Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chris was getting better at recognizing when a panic attack was coming on. It was the adrenaline spike, as if a line drive was heading straight for him, the way he suddenly got real focused on his breathing. In, out. In, out. It seemed impossible that his body just knew how to do that by itself, that it wouldn't fuck it up somehow.

He'd grabbed his keys without really knowing where he was going, but he didn't want to drive. He didn't want to be in the car at all, not when it still contained the echoes of some of what they'd said to each other. He pulled his baseball cap lower over his eyes, and started walking down the sidewalk.

Daphne was Duckie. He was still reeling from the revelation. She'd lied to him. He couldn't even think about all the times she'd asked him a question she probably already knew the answer to, or carefully meted out what she told him about her own life.

God, he felt so stupid. The clues had all been there, if he'd just stopped to pay attention. There were so many commonalities—the divorce, the cat, even her nervousness around driving. But none of those things by itself was that unusual, right? Lots of people got divorced, or had a cat. He never connected her to Duckie because it had never occurred to him that she'd have any reason to keep some secret identity from him.

Every single moment they'd spent together was now tainted with this extra layer, this knowledge that she'd had and kept from him. Even when they'd sat down for that first interview, she had already been talking with him for almost a week. He'd sat across from her saying banal shit about how he felt about the game and the crowd, and she'd already known exactly what was going on with him. She probably hadn't been surprised when he'd walked off.

And then afterward, she was who he'd turned to. He'd texted all that shit about needing a friend, about wanting to keep talking to her. She must've gotten a real kick out of that. When he wouldn't talk to her in person, she had him on her phone. And when she was ready to be with him in person, she could just ditch him through her text alter ego, leave him wondering what the hell had happened even as she propositioned him in real life.

He was out of breath, way more out of breath than he should've been just from walking. He needed to stop, he needed to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit. Eventually he came to a space between two buildings that was too narrow to be a proper alleyway, but enough room that he could lean his back against the wall, his hands on his knees while he tried to breathe more deeply. In, out. In, out.

You can't white-knuckle your way through the whole season. He could do whatever the fuck he put his mind to. He'd devoted his life to baseball. He'd been a middle schooler who'd spent every night at the ballpark, doing his homework in the dugout while he waited for his turn to hit. He'd barely had a life in high school or college, because he knew that every minute he spent away from training could mean the difference between a scholarship or not, getting drafted or not. He'd taken up running, biking, Pilates, he'd lifted weights, he'd eaten a more plant-based diet, a high-protein diet, he'd had surgeries, he'd rehabbed injuries, he'd done anything they told him to do, all in the name of baseball. And it was worth it. He could let his team down, could let himself down, but the sport was always there. The stitches on the ball felt the same, you knew exactly where to stand and what your job was, and you had twenty-seven outs to make your case, no matter what.

Put your faith in people, and you were bound to get hurt. Put your faith in the game—not even the people, not your teammates or your manager or anyone else, but the game—and you couldn't go wrong.

When Chris finally got going again, he automatically turned down a few streets until he realized he was making his way to Randy's place. The All-Star Game wasn't until tomorrow night, but he couldn't think where else to go.