Chapter 37

Liam

January rolled into February, the first three weeks of the semester going by in a blur of class, practice and finding time to spend with my girlfriend. It still blows my mind that I get to call her that. We both have busy schedules but we make it work. It's been an adjustment to not see her every single day but it makes our time together even more special.

Today is the first game of the season, the Friday night home opener, and Emilia will be there along with my family. I also know that scouts will be here tonight. It's my last season to secure myself a spot in the first round of the draft, anything after that and I'll probably never see play time for the major league. I know this. I've known this for a while. Yet for some reason over the past three weeks I haven't been able to focus on baseball.

Every night when I talk to Emilia about her internship or her classes she's filled with excitement and passion. She gets to see firsthand how school psychologists are helping students and she talks about what she'll do when she has her own students one day. Her whole face lights up talking about it, there's a twinkle in her eye and I'm jealous. I want that. I thought baseball would give me that but it's not. I look forward to my classes and to working with the head athletic trainer of the gymnastics team which has been my spring semester assignment.

I've pulled out my little black box more times in the past few weeks than I have since the first year after my dad passed. Searching for that reminder, that passion that used to burn within me. Only to come up lacking every time.

I'm currently in the exam room that we have in the athletic department building, working with the head athletic trainer of the gymnastics team, Professor Smith, and a few other students in my major. We watch as she goes over how she likes to give her initial exam of her athletes. It's something we've all learned before but each of the athletic trainers on campus have their own unique way of doing things. I love seeing how they approach an athlete, how they get to know them, make them feel safe but mostly how they help. Helping their athletes so they aren't as prone to injury or strengthening them back up when something does happen. This. This excites me.

My mom says I've always been a helper that if I didn't have my sights so set on the MLB I'd go into a field where I get to work with people. I think she's right. I would. I would but I can't. For the past thirteen years I've been working on making good on the promise I made to my dad. I can't let all those years of hard work fade away.

"All right, class dismissed." Professor Smith calls after dismissing her last student athlete. "Liam a word?" Professor Smith is the head athletic trainer for the gymnastics team but is also a professor of many classes I've taken as well as my advisor. I may or may not have been avoiding her all of last semester and the first few weeks of this one, constantly sneaking out of class early but today I got too lost in my thoughts to leave in time.

I follow her into her office that is just off the exam room. Sitting in one of the seats across from her desk, I play with the strings of my hoodie not really wanting to have this conversation. "Did you end up submitting any grad school applications?"

"No. I didn't." I can't quite meet her eyes. She's preached about graduate school to everyone in the major since freshman year, letting us know how important it is in the field.

"Liam." She scolds. Just like my mom, Professor Smith recognized that helper part of my personality. She said she saw a great future in this field for me, despite me telling her that I was going to play Major League Baseball and that athletic training wouldn't be my career. That never stopped her from pushing me, assigning me the hardest students in my internships whether that be physically or mentality wise. I'm also eternally grateful to her for always helping me with my schedule, making sure I got every class I needed despite my hectic practice and game schedule.

"It doesn't matter. That's not the path I'm taking."

"I just want you to have options." Her words cause me to flinch. Options. My dad always, always talked about keeping your options open. I used to tell him I didn't need options, I knew what I wanted. Looking back, so did he but it was taken away from him. "Look, I know you're going to play baseball. You're great at it, you have a real shot of getting into the majors but make sure it"s what you want."

"Thanks. I mean I'll have my bachelor's degree that's something, right?"

"Yes, that's the minimum you need in our field. However a master's degree will give you more experience and open more doors for you. Just remember it's never too late to get it, okay?"

"Noted." I nod. "Thank you."

"Now go bring home the win tonight, will you?" We both laugh but I can't shake the conversation from my head. Getting my master's degree. I've never really considered it. I know Professor Smith and a bunch of my other teachers preached about its importance but I just pushed that to the back of my mind. I didn't think it applied to me but maybe it could.

I knock on Emilia's door, desperate to see her before my game. Something about her presence tends to ground me and I need that right now. My mind hasn't stopped racing all afternoon, I feel shaky and confused. What if I really want to give up everything I've worked so hard for. That would be crazy, right?

The door swings open and there she is looking as beautiful as ever, an oversized hoodie of mine swallowing her whole. She's really taken to my hoodie collection, I swear she takes a new one every time she comes over but I really can't complain seeing how adorable she looks in them. I move forward, wrapping my hands around her waist and hoisting her up. Her legs naturally wrap around my waist as I hold onto her thighs, planting a kiss on her lips.

