Chapter 10

The next morning, I slink into my parents’ bedroom. Dad is nowhere to be found, but Mom is still in bed. Crawling onto the mattress, I rub her shoulder until she turns to me.

“You awake?” I ask, taking in her bed head and wrinkled sweatshirt.

“Yeah…yes,” she says, sitting up with effort.

“Coming down for breakfast?”

She weighs the question as if I asked her how to achieve world peace.

“I picked up pancake mix. I can make some.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not hungry.”

My mom had a full-time job as a paralegal, but she hasn’t returned to work since Valentine’s Day, and I can only assume early retirement has become her new reality. Too bad she’s spending it wasting away in bed.

Not that I don’t want to do the same.

“I have the day off. We can go get our nails done,” I offer, an activity we haven’t done together since I was in high school.

She wipes at her eyes. “Do you need something, Cassie?”

I need my mom, but I don’t tell her that. How could I? Can I really blame her for acting this way after her son has died?

“No,” I murmur, and she slips back down under her covers.

“Close the door on your way out.”

Giving up for now, I make my way back downstairs for my keys and purse. Even though I don’t have extra money to burn, I go to the mall, or at least what’s left of it. Seeing the pathetic, largely useless two-story building that had, at one time, been bustling and is now basically a half-empty husk, fills me with something similar to camaraderie.

I test out lotions at Bath Body Works because it reminds me of when I was a kid. Of when my worst day was going to school with a perm in sixth grade because I’d been desperate for curly hair, and Seth Abrams told me I looked like a poodle. I try on shoes I’ll never buy and admire jewelry I’ll never afford because my bank account is barely surviving at this point.

I go into the bookstore and treat myself to a leisurely walk around each and every stack. I used to have time to read books, real ones with old, dog-eared pages from the secondhand bookstore down the street from my apartment in the city. Now, reading is a luxury. Like my time.

Whenever I have a few hours to myself, I usually watch the Game Show Network. I don’t have the brain power to open a book, let alone use reading comprehension skills to follow along with words on a page. I’m too mentally exhausted to read, but I find myself pulling different books off the shelf in the self-help section. They all deal with death. When I read the backs, most of them are general volumes on meditation or the mechanics of grief. There are books directed at children losing their parents, parents losing a child, the loss of a husband or wife, even one about the passing of a best friend. No siblings, though.

I wonder why I can’t find one written about the death of a sibling, and I consider how people view siblings. We don’t pick our brothers and sisters, and yet they’re our first friends. We can hate and love each other in the same breath, be adversaries and accomplices. Sibling bonds are certainly complicated, and it seems someone should have a book navigating the grief of losing one. Or, at the very least, acknowledging it.

Then again, maybe I’m the only one who can’t get it together. If there were such a need, someone would have filled it already. I’d assume.

I leave the store without purchasing any books and consider going for a walk in the park to clear my head, but it’s still a little too cold out for me, so I sit in my car debating where to go next. Not much to do on a Saturday afternoon. By habit, I lift my phone to scroll my social media apps then think twice and, instead, open my text thread with Vince, finally taking the plunge to let him know.

What are you doing? I type.

Hello to you too.

What are you doing right now?

I’m fine. How are you? he replies, and I groan even though he can’t hear me.

OMG. You’re like my brother, I message, thinking of how Ray had always wanted me to text him like we were having a conversation in person. Weirdo.

Great minds. he responds.

I have the day off, and I’m by myself.

And you’re texting me because you need a friend? He adds a thinking-face emoji, but it doesn’t take the sting out of the situation. I do need a friend.

Could you hear the desperation in my texts?

A smidge.

I sigh and sip of my coffee, not wanting to be that person. I don’t want to be stuck in a hole, unable to dig out. I want out; I just don’t know where to find a shovel.

Want to hang out? he asks, and I’m happy he does so I don’t have to.

Yeah.

Meet me at the Turf in an hour.

I agree without even searching where or what the Turf is until after I’ve started my car. Turns out the Turf is a batting cage.

Does he really think I’m the type of woman to go to a batting cage?

I so obviously am not. And yet, I drive there anyway, fooling myself into believing I’m going solely because I need a friend—any friend—and not because it’s Vince who will be there.

I wait on a blue plastic chair next to the door of the Turf for Vince to show up. The walls are covered in posters of who I assume are professional baseball players, along with a few pictures of little league teams full of the kids’ smiling faces. This is exactly the type of place my brother probably frequented, and sadness overpowers me. I pick up a Sports Illustrated to take my mind off him. The article about some college basketball coach doesn’t do it, but Vince finally strolling in does.

“Hey, Cass,” he says like he’s been speaking my name every day for the last decade, and I’m unsure of how to greet him. Although, he doesn’t have the same problem and opens his arms for a hug.

I hesitate for a moment, and he smiles. That one little lift of his lips on the left side has me wrapping my arms around his torso before I’ve even consciously thought it. I haven’t seen him in almost a month, and we’re barely acquaintances. But the way he folds me into him with one arm banded around my waist and the other around my shoulder so his hand can cup my neck, and his head bent down low enough that I can hear him breathing… It’s intimate. I lean my chin against the indent of his collarbone, the perfect spot, and he tightens his hold, pushing a breath out of my lungs. He’s squeezing the life out of me.

Or into me, I’m not sure.

“Can I help you guys?”

Vince releases me suddenly and my weight moves forward, and I have to rebalance myself as if he’d been holding me up. I try to brush the thought away of how much I needed or wanted him to.

He steps around me to a bearded guy in a polo behind the counter. They exchange a few words, the worker’s eyes briefly drifting to me. I’m out of place in my boots and jeans. It’s obvious I don’t belong here, but Vince doesn’t mention anything about the thud of my steps next to him as we walk.

