This Is Falling(43)

Now she’s hiding her face in her towel too, and she holds up her other hand, the one clutching the bag, and does her best to wave. “I’m going to go put in my strip-club applications now. Nice talking to you. See you when I get back,” she says, walking away quickly.

I stand there for a few seconds and try to figure out my next move, but all I can focus on is how damned embarrassed she was, and how unbelievably beautiful her body is. “You really shouldn’t be embarrassed. I mean, I liked it…what I saw? Or, what I think I saw…”

“Not helping!” she yells from the safety of her door. She opens and shuts it quickly, and I slap my forehead wondering when the hell I turned into a junior-high boy.

Ty is watching ESPN when I get back to the room, and he waves me out of his way with his arm when I stop in front of the TV. “Well, how’d the grand master plan go?” he says, only half interested in me. Clearly more focused on the highlights from last week’s Saints game.

“Oh, you know…I pretty much blatantly stared at her tits for about ten minutes until she realized what a perv I am and ran away,” I say, flinging myself backward on my bed and covering my eyes with my pillow.

“That sounds like progress to me, bro. Nice tits?” Ty asks. I stare at him for a few seconds, at first wanting to throw something at him for his dumb-ass question, but eventually I realize I’m no better than he is.

“Yeah. They’re pretty fantastic tits,” I say, laying my head back again and burying it deep under my pillow.

The sounds of Sports Center lull me in and out of a sleepy state for the next half hour, and I’m almost ready to give in completely and just let this shitty day come to an end when my phone buzzes next to me with an alert.

When I pull the pillow from my eyes, the light in the room is almost blinding, and it takes me a few seconds to focus on my phone screen. When I realize I have a Facebook message from Rowe, I find my bearings quickly and scoot up to sit with my back against the wall and open the message section.





Hi Josh.





Shit! This isn’t for me. I set the phone back down and click the screen off. I sit up all the way at the back of my bed, out of Ty’s view, and I run my hand through my hair about a thousand times hoping some sort of sign comes to me. She writes to him. This…this isn’t good. Rowe sends messages to her ex-boyfriend who, from what I understand, is damned near brain-dead. I just called him her ex-boyfriend, but that’s not even true. He’s her boyfriend, or at least that’s the last thing he remembers them as—if he even remembers.

Fuck!

“I’ll be back, dude.” I grab my phone and slip my feet back into my shoes and head out the door. Ty says something when I leave, but I can’t even focus on his voice. I head to the stairs and just keep going, my feet gaining speed until I hit the front doors of the dorm. I start a slow jog, and I get faster and faster, until I’m actually sprinting all the way to the baseball field.

The lights aren’t on, but I can see enough to find my way. The equipment is all still out, so I slip though the side gate and through the small space at the front of the batting cage. The bats are all hanging still from our practice this afternoon, and I know I’m not supposed to be in here, but goddamn do I need to hit something right now!

I flip the switch on the machine and it takes it a few seconds for the wheels to gain speed. It’s dark as hell, but in a few minutes, I should be able to see enough. I pull my phone out from my pocket and look at Rowe’s photo and name. I know I shouldn’t read it. I should just delete it or not look at it and write her back quickly, letting her know she sent me something meant for someone else.

Someone else.

Fuck! That’s the problem. There’s always going to be someone else.

I grab the wooden bat because I want to feel the sting in my hands. Sometimes I use it to warm up before games because it makes swinging metal even easier. But tonight I want to feel the pain and stress of the wood—to pull this feeling from my heart and push it into my hands.

Crack!

The vibration hurts like hell, and I step back and let the next two pitches smash into the hard plastic behind the plate. My eyes are starting to adjust, so I step back in and hit three more, swinging harder than I normally do, punishing the ball for everything I’m feeling. One more ball fires my way, and I swing and miss, which just pisses me off.

“Stupid goddamned machine!” I throw the bat across the cage and smack my hand against the emergency shut-off and the motor slows until the only thing I hear is my rapid breathing and the crickets in the grass.

I hold my phone in my lap while I slide down to sit with my back against the chain-link of the cage. My weight sends up a small puff of dirt when I hit the ground. I pull my knees up and pat the dust from the legs of my jeans and let out a tiny laugh at how futile it is. I’m filthy, and I just picked a fight with a decade-old pitching machine.

I’m slow at first, clicking the phone screen on and hovering my thumb over Rowe’s profile picture on Facebook. I don’t even have her number. I never asked, but she never gave it to me either. This is the only way I can contact her, other than holding her hostage in her own dorm room. And neither method was from her choosing. I sought her out on Facebook, and heaven gave me a break when they put us together on the same floor of Hayden Hall. But never, not once, did Rowe come for me.