaned over pressing mute on the call.

“Don’t you dare lie to her,” she growled at me and unmuted it with a serious look on her face. She narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at me.

“Clementine, are you still there?” Ella said softly.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I responded, but I still wondered if I could tell her the truth.

I continued to stare at the phone, flipping the bracelet around on my wrist, trying to make a decision. I could smell him on my skin and in my hair, feel his fingertips on my body, and hear his voice in the back of my mind, but… was that enough?

“She does,” Bobbi blurted. “She’s sitting here like a deer in headlights, but I know she loves that bleach blond Ken doll more than anyone and anything she has ever loved in her entire life.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you weren’t alone.” Ella quietly laughed.

“I’m Bobbi, her best friend and apparently the only honest person in the room,” Bobbi snapped.

Ella laughed. “ It’s nice to meet you, Bobbi, I have one of you and, Clementine… if she’s anything like Zoey. She’s right.”

Bobbi sat back triumphantly and held her arms out mocking me.

“I do,” I finally said in a defeated voice, causing Bobbi to drop her arms and sigh gently, the confession lifting a weight off her shoulders. She gave me a sympathetic smile and brushed her hand over my cheek.

“Good, we have work to do,” Ella said quickly in a hushed voice.

Ella had explained that something was wrong with Cael, like he was a shell of who he usually is. His recovery was still intact. He hadn’t slipped when I left, which was a small mercy that had been consuming me. I had almost called a few times just to check in on him, but I knew the implications that would carry.

The work that followed wasn’t as complicated as I expected.

Bobbi, my Momma, and I were booked on flights to Harbor for New Year's Day.

The day of the Rivals exhibition game.

I stood, my hands quivering in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, my hair loose around my face just praying that I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself as I started to walk down the stands toward the field.

“Keep going!” Bobbi grumbled under her breath and shooed me.

The dirty look I tossed over my shoulder had her backing up and raising her hands in surrender. I was doing okay until the cameras swung on me and my rosy cheeks and terrified expression showed up on the big screen. Stumbling on the step but quickly recovering. I was not that little Texan girl, seventeen and without confidence. Flightless and living in a shadow. Drawing in a long breath, I dug deep and pulled out that wild child, the confident woman who had found herself with wings.

Doing my best to ignore the crowd I spoke again.

“I’m assuming you know the rules of baseball, you know how outs work?” I asked into the mic, that time without the horrible squeal. Cael’s eyes were on the screen and then his body was turning around on the batter's box as he searched for me. But he smiled, bright and goofy and nodded as he continued to search for me in the crowd.

I stopped in the two hundreds on a long concrete platform and stared down over the field. “I can do this,” I whispered under my breath before bringing the mic up. “Moving seventeen hundred miles away was strike one,” I said. “It may not have been your choice but every day after was.”

Cael scowled, tossing the bat with his helmet against the cage before he rolled out his shoulders. He continued in a slow circle, time dragging painfully slowly until his eyes met mine, and he inhaled so deeply even from a distance I could see his chest rise and fall. My heart was racing so fast I thought it might explode from my chest as he looked at me.

“Strike two?” He called out to me. His voice carried over the stadium and ran a shiver down my spine.

“Strike two happened when you clipped your own wings,” I said tightly just trying to control the shake in my voice. “Such a stupid, reckless thing to do! You were born to fly, Cael Cody!” The crowd cheered at that one, a lady standing from her seat next to me and screaming at the top of her lungs started a wave through the entire stadium.

I walked down another flight of stairs, resting against the navy banister that separated the lower bowl seats from the upper. Cael stared at me, the bright white lights glimmering across his shocked expression. With a single blink, he was there, that boy, big blue eyes shining bright as he came down off the porch with an infectious smile.

