Chapter Seven

After winning that first game, the Battery had ended up losing the series to the Dodgers. It didn't exactly put Chris in a "going out" kind of mood, but Randy insisted that it would be just what he needed.

"Tomorrow's a travel day," he pointed out, "and we can pour you onto the plane in the morning if we have to. Come on, man, live it up."

Advice that sounded easy enough coming from Randy, but it didn't come as naturally to Chris. Even once they were at the club, he felt awkward and out of place. The bass vibrated through his body so hard it made his bones hurt, and that was on top of his sore shoulder, which he'd injured last year and which still bothered him sometimes. Randy and a couple of the other guys immediately peeled off to hit the dance floor, but Chris leaned against the bar and ordered a whiskey. He'd have one, he decided, and then hang out long enough to say he'd done it.

While he waited for the bartender to pour his drink, he pulled out his phone, automatically opening it to Instagram. He'd been checking it more lately. His friend who'd been hiking in Zion had messaged him, reiterating his regrets about Chris' brother and saying he and his girlfriend might be in Colorado when the Battery played there and would Chris want to try to get together? Chris typed a quick response, saying sure, even if he had a hard time thinking that far ahead.

Still no new message from Duckie. But what had he expected? He'd been the one to shut down the conversation so abruptly, and although she'd reacted to his message with a little heart that let him know she'd received it, she hadn't otherwise written anything new. He'd checked her own posts, just out of idle curiosity he told himself, and she'd posted once since the last time they'd communicated. It was a picture of a hardcover book called The Seas, with a brief caption: This one rearranged something in me.

He liked the way she used that word. Rearranged.

He opened up the chat window again, staring at the heart on his last message. It would be just past three in the morning on the East Coast, which meant there would be no chance of her actually seeing any message he sent in real time. He typed a couple of sentences, only to delete his first attempt and start over. But the second one was shit, so he deleted that, too.

"Whatchu drinking?" Randy said at his elbow, flagging down the bartender. "I'll get you another."

Chris' tumbler had a lot of drink left, and he took an obligatory sip just to show Randy he was still working on it. "I'm good," he said. "Let me buy yours."

Randy grinned at him. "Won't say no to that," he said, and Chris gestured to the bartender to let him know to put the drink on his tab.

"If we played in a big market like this," Randy said, "I bet we'd be getting surrounded by people here. Like everyone wanting our autographs and shit."

Chris shrugged. "Sure. If we played for LA, we'd be more recognizable in LA."

"No, but I mean, like anywhere. I go to clubs in Charleston and people barely know who I am. They come up to me about my tattoo, but half the time it's just because they're also from the D.R. or know someone who is. Which is cool, don't get me wrong. But you get it."

He slung back the tequila shot the bartender had set in front of him, the giant Dominican Republic flag tattoo on his forearm rippling. Chris had seen Randy get recognized plenty of times, so he knew he was exaggerating. Randy also lit up when interacting with anyone from his family's homeland, so Chris knew it wasn't something the younger player took for granted. At the same time, Randy was only a couple years into his career in the major leagues, and he was driven and passionate. He wanted a big career, wanted to be the guy on all the highlight reels, and he was seeming to understand that he might not have that chance playing with the Battery.

Chris tried to remember when he'd felt that way. He must have, at some point. He'd been like any other young guy, dreaming of making it to the big show, wanting to follow in the footsteps of the players he'd idolized as a kid. Even playing at Dodger Stadium the past three days, he couldn't deny it—there was something extra special in the air.

But now he couldn't imagine anything worse than the idea of being recognized every time he left the house, of having even more pressure on him than he already felt. The only good thing about that clip of him starting to cry was that his face was only visible for a second before it crumpled, his batting helmet helping to hide at least some of his identifiable features. As long as he stayed in this dark corner at the end of the bar, he should be able to get through the night without incident.

Back in Charleston, on the other hand…

Chris took a long swallow of his drink. It burned his throat a little bit, but in a pleasant way. He was starting to feel looser already. "I'm worried when we get home everyone will know exactly who I am."

Randy grimaced with a face like, oh yeah, you should be worried. "I don't know, man," he said. "I think people are on your side. That chick who was yelling at you, she's the one in the hot seat now."

This time the burn of the drink wasn't quite as smooth, and Chris coughed, his voice coming out a rasp. "What?"

"You didn't see the video?" Randy said, pulling his phone out of his back pocket. "It's kinda funny, actually. Hang on."

In a few seconds, a video filled the screen—Carolina Battery heckler gets heckled, a breakdown. This fucking guy. Chris had seen his videos before. Honestly, they had great analysis and were often pretty funny…unless you happened to be the subject of one for some error that had cost your team the game. Or unless you happened to be the guy who'd had an eight-second breakdown that could apparently be broken down into countless hours of content for days after.

