43. Avery

Daddy and Alex moved all my things into my new apartment while Yara, Willow, and I sat on my new couch, watching the men work hard. I held Teresa Marie in my arms as she slept peacefully. I couldn’t believe there was a new generation in the family. She was as perfect as ever, too.

“Okay,” I said, looking up from the sleeping baby toward my sisters. “I know you’re both thinking a lot, so go ahead and let it all out. I will give you the next”—I glanced at my watch—“three minutes to ask me anything you please about Nathan and me.”

Yara went first. “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you freak out because you love him?” Willow questioned.

“Also yes,” I replied.

“Do you miss him?” Yara asked.

I sighed, feeling a flip in my stomach. “More than words.”

“Then go get him,” Yara said, resting a comforting hand against my forearm. “You deserve love more than anyone else, Avery.”

Her words left her mouth, but they didn’t hit my soul. I couldn’t believe them to be true because my self-love was lacking. How could I accept love from anyone else?

“He got offered a job. A dream job at Prest University in Georgia. I won’t stand in his way of that opportunity, especially when I’m so wishy-washy with him. It’s not fair. It’s not right. Besides, he’s made for more than this small town. More than me,” I told them.

“Avery,” Willow scolded. “Stop making yourself sound so small. Anyone is lucky to get you. Nathan would stay for you. I know he would.”

“I do too,” I confessed. “Which is why I pushed him away. I can’t have him give up his dreams because of me. This is for the best,” I said. “He’ll go to Prest and become an amazing coach, and I’ll stay here. Everything will go back to normal. I’ll coach at the high school, and I’ll return to my life as if nothing happened between Nathan and me.”

“But so much did happen, Ave. So much good,” Willow stated. She took my hand in hers. “Avery…does Nathan make you feel?”

“Feel what?”

“Anything,” she said.

Tears burned at the back of my eyes, and I nodded slowly. “Everything. He makes me feel everything.”

Yara’s eyes flashed with tears as she reached out to wipe mine that decided to slip down my cheeks. “Ave?—”

“Time’s up,” I said with a forced smile. “And I think Teresa needs a new diaper.”

The team’stalent only grew more and more as we made our way to state. Which we did—we made it to state!

I couldn’t believe the transformation that took place over the past few months with the Honey Creek Hornets, and I knew so much of it had to do with Nathan Pierce getting on board. He wasn’t only the best thing that happened to me, but he was the best thing that happened to the team, too.

With the flurry of everything going on, we’d had interview after interview leading up to the final series. The last interview we did was with ESPN, which felt as close to the big leagues as I’d ever get. I was nervous doing an interview, especially after how the media had been toward me, but I knew it would be good to shed light on our team. The more attention we got, the more attention the boys received from the scouts.

As I sat mic’d up beside Nathan during the interview, I tried my best not to look nervous. Nathan naturally took the lead on a lot of the questioning. At some points, I felt as if the interview was trying to make little digs at Nathan about his past career and how it went up in flames. Nathan, being the professional that he’d always been, handled it with grace.

“That’s the thing about our past…it doesn’t have to shape our future,” Nathan expressed. “I’m not who I was yesterday, though. I’m not embarrassed by my past mistakes. Those missteps led me here.” He glanced over at me, and a small smile appeared before he looked back at the interviewer. “And I would walk every broken road twice over if it led me back to this.”

I swallowed hard at that comment but remained quiet.

The interviewer turned to me next. “And what about you, Coach Kingsley? I know you’ve been paid a lot of attention by the press. Something you’re probably not used to.”

“Not in the least.” I nervously laughed.

“How are you handling the pressures as we go into the final game of the series? Do you feel as if you have something to prove as a woman? It’s said that you are in the wrong sport and you only got here because of Nathan. I’m not saying I believe that, but it’s clear that a majority of folks do. They said it’s all Nathan carrying the team and not you. Clearly, the majority couldn’t have all gotten it wrong, right? How much of this team’s success was truly yours? Or, like many are saying, was it all Pierce, and you just got pulled along the way toward victory?”

I felt it happening. The tightening of my chest. The rage building from the rude question that was being asked. My vision began to blur as every negative thought that lived within me started to come back to the surface. Every suppressed feeling of doubt was awakened at that moment.

