"Look at that. We hit a home run." She laughs, and I can't help it; I join in.
I didn't flicker once. I haven't flickered in hours. Maybe I'm done with them now. I used to think that the flickers were a consequence of losing my virginity. And maybe they were. Maybe they've gone away because this time I did it right.
"Hey, Rache?"
"Hmm?" She snuggles close to me. I'm a little worried about someone stumbling upon us here, but it's almost two in the morning now. No one's going to come out here to the ball field. And if they do ... well, we'll worry about it then.
"Rache, I have more stuff to tell you."
"Of course you do." She kisses her way up my chest to my throat, then my lips. "You always have stuff."
"I'm serious."
"You're also always serious." She's giddy.
"Do you think I was wrong to let that pitch go by?"
She sighs away her giddiness.
"Tell me, Rache."
"Yes. Absolutely."
"You're right."
She tilts her head at me, confused. "Then why did you—"
"Because I didn't know it was wrong until I did it. I had to learn, don't you see? I had to see what would happen when I let my hatred for coach go like that. I had to take control completely, just for once in my life, and see where it led me. And most important of all, I had to..." I'm getting lost in her eyes, the way I used to get lost in Eve's, but better.
"Rache, on prom night, you—"
"Don't." She puts a finger over my lips. "Don't ruin this. You don't have to. Can't you see how happy I am?"
I kiss her finger. "Let me talk.
"On prom night, you said you loved me. And before you stopped me, I was going to tell you that I didn't love you." Her eyes cloud over and she leans back, moving away from me. "Let me finish, Rache. Please, just let me finish."
She nods wordlessly and stares up at the sky.
"But something happened, Rache. See, I thought my mom loved my dad. I thought Eve and I loved each other. I was wrong.
"This feeling I have for you ... I've never had it before. And I've never had a name for it. Because the name was being used—misused, misappropriated—by something else."
I grab her by the shoulders and turn her to face me. "I love you, Rachel. I really do. I have for a long time. I just didn't know it."
I've dreaded this moment all day, what comes next. But I have to do it. Because it's honest and true and real.
"Rache, I love you, but—"
"You're going to Stanford," she says very calmly, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
And I guess it is. "Yeah. No matter what Coach does or doesn't do. Because ... I'm going on my terms. Even if by some miracle he recommends me for the scholarship, I'm not taking it."
That surprises her. "I don't get it."
"That's why I had no choice but to let that pitch go by. I had to prove to myself that I could live without baseball. I can't go to college on their terms. I can't be the ballplayer first and the student second, and if they're giving me an athletic scholarship, believe me—that's what it would be. Athlete-scholar, not the other way around. No one can convince me otherwise.
"So, yeah. I'll have to take out student loans. I'll have to work my ass off. But that's OK. I've wanted to go to Stanford as long as I can remember. It's my dream and I want it to come true."
She shakes her head and looks up at the stars, a weird little smile on her face. "Wow. You. Not playing baseball anymore. I can't imagine it. It's strange."
"There's always intramurals. But I really want to ... I really need to focus on one thing. I can't do both and be my best. For me, baseball was always a means to an end. I'm not like Zik. The game itself was always enough for him. For me, it was about the statistics, the improvement. It was a way of seeing if I measured up. But I'm tired of measuring myself that way. No matter how well I play, I'll never have a thousand average. I'll never hit a home run every time. You can't be a perfect baseball player."
"You can't be a perfect anything, Josh."
"I know that. But you can get a little closer than a five hundred batting average. You can fire a rocket into space and have it land on Mars and that's closer to perfect than anything else I'll ever know."
She hugs me. "I'm glad for you, then. I'm glad you decided."
I squeeze her tight. "I'm sorry. I should have told you before we ... before we made love. I'll be far away. It'll be tough. I won't be able to call a lot or visit a lot because of the money. And I understand if you don't want to see me anymore because of it. I really do. I totally under—"
"God, Josh!" She smacks me on the arm. "Cut it out! I'm not giving up on you! Not after all this. In fact..." A devious look crosses her face and she rummages around for her purse. "This is perfect..."
"What's perfect?"
She hauls her purse into her lap and looks inside. "This is just perfect. I was going to give it to you soon anyway. Now it's absolutely perfect."
"What's perfect, Rache?"
She whips something out of her purse and presents it to me with a "Ta-da!" and a flourish. It's a cell phone.
"I don't get it."
"It's a prepaid cell phone, dummy." She pushes it into my hands, her eyes sparkling, her smile radiant and perfect.
"It's got my phone number programmed into it and a hundred hours of call time."
I don't know what to say, so I just let her kiss me gently, softly.
"After that," she says, "it's up to you..."
Epilogue
OK, Baseball (Reprise)
Here's the thing about baseball—it's not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that.
Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter's box like a soldier and it's up to him—and him alone—what happens next.
But here's the thing I didn't understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run...
Someone else has to pitch the ball.
* * *
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Kathy and Liz at Anderson Literary; Margaret ("I've never had to tell an author this before") and the Usual Suspects at Houghton Mifflin; and the Betas: Eric, Ally, and Robin.
Extra-special thanks go out to David P. Dagget and Amy Blank Ocampo, deputy and assistant state's attorneys for Carroll County, Maryland, for their advice and counsel on legal matters pertaining to the story. Any and all errors, goof-ups, or just plain screwy legal goings-on are entirely my fault, not theirs.
Further thanks to Larry Meekins (head baseball coach at Franklin High School) and Randy Pentz (athletic director at Owings Mills High School) for providing high school baseball insights. Again, errors are my fault.
Last but not least, thanks to my father, Geoff Lyga, for providing baseball info, verifying facts, triple-checking my math, and raising me a Red Sox fan.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Barry Lyga, Boy Toy
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