4. Scarlet

FOUR

SCARLET

The classroom Jennings had set up when the Nighthawks joined the rotation of professional teams taking on interns is surrounded by weeks of MRIs cataloging the deterioration in Remington's hip. Off to the right, shrouded in shadows, the projection screen has been pulled down and is prominently displaying his collision with Atlanta from various angles in slow motion. Around me, the other students that make up my classmates are fielding questions and defending their hypotheses as Jennings pokes holes, their pens scurrying across their notes. Each one of them is engrossed in the unexpected real life experience with season ending injuries we're now receiving. All of them desensitized to what we witnessed not twelve hours earlier and continue to experience each time the recording loops back through.

I want to tune it out. To let it fade into the background. To keep myself as detached as everyone else is. A clear line drawn in the sand between the staff and the players we care for. But it's like a trainwreck. My eyes are stuck on the replay no matter how desperately I want to look away. Not to have to see the hyper extension of Remington's hip as he hits the ground or feel the jarring impact when Atlanta's third baseman lands on top of him, quickly followed by their fucking moronic pitcher. All night it had played in my head, over and over again, until I gave up on the faint possibility of sleeping.

Seeing him injured and knowing there was a chance that this was it, that his career was over, was a very real fear of mine. I didn't realize I held that level of concern for him. We weren't anything more than whatever teasing flirtation had transpired between us during the slow moments of practice, training, and games.

Tucking away the realization that Remi might mean more to me than I'd thought was hard though. Even harder than preventing myself from watching his collison and stopping my breath from hitching and my face from wincing at the impact. The hardest yet being his words to me as I was consumed by the sight of him laying there in pain on third base.

Hey, baby girl.

What space in my mind wasn't taken up by the brutal impact of the accident has been occupied by those three little words.

Hey, baby girl.

What possessed him to say that? So publicly no less. We had been surrounded by the umpires, Atlanta's players and coaches, our players, my brother— and my dad. All night, I watched them both for any indication that they had heard Remington. Studying them as closely as I could to see if, through the chaos, their catcher's words had been caught.

However, in the last twelve hours, neither one of them had given any indication to lead me to believe they had. And, of the two of them, Roman most definitely would have said something about it and made his opinion on the matter unerringly clear if he had. Possibly going as far as to injure Remington's other hip to insure he wouldn't play again and thus be removed from the Nighthawks and my presence.

His hypervigilance over me has existed since he came to live with us. At first it felt stifling. Especially when I wanted the true high school experience—or at least what I had assumed it to be based on the movies I saw and books I read having always been homeschooled. But I soon realized he wasn't trying to smother me. He merely wanted to shelter and preserve my naivety from the callousness of people and the world.

Then, after what happened when I joined him at the University of Tennessee for college, I clung to his protection. He provided a much needed sense of security by having full control over who came around me, because clearly both our judgements were compromised. It was easier in the aftermath to simply close ranks than risk ever being hit like that again. And while I knew—and if in a rational state of mind, Roman did as well—that Remington was nothing like them, like him , my brother was anything but rational anymore when someone showed prolonged interest in me. Not even his teammates had his trust off the field. Not since that night.

Finally shaking myself free of the constant replay in my head in order to keep the doors of my past closed, I return to the flurry of discussion around me just as a stress ball made to look like a baseball comes hurtling my way.

Reaching out to snatch it, Brady's snicker melts from his face as it's intercepted by a massive hand. Lobbing it back so it pelts him in the chest with a smack, Remington collapses into a graceless heap at my otherwise empty table, groaning in defeat as his crutches clatter on the floor.

Shifting around in the seat, his face hardly visible around his hoodie and the low bill of his cap, he leans forward and growls, "Hey fucker, next time you want to throw something at her, make sure there isn't someone around who gets paid to catch 100 mile per hour fast balls coming at his face."

"Ah Tate, you made it," Jennings announces, drawing our attention back to the front like errant children. "How's your pain this morning? Do you want us to administer that shot now?"

"You didn't give him anything to manage his pain last night?" I nearly accuse, my tone only softening on the last syllables when Remington's hand drops under the table to squeeze my knee.

"Oh I tried, but he was very adamant in his choice. Insisted he could make it until surgery tomorrow without intervention."