When Vince showed up the day after it happened, I hadn’t bothered to pay attention to what he looked like, not really. Now, though, I study him in quick side glances. He’s handsome in an old-school sort of way, like he walked out of a Rat Pack movie, with his slightly curly sideswept hair and square jaw and long nose. He should always be in his suit with a skinny tie because his sweats and sneakers look so out of place on him. And yet, he’s so at ease in his body, it’s impossible to ignore his confident gait. Same goes for that nagging little heartache I had for him as a young girl that’s suddenly rushing back.

He stops at a stand lined with bats and holds one out to me. “See if you like this one.”

I take it between my fingers. It’s heavier than it appears.

“Can you swing it? Try.”

I sway it in a downward arc around my legs, and he rolls his eyes at me then lifts a gray helmet from another rack. With a plop of it on my head, he smacks the top of it twice. “How’s that?”

I wobble my head back and forth. “Peachy.”

“Perfect.” He retrieves his own bat and helmet and marches up to a netted cage, opening the overlapping netting and motioning inside expectantly. “Wanna go first?”

“No, I’m good,” I say, and he raises his brow in a challenge, but I shake my head.

He clucks his tongue like he’s disappointed, but his mouth curves my way as he puts on his helmet before walking inside like he’s home. He inserts two gold coins into what looks like a plain metal box with a couple buttons, presses the green one on the top, and then takes his place outside of the plate. He wiggles his butt a little—my fourteen-year-old self collapses—and lifts his bat in the air. He swings and hits every ball that flies at him from the other side of the batting cage.

It’s clear he’s in his element. He’s so good at this—perfect, as far as I can tell. I remember him playing baseball with Ray, that he was really good. A catcher, which was why he and Ray, the pitcher, were such great friends. Like they were on one wavelength, spoke another language all their own.

I don’t know what happened after high school, probably what happens to a lot of people. They simply lost touch, and I’m suddenly desperate to know what happened for all those lost years. I need to fill in the blanks.

Especially why he’s here.

With me.

I’m intimidated by the whole scene, of this place and of him, but I pretend not to be with one hand on my bat and the other on my hip. When the balls finally stop flying at him, he pivots to me, and I whistle. He saunters out of the cage, grinning. A light sheen of sweat highlights his forehead, his flushed cheeks.

I lean dramatically against his shoulder. “Be still my beating heart. A man who knows what to do with balls.”

The line of his lips slowly curls up, his attempt at not smiling eventually failing. He taps my hip twice, the expanse of his hand finding me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Your turn.”

“Eh. I’ll pass.” I stand upright, putting a few inches of space between us, uncomfortable being so comfortable with him.

“You agreed to meet me here. You’ve got the bat and the helmet, but you’re going to pass?”

I swing the bat over my shoulder, and it haphazardly knocks into my helmet. “Not really my scene.”

“Not really your scene,” he mumbles in his faux irritation that I remember so well from years ago. Bordering on flirtatious. He curves his hot palms over my shoulders and bodily spins me around, pushing me forward, through the netting, crowding me into the batting cage.

“Stand over there,” he says, indicating to place he stood. “Are you right or left-handed?”

“Right.”

“Okay.” He tugs me by the arm to stand outside of the plate. With light touches on my elbows, knees, hips, and shoulders, he moves me into the position of a real baseball player. Sort of. “You’re holding the bat too low. Choke up a bit.”

“Huh?”

He slides my hands up higher on the bat and keeps his fingers over mine. “You’ll have more control of your swing this way. How does it feel?”

I angle my head so I can turn to look at him. This close, I reacquaint myself with the individual gray and brown flecks in his eyes, the few freckles on the bridge of his nose, the mole he has on the side of his throat, right above his collar. His skin is naturally bronzed, and he smells new yet familiar, like pine soap and that waft of warm air when you first open the door to summer.

When he raises his brow, evidently awaiting my answer, I blink away. “Okay, I guess.”

He backs away from me and goes over to the box to insert more coins. With a press of the green button, he directs me, “Keep your eye on the ball and swing as hard as you can.”

The ball releases from the chute on the other end with a rattling shoop, and it flies right at me. I jump back.

“Don’t be afraid of it,” Vince says. “Hit it.”

“I’m not afraid.” I step back into position. “Just scared me.”

He laughs and mimes choking up on the bat, and by the time I’m situated in position, another ball has passed by me.

“Eye on the ball,” he says, and I take a swing at the next one. Miss.

And the next one, miss.

And the one after that.

I miss every single ball until the machine quiets at the other end. “This is so stupid.” I rip off my helmet. “What’s the point?”

“The point is to hit the ball.” He slides more coins into the machine. “Try again.”

I spin around as the balls start flying again. The first one hits the back of the net with a soft plunk and falls to the ground.

“You giving up? Already?” he calls out, goading me.

Growling, I put my helmet back on, then take my stance and focus on the machine at the other end, not taking my gaze off it. And the next time a ball comes at me, I swing the stupid bat as hard as I can and hit it. The white ball lobs up to the top of the netting almost straight above me.

Vince claps his hands a few feet away from me, but I don’t look at him. I keep focus and swing again. I hit the next ball.

I channel all my pent-up energy into it. My grasp on the bat slickens, my fingers holding on so tight, but I don’t stop. The clang of the bat meeting the ball is an audible echo for my anger. I yell out on the next swing. It’s barbaric, and I don’t care. I want to slam all of my rage into the ball and send it flying out into the atmosphere.

And when the balls finally stop coming, I drop the bat to my side, my arms and shoulders exhausted. Vince seems reasonably impressed. I nod at him. “I want to go again.”

He grins. “That’s what I like to hear.”