He recognized her right away. She was slight, with reddish curly hair. She kept nervously tucking it behind her ear as she made her way out of the bar, her head down, until she seemed to realize that it would be better to let her hair cover her face. She pulled her purse in front of her body, as though she needed that extra shield before going into battle. The bar wasn't completely packed, but it had a decent crowd, and by the time she left they all seemed to be focused on her. The sound was a crackling mess of noise, but Chris could make out a few choice words, including a couple from whoever was filming the video. This particular YouTuber—who didn't film anything himself for these videos, just compiled footage and put his own commentary over it—started describing the whole situation, but Chris paused the video and handed Randy back his phone. He'd seen enough.

"Has she been identified?" he asked.

Randy scrolled through the comments, frowning down at his phone. "Not here. I think there was an article that named her, though."

Fuck.That was the last thing Chris wanted.

"It'll blow over," Randy said. "Seriously. Remember that dude a couple years ago, the football player who got called out for taking a nap in the locker room at halftime and being an absolute bear to wake up?"

The corner of Chris' mouth twitched. "No."

"Exactly." Randy clapped him on the back. "Now are you going to get your ass out here on the dance floor or what?"

Chris held up his drink. "Not enough of these in the world."

They didn't have to pour him onto the plane the next morning, but he definitely felt a little worse for wear after his early wake-up call to load onto the bus to the airport. Randy, meanwhile, was bouncing on his toes and talking in rapid-fire Spanish to a few of the other Latin players. Fucking twenty-five-year-olds.

His brother Tim used to love throwing their three-year age gap in Chris' face. No matter what, it always seemed to come out in his favor. When he was Chris' age, he'd say, no way would Dad have let him go to Dorney Park alone with a friend. But then later he'd say when he was Chris' age, he was already mature enough to have his own after-school job.

He'd loved his brother, but sometimes it had been exhausting, that constant need Tim had had to compete. Their dad definitely hadn't helped. He loved to pit the two boys against each other, compare one to the other. And the metrics and standards always changed, so what earned you high marks at Christmas wouldn't always be impressive by Easter. Then again, Chris was rarely able to be around at Easter, or Memorial Day, or the Fourth of July. He hadn't meant to be in only sporadic touch with his brother, but his schedule had been so busy, and there'd been so much other stuff he needed to focus on.

Now he wondered if he'd known more about what was going on, if he'd have been able to do anything differently. He wished he'd paid more attention. That was a dangerous road to go down, one he traveled most nights when he couldn't fall asleep.

A morning flight when they didn't play until the next day was definitely a different experience than the late-night variety right after a game. They felt more businesslike, where guys were apt to keep to themselves or keep things low-key in smaller groups. Chris shoved his duffel bag in the overhead compartment and snagged a window seat, pulling out his phone like most of the other guys already seated had done.

He opened up Instagram again and scrolled through his feed quickly, not stopping to really see anything. Thinking about his brother made him type his name into the search bar, pulling up his old account that still sat there, last updated five months ago. It was one of the worst things he could possibly do and yet he couldn't seem to stop himself.

The last picture was from a couple weeks before Christmas. It was a picture of the tree in Tim's house, Tim's face slightly blurry in one corner as he tried to get a selfie with the decorations in the background. How do lights always get tangled no matter what you do??? Comments underneath from various friends of Tim's had all basically been Right?! or suggestions for how to pack the lights next time.

Chris had seen Tim at Christmas. His brother had seemed like he was doing really well then. He'd talked about a new network engineer job he might apply for, that had better pay and a shorter commute than the job he had. He'd seemed hopeful.

Chris slid back to his own profile, just as a way to exit out of his brother's. He'd rarely commented on his brother's posts—not because he didn't love him or care about what was going on in his life, but just because he always thought it was silly to have these tiny, meaningless interactions publicly with people who you interacted with privately in a more meaningful way. But now he questioned that, too, wondered if those small gestures of reaching out were meaningless after all. If he could go back in time, he'd comment on every single one.

He started going through his own profile, deleting each post starting with the most recent and working his way down. He paused for only a second on one, a video clip of him hitting a home run he could still remember viscerally, the impact of the ball on the bat, the loud crack that he immediately knew meant it was out of the park. His agent hadn't had to post that one—he'd posted it himself, with a caption underneath. This feeling.

It made his chest clench just to see it, to think about who he'd been then and who he was now. He deleted that post, too, and kept going.

The plane had been in the air for twenty minutes by the time he finished. There had probably been a faster way to do that, some way to reset your whole account, but it had been oddly satisfying to go through it one by one. After those first few, he'd barely glanced at the picture itself, not really wanting to take a trip down memory lane. Now his feed was a blank black square.

He was about to delete Instagram entirely, but before he did he opened up his last message exchange with duckiesbooks one more time.

Sorry about that, he typed. I'm not on here much. If you ever want to say hi, just text me.

He sent it before he could talk himself out of it, adding his cell phone number to the bottom. Then he deleted the app from his phone.