Swiveling around in my seat and knocking his hand free of my leg before someone sees, I ask, "Are you insane?" My question is more focused on his openly searing touch than his current course of treatment. "You are aware that it's not just to make you more comfortable, right? Quality rest ahead of surgery is paramount, but it also helps to manage the swelling in your joint and makes your stunted mobility a bit easier to bear. You're about to be on an extremely regimented and accelerated recovery program and need to be taking care of yourself. Did you even sleep last night?" I ask, reaching up to remove his hat and push back his hood to better examine him.

One night and already his face is lined with exhaustion. His hazel eyes are wary and accentuated with puffy, purple hued shadows. Even the crepe coloring of his normally plush lips seems to have dimmed overnight, his bottom lip showing signs of moderate dehydration as they look ready to peel and crack.

"Did you?" he quietly counters, glancing towards my oversized tumbler filled with iced coffee.

"I'm not the one going into surgery tomorrow morning."

"Yes, but you will be the one overseeing my, ‘regimented and accelerated,' recovery. Meaning, you need to rest too if you're going to be ready to hit the ground running with me post-op. And enough caffeine to induce cardiac arrest in an elephant is not a viable substitute for sleep. I may bench press more than you weigh on a regular day, but I can barely walk right now, so I'll be absolutely useless in helping if you drop from a heart attack or exhaustion mid-training. Not to mention I don't particularly relish the butt whooping Roman'll administer if I let something happen to you. He won't pull his punches just because I'm a lame horse right now. So let's consider you taking care of yourself as an extension of taking care of me."

"Oh please, you're being as dramatic as he is during a massage. Besides, this is only my second cup."

"Doesn't count when there's at least three cups worth inside your one.

"Grad student," I enunciate. "I'm used to running on less than adequate sleep. And not that it's any of your business, but this morning is an extenuating—wait," I interrupt, turning back to the front. "Did he just say I'm overseeing his rehab?"

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Brady mutters as the handful of other students in the room all glance my way, several of them beginning to whisper.

"Yes, he did," Jennings broadly smiles. "As everyone here is already aware, with my wife's due date approaching, I'm set to begin my paternity leave any week now. Things were already in motion to begin shuffling you around to intern under the other trainers here as well as to put someone into the position of rehabbing Tate during the postseason and after in the offseason."

"And by that he means Jones," Brady snarked.

"Yes, I do," Jennings answered, unfazed by the rapidly simmering hostility in the room. "Each of you went up for a blind review overseen by the rest of the training staff, the coaches, and a select few of your professors over the last several semesters. Once narrowed down to their top three, Remington and I made the final selection based on academic history, knowledge over his type of injury, skills required, and probability of success. And that's not only in rehabbing him but in fulfilling the position we will have opening up come May that you all began auditioning for at the start of the semester."

That caught everyone's attention. It hadn't yet been made public knowledge that the team was actively looking to add to its staff. Rather, Jennings, as the head athletic trainer, wanted to keep the prospect quiet so as best to evaluate everyone without the inherent competition that would come with knowing there was a job with the team waiting for at least one of us upon graduation. My own knowledge of the coming vacancy's existence was only because of Roman. The retiring trainer was one of only two he allowed his guard fully to fall around and allow to touch his bare skin, Jennings being the other.

"Now in light of the severity of Remington's injury, our needs have changed. Hence this unforgiving round of Socratic discussion. The demands required upon the trainer's schedule who would be working with Tate before were easy. Your clinical hours would have remained unchanged with his schedule molding to yours.

"However, now we need someone who can accommodate his full time scheduling needs while keeping up with classwork, exams, and the semester project remotely. And as the head trainer for the Nighthawks, the decision was ultimately mine and Remington's. It's his career on the line, meaning he needs to have explicit trust in whomever he is working with."

"And that is unequivocally Scarlet," Remington closes out. "No one else in this room holds the same investment with the Nighthawks' success and the continuation of my career as she does."

Reclining back in his chair, obnoxiously clicking his pen, Brady laughs under his breath, "Oh, so that's whose dick you sit on." My hand snaps out and grabs Remington at the thigh to stop him from reacting.

"So with that in mind," Jennings says, his back to the room while he draws an outline from tomorrow's surgery to the report date for next year's Spring Training. "Scarlet, how would you proceed with Tate's recovery plan for the first ten weeks following his surgery?"