"Hi." I murmur between kisses.

"Hi." She murmurs back, staring into my eyes. "Is everything okay?" She has this way of reading me but I don't want to get into my thoughts right now. I just needed to see her.

"It is now." I smile at her, still holding her to me. "I have something for you." Those baby blues light up, surprised. Gently, I place her on the ground, reaching behind me to my backpack that I had let fall off in the doorway. I pull out one of my extra jerseys that I folded up.

"For me?" A wide smile takes over her face.

"Will you wear it for me? It should be warm enough to throw it over a hoodie today." Every February, Massachusetts gives us one or two days of fake spring, where the skies are sunny and the temperatures reach nearly seventy, before turning back into winter and downing another few inches of snow on us. Luckily for us, today is one of those fake spring days.

"Of course I'll wear it. Thank you Liam. This is so special to me." She pulls it over her head on top of the white hoodie she's already wearing, doing a little twirl for me. A big grin breaks across my face.

"My last name looks good on you." Her cheeks flush. Fuck. Maybe that's a little too soon to say out loud, but I can't say I haven't thought about it. Not that it's going to happen soon but I've thought about in a one day I can see it happening kind of way. "My parents should be here soon." I blurt out, desperate to change the topic.

"Oh I know." She holds up her phone, displaying a group text between her Eli and my mom. I love how close she's been able to get with them. My mom is constantly gushing about Emi over the phone and Eliza has texted me no less than twenty times telling me I better not screw anything up.

"Alright, well I should probably head out I need to get ready and get there early." Coach likes us to be on the field an hour and a half before the game to warm up and build morale together. I plant a kiss on her lips. "Bring a jacket just in case it gets cold." I kiss her forehead.

"I will." She promises as I head out the door and back to my house to get ready for the night.

∞∞∞

I get to the locker room at five thirty, an hour and a half before the game to warm up with the team and listen to Coach's speech. I'm also supposed to give one today, to pump up the team and get them ready for the first game. Public speaking is never something that has bothered me before but I've been shaking and sweaty since I got here. Coach throws us into warmups before any speeches happen so I try to focus my mind. Focus on the crack of my bat against the ball, the weight of the ball in my glove.

"Mills!" Coach calls to me from my stance on first. "Come over here. Ethan take Liam's place." Ethan jogs to first, a big smile on his face as he gets to take over my warmup rotation. I try to muster up a smile of my own as I head over to where Coach stands near the home team dugout.

"Coach." I nod, greeting him.

"Liam." He nods back. "Got word there's going to be a lot of scouts here today." I gulp, trying to swallow the nerves threatening to crawl out of my throat. "Better play your best if you want to go in the first round."

"Yes, sir." I manage to get the words out despite the racing thoughts in my mind. Coach turns his attention away back to the field and I use it as an opportunity to escape back to the locker room. I need to sit, to breathe, time to sort through the thoughts in my head.

I make it back to the locker room, barely, my vision starting to blur as I walk down the hallway. Somehow I manage to find my locker, grabbing my water and phone out of it before sliding down it to sit on the floor. I take a long sip of water, trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with me. I've been physically fine all day, mentally not so much. My breaths are coming faster as my mind whirls. Scouts, baseball, the MLB. I try to focus on one of these things. The things I've always been focused on. I feel like I can't breathe, thinking about signing my life away to play for a team, the media that surrounds that decision.

I try to take a deep breath, closing my eyes and focusing on something else entirely. Emilia, graduate school, athletic training. I take another deep breath, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, then another. I'm able to get my breathing back under some form of control but I still feel shaky and a little weak.

It hits me that I just had a panic attack. Something I've never experienced firsthand and never wished to especially after seeing how they tore apart Eliza in high school. A panic attack thinking about playing baseball for the rest of my life. I never thought that the one thing that tied me to my dad would cause me pain.

Sitting on the ground for a few more minutes, I get my breathing more under control and my eyes start to focus back in. Only then do I dare to get up and out of the locker room. The rest of the guys will be filing in here soon and I'm not ready to face them. Not yet. I head two doors down from the boys' locker room, finding one of the training and recovery rooms unlocked. Plopping down on one of the assessment benches, I pull out my phone and send a text to the one person I want to talk to.

Me

I need you