“Oh shit,” Nathan said, looking out into the distance. “Did you see that?”

The interviewer turned around to see what it was that Nathan was speaking of. “What’s what?”

“Oh, nothing.” Nathan shook his head. “I just thought I saw an array of butterflies.”

“Butterflies?” the interviewer questioned.

“Yeah.” He turned toward me and nodded with a tiny smile. “Butterflies.”

A laugh of comfort escaped me.

Butterflies.

Nathan gave me a comforting wink. “Go ahead and continue, Coach,” he said. “Sorry for the interruption.”

I cleared my throat and turned back toward the interviewer. “I, like most, have read the comments about my position as head coach at Honey Creek. I’d be lying if I said the words didn’t hurt me; I’m human, words can hurt. And the truth of the matter is that Nathan has been such a blessing to our team. There’s no way we would’ve made it this far without him.”

“Or without Coach Kingsley. We’re a team,” Nathan added. “That’s what we are, Avery and me—we’re a team. One isn’t more important than the other. We were both focused on the season’s success this year, and we ebbed and flowed like magic with one another. Avery Kingsley is one of the best coaches to ever coach the game, and it has been nothing less than an honor to coach beside her. The whole game of baseball is better with her in this industry. Frankly, I think we could use more women coaches on the field. I think it’s beyond time that we expand our realm.”

Oh, Nathan…

How badly I want to love you.

After the interview finished, we were un-mic’d, and free to go. As we were walking out of the building, I paused beside Nathan. “Hey, Nathan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for having my back in there. I know things between us have been…strange. But that meant a lot to me.”

He nodded once. “I’ll always cover your base, Coach.”

We won.

We won state.

We freaking won state!

The second it happened, I felt as if my heart was going to explode in my chest. I shot out to the field from the dugout and began to celebrate with all the guys on the field, who were losing their minds over the fact that we were the state champions. I couldn’t control my excitement as I jumped up and down, hugging the players.

Before I knew it, my arms found their way around Nathan, and we embraced.

“We did it!” I shouted, my heart pounding rapidly against my chest. “We did it!”

“You did it, Coach!” he said, swinging me around from pure excitement. “I’m so fucking proud of you!” he told me. He placed me back down on solid ground, yet the world kept spinning faster and faster around us.

I stared into his brown eyes, shaking my head in amazement. Then my excited heart shifted to feeling as if it wanted to cry. Because all it wanted at that very moment was to kiss him. To fall into his arms again and never let go. To celebrate with him on the field and off. But I couldn’t.

We couldn’t.

“Nathan…” I whispered.

He gave me a sad smile as if he could read my thoughts. “I know,” he said softly. “Me too, Coach. Me too.” He then moved in and gave me another hug, holding me close to his chest. He kissed my forehead and whispered, “I miss you so much it’s hard to breathe.”

Then he let me go.

He let me go and celebrated with the rest of the team as if his heart wasn’t breaking, too. I didn’t know what to expect because I told him to do that. I told him to stay away, and he did what I’d asked.

But my breathing was suffering, too. I knew exactly what he meant when he said those words to me. Because, without him, it was so hard to breathe.

After the game,the team headed off to celebrate with a late night of pizza at the hotel where we were staying. I told them I’d join later on, but first, I needed to take in the moment on the field now that it was cleared out. I needed to come down from the busyness of the day and take it all in by myself.

Though it turned out I wasn’t alone.

“Way to go, Coach K,” a voice said from the stands.

I turned to see my father sitting there. The crowd was gone, and the only things remaining were the floodlights on the field and my father in the stands.

“Not too bad, huh?” I said with a smirk.

“I like Nathan,” he stated, throwing me completely off-kilter.

“What?”

“I said, I like Nathan.”

“Are you about to give me a father-daughter talk?” I asked as I walked over to the stands to join him.

“I’m about to give you a father-daughter talk.” He patted the empty spot beside him, and I took a seat. He turned his stare back to the field. “Do you remember when your mother and I used to take Yara and you to the baseball field for family time?”

I laughed. “Yeah. She and Yara would sit up here making artwork while you and I hit balls on the field.”

“Those are some of my favorite memories.”

“Me too. You’re the one who made me fall in love with the game.”