I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“You are the most insufferable, idiotic, feral, and stubborn…” I held up my wrist to show him the bracelet that I rebraided once again to include the all old threads. His eyes flickered from wrist to my eyes, “…person I know, and since the day you wrapped this stupid string around my wrist I knew I would never love anyone the way I love you. I’m sorry that you felt like you had to trade me spots in the box but you didn’t. If you wanna fly, Cael, do it, I’ll cheer you on and if you want to live in that stupid box forever, I’ll live in that box with you.”

Cael smiled with a little trembling nod, his eyes glassy as he ran his hands through his sweaty blond hair. He stepped forward and laced his fingers into the batting cage, the whole stadium lowering to a hush as I spoke.

“Is that strike three?” He asked, squinting up at me. “That I’m stubborn and stupid?” A laugh so wild and free bubbled from him that I felt that feeling through to my toes.

“No!” I shook my head. “Strike three is because you’re still standing there like a fool, and I have waited seven years to be kissed again!”

The stadium erupted and my heart was pounding so fast I thought that it might explode from my chest when he didn’t say anything or move from his spot on the field. No one had ever lived up to the feeling of that night, wrapped in Cael, knowing it was the first and last. I had spent seven years chasing that high only to be disappointed when I was left empty. Suddenly it was just us again, standing in my room, the sound was me blurting out that I wanted it to be him .

That little girl thrust back into reality so violently that it made my breath stutter and my hands shake harder. The longer he stood there, the louder the doubt grew in my head, echoing around in a haunting chorus of he doesn’t love you back .

Cael’s Cheshire grin faded at my words, his chest huffing out as he took one last look at me and took off running. With both hands on the railing, he hauled himself up into the stands and over the barrier. The crowd cheered and my heart raced so fast I forgot how to breathe.

He jogged up the final stairs taking two steps at a time with his long length, standing just below me completely out of breath, tilting his chin up to look up at me. “You gotta come down,” he said with a small laugh.

“It’s too far,” I said nervously as I took in the small drop to the next platform. The barrier between us was too high and not meant to be crossed.

“It’s not,” he lowered his voice but his smile only grew, “I’ll catch you, Clem.”

I set the mic down and the crowd cheered louder as I climbed one foot at a time over the railing, sliding down so my legs hung over the edge, Cael reached out to me. I braced myself on his shoulders as his strong arms guided me down to my feet.

“It took you long enough.” I scowled.

“I’ve been trying to kiss you since you got here.” Cael shook his head and a strand of blond hair fell against his forehead .

“You’ve been trying to kiss her ,” I said. The old Clementine, the one that didn’t exist anymore. He stared at me, blue eyes searching around for the meaning, and when he found it his lips curled into a brilliant smile.

The crowd’s eyes turned upward around us as snow started to fall effortlessly in soft swirling patterns through the half open roof of the stadium. Everything was perfect. He was perfect.

“Cael if you don’t—” I started to scowl but he moved so quickly I didn’t have the time to.

He captured my lips in a tender, needy kiss, so warm and wanting that my hands tangled against his jersey and my toes curled in my shoes. Cael’s hands cupped my face, fingers resting against my jaw and curling behind my ears as he tilted my chin to meet his. There was no one but us, the crowd faded away to nothing but an empty stadium. My fingers dug into the fabric and pulled Cael as close as I could get him.

Seven years of longing poured from him, deepening the kiss to impossible places as his grip grew tighter. I couldn’t breathe, but I felt like I was flying. Clementine and Cael came crashing together again, new versions of ourselves. I could hear the thudding of our combined racing hearts as we melted together.

Cael grinned against my mouth, a smile so bright it spread warmth through my entire body as he pulled away, carding his hand through my hair and tucking my face against his chest. The overwhelming thunder of applause rushed back into my ears and the stadium came to life.

“I’m going to kill Ella.” He laughed into my hair as I tilted my head up to the big screen at the far end of the field only to see our faces framed in a kiss cam heart. Embarrassment rushed to my cheeks, but his fingers found my wrist, brushing against the bracelet mindlessly as I hid my face and tried to catch my breath.