Curveball(36)

“It will be okay,” Luca promises. “Mark is a fighter.”

His words bring more tears to my eyes, forcing me to wipe them away with the back of my hand. Luca and Hunter offer their chairs to Victoria and Sammy, who are now sitting directly across from me. Luca holds on to the arm of Victoria’s chair and drops to the floor, bent at the knees next to Mark’s mother.

Hunter hasn’t glanced up from the tiled floor since we walked into the emergency room. He steps to the side, his eyes pointed down, and grabs ahold of his girlfriend’s arm to give it a loving stroke. Their affection toward each other reminds me of what I have with Mark and how much I need him to pull through this.

While Luca attempts to calm Mark’s mother, his sister glances around the room, a tiny smile on her lips when she takes in how many people have gathered for her brother. When I first met him, Mark might have been a jerk with a dirty mouth to match, but he has a lot of people who care about him in this hospital, all of us hoping for the same outcome.

Sammy locks eyes with me, her expression changing from confusion to realization. “You’re Olivia,” she squeals in delight, which attracts some of the attention from his fraternity brothers and teammates.

I nod. “You must be Sammy. He talks about you all the time.”

“You’re even prettier in person.” She jumps up from her chair to stand next to me. “He’s never talked about a girl before…at least not until he met you.”

“Thank you. You’re sweet. But how did you know who I was?”

Sammy moves in front of me, blocking my view of her distraught mother. “He has a picture of you on his phone. I saw it when he came by the house last week to make us dinner.”

I have no idea what to say. When the hell did he take a picture of me? I don’t recall posing for one.

“I hope it wasn’t too embarrassing,” I joke.

“No, not at all.” Her movements are very comedic as she speaks with her hands. “You were sleeping.” She lowers her voice, so only I can hear—and maybe Donna. “Mark says you’re his lucky charm. My brother is in love with you, ya know.”

If only Mark were the one saying those words to me right now because I am madly in love with him.

“Well, I hope he gets the chance to tell me that himself.”

The door at the front of the room swings open. A handsome thirty-something doctor dressed in navy-blue scrubs and a white lab coat walks into the room with a file in his hand, his dark hair gelled perfectly into place. He has a sour expression on his face that makes my stomach knot. I grind my teeth, my hands balled into fists on my lap, as I brace myself for the bad news.

The nurse points at Mark’s mother, and the doctor follows her finger down the row, stopping between our chairs.

“Mrs. Montgomery?” He clears his throat, a beat passing between them before she looks up at him.

“Yes,” she croaks, “that’s me.”

“I’m Dr. Bryant. Your son, Mark, was in a serious car accident. The paramedics and fire department had to pull him from the wreck. He was critical when he first came into the hospital. I fixed his broken arm, and it will heal over the next few weeks—”

“Which arm?” his coach interrupts.

“His right arm.”

Coach sighs and digs his fingers into his eyes, fighting back his tears. Mark pitched with his right arm, the same arm that won them the game against Penn State and his only shot at a better life for his family. My spirit and any hope I had for his recovery shatter, as I know that this injury will destroy him. Baseball is his life.

The doctor continues, “He had internal bleeding from his spleen rupturing from the impact of the crash, so I had to remove it. He also had six fractured ribs and two that were broken. My biggest concern is the severe concussion. Mark is stable, but we need to keep him for observation for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. His brain function looks good, so he should wake up and have all of his cognitive functions, but he might have side effects, such as short-term memory loss, migraines, and vomiting.”

“Can he play ball again?” one of his teammates calls out.

Doctor Bryant turns to face the boy and shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid not—at least, not anytime soon. We will know more about his condition once he wakes up on his own. Like I said, the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours are critical to his recovery.”

“I need to see my boy,” his mother says, sniffing back her tears.

“We’re moving him to another room right now. The nurse will let you know when Mark is ready for visitors.”

His mother’s face deflates along with the rest of ours.

I sink back into my chair, contemplating what this means for Mark, for his family, and for his career. And what this could mean for us now that our relationship has been exposed, the eyes of some of my students staring in my direction not lost on me.



An hour later, a nurse walks into the emergency waiting room to tell Mark’s mother that he’s ready for visitors and that only four of us are allowed in the room at a time. I assume Luca and Hunter will follow Sammy and Victoria out the door and to the elevators, but Hunter surprises me and offers me his place, promising to keep Luca’s girlfriend company while he waits with his girlfriend and the rest of his fraternity brothers.

They were starting to get rowdy after taking turns going into the parking lot to pound beers for Mark, most of them wasted by the time they swapped seats. His teammates were not any better once they joined the frat bros, the waiting room now reeking of beer and sweat.