“You’re the one who made me stay in love with it,” he expressed, clasping his hands together and resting them in his lap. “I like Nathan,” he repeated.

I sighed. “Yeah. I heard that the first time.”

“You like him, too,” he said, certain. “You love him.”

I blinked a few times. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Baby girl, love has to do with everything.” He stared forward and shook his head slightly. “I don’t know much about life. I’m a simple man who does construction and enjoys a good beer on Friday nights. But there are so many complicated things in life that I don’t know much about. But I do know about love. I think love is the reason we humans decided to come to this damn planet in the first place.”

“If that’s true, then we’re stupid. It’s stupid,” I countered.

He arched an eyebrow. “You think love is stupid?”

“Yes,” I confidently said. “Because if we came for love, then why wouldn’t we come solely for love and love alone? If we only came for love, then why is there so much hurt, too?” I shook my head and shut my eyes. “Because all the hurt in the world seems so much louder than love. It feels more as if we humans came here to suffer. To break.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes. Because if it was all about love…” My voice cracked as I rubbed my hands against my legs. “Then why would this world allow a little girl to lose her mother? Why are there children suffering, wars, violence, pain? There’s so much pain, Daddy,” I cried, placing my hand over my chest. “There’s so much hurt. Why would we do this? Why would we come for love but then make hearts that could break so easily?”

“I think you’re confusing the opposite of love with hurt.”

“No,” I disagreed. “I know the opposite of love is hate.”

“No,” he replied with a headshake. “The opposite of love is indifference. The feeling of emptiness. That’s what the opposite of love is. Love allows you space to feel everything—joy, bliss, sorrow, and pain. Grief is love, Avery. Love and grief go hand in hand.”

“Why is that?”

“Because grief is the realization that you could care for another so deeply. That your heart could shatter a million ways, all due to how much you adored another. Being able to feel so deeply is a gift, baby girl. It’s the indifference, the inability to feel, that is the curse.”

“It’s scary to feel grief…”

“It’s even scarier to feel nothing.” He flicked his thumb against the bridge of his nose. “I once read a quote by a person named Jamie Anderson that said, ‘Grief is just love with no place to go.’ And I felt that deeply. Yet then I realized that the gift of grief is that there are still other types of love that surround you. When I had so much grief after losing your mother, I thought I had nowhere else to put said love, but then I saw it within you three girls. My love for her spread into the love I had for you. And don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t cancel out the love I have for your mother. That grief will always be a part of me, but the love from you girls…that refilled my tank. I think after all these years, that’s what you need, baby girl. You need a refill of your tank.”

I sniffled, knowing that Nathan had started to refill my empty tank over the past few months. Still, I was so scared that I created a leak in the tank because I was terrified of what would happen if that love went away again. “I’m scared of loving him, Daddy,” I quietly confessed.

“I know,” he agreed. “Tell me why.”

“Because…” Tears streamed down my cheeks as the reality settled in. “I think I’m so broken that no matter how hard I try to be enough for him, I’ll never live up to what he deserves. What if my love isn’t enough for him to stay?”

Daddy took a moment, taking in my words. He wasn’t one to speak out of turn without thinking his thoughts all the way through. Then his mouth parted, and he said, “I’ve sat in the stands at the home games this whole season, Avery. I didn’t watch the game, though. I watched Nathan watching you.” He gave me a small smile and wiped away my tears. “I’ve only been in love—real love—once in my life, with your mother. That kind of love doesn’t come around often; it’s rare. But I see it when he looks at you, sweetheart. His love for you is only growing with each passing day. Don’t run from something real just because you’re afraid of getting hurt or that you’re not good enough. Life is hard, and hearts do break, but those hearts can heal, too. Just don’t think that your heart needs to heal on its own when someone out there is interested in fixing it with you.”

I bit my bottom lip. “You think he’d stay through my lows?”

“Sweetheart…you’re in a low right now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I saw him this whole game looking at you, baby girl. He already stayed. He’s standing on the front porch waiting for you. It’s up to you to open up the door and let him back in.”

And there it was…

My turned-off heart began to beat slowly again.

“And for what it’s worth, Avery Harper Kingsley, you’re more than enough. Especially on the days when you don’t feel that way.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Always.” He reached under the bleachers and pulled out a picnic basket. “Now. How about a victory PB and J sandwich?”