Nothing Like the Movies

Wes

Clark lowered himself to the empty chair and set down his camera. “Where did she go?”

For a half second I thought he was talking about Liz, but then I realized he meant my mother.

I looked at his face, and God help me, I wanted to keep going. It didn’t make sense, but maybe Sarah was right. Maybe it had been too long since I talked about it, or maybe enough time had passed where it was becoming a story instead of something that cut me open and made me bleed.

Even weirder than that was the fact that I was glad Liz was gone. Something about telling her the story felt wrong, probably because she’d been there. I’d seen it on her face as I answered, the second she started remembering, and I didn’t want her to have to sit across from me and be reminded of a time that brought her pain.

“Wait—getting ahead of things,” Clark said, and as much as I wanted to hate the dude, he was just so nice that I couldn’t. And I hated that. “Why don’t you talk about what happened when you got home.”

I let out my breath and closed my eyes for a second, remembering.

What happened when I got home.

“Obviously everyone was grieving, but it didn’t take very long for me to realize that my mom wasn’t handling the loss very well. That she needed help.”

Understatement of the century. She couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drive, couldn’t work—my mother was a mess.

“But you were eighteen,” Clark said. “What could you do?”

“Everything that needed to be done, I guess.” I shrugged and said, “She tried, but she was the one who found him, and she just never got over that, I think.”

“Is that part of why you left school?” Clark asked, obviously no longer reading prepared questions. “Because your mom couldn’t take care of things?”

How was I supposed to answer that?

My mom tried to find a way to cope, but for her, that meant not being in the house where he died. Which was understandable, but Sarah was still in high school and needed a place to live. A guardian. She wanted my mom to come home, but my mother couldn’t bring herself to leave her sister’s house.

I just said, “She did her best, and I stuck around to help.”

The reality had been slightly more nightmarish. No life insurance, coupled with my mom not being healthy enough to go back to work, left me no choice but to work two jobs to keep the house out of foreclosure.

Thank God for the therapy that eventually brought her back to us.

Clark asked, “So at what point did you realize you were done with school?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest.”

That was a lie. I remembered the exact moment.

Liz came home for the funeral—all my friends had—and the night before they were heading back to school, everyone was meeting up at Liz’s to hang out. I was getting ready to stop over when my mom called and asked when I was going back.

I was a little surprised that she was calling, as opposed to just coming over since she was going to have to come back soon, but that surprise turned into total disbelief when she asked me who was going to take Sarah to school and make her dinner after I left.

Because my mother had no plans to come home.

She’d started crying, telling me she couldn’t handle being in the house where she found my dad and that she couldn’t handle looking at my sister without remembering that day. I tried everything I could think of to get through to her and make her listen—Sarah needs you!—but I finally gave up when the conversation stopped and the only thing I could hear over the phone was the sound of her sobs.

I didn’t go to Liz’s that night. I sat in the kitchen, drinking my dad’s beers and tearing apart the desk, looking at bills and bank statements and trying to figure out how I was going to cover for my mom while she was out.

Because we didn’t have some big extended family who would jump in and save us. My aunt Claire was my mom’s only sibling, and she was already struggling to make ends meet as a single mom with a deadbeat ex.

And my mom didn’t get along with her parents, so the fact that they didn’t come to the funeral showed just how helpful they might be. And my dad’s parents died before I was born.

So as badly as I wanted to return to my life and go back to LA, how could I?

When I waved goodbye to Liz at the airport the next morning, I could barely manage a fake smile as the oppressive weight of everything lowered its every crushing pound on top of me.

“Okay.” Clark looked down at the paper and read, “How did the coaching staff respond when you told them you were quitting school?”

“Uh, they were cool,” I said, realizing I’d been so mentally done with baseball at the time that I barely remembered their reactions. “They said they understood that I needed to do what was best for my family.”

“Did they try to change your mind or tell you that you could come back?”

“No,” I said, remembering a lot of incoming calls that I’d intentionally ignored. “But I made it very clear that I was done with baseball.”

Clark looked surprised at that. “You didn’t see a path back because of your responsibilities?”

“I didn’t want a path back,” I corrected, scratching my chin. “I never wanted to touch a baseball again after my dad died.”

“Tell me about that,” he said, and I knew that question wasn’t on his paper.

I swallowed and just said, “He was always the center of my baseball world, so I couldn’t imagine playing without him.”

“Okay.” Clark cleared his throat and read the next question. “Did you keep in contact with your UCLA friends after you went back?”

“I did for probably a month,” I said, remembering feeling so goddamn alone, like I was on this deserted island that no one else knew existed. “But our lives were so different that after a while, I just couldn’t. They were experiencing new things like parties and dorm life, while I was experiencing new things like enrolling in health insurance plans and trying to understand an escrow statement. They were studying so they wouldn’t fail their exams, and I was learning how to rewire the thermostat on our furnace because we couldn’t afford an HVAC repairman.”

I remembered trying so hard, when Liz called, to make it sound like life was normal for me back home because I didn’t want her to feel guilty for not being there.

“So what changed last year?” Clark asked. “What made you start throwing again?”

Finally, we’d reached the part of the story that I liked.

“A mean-as-hell friend. One of my buddies swung by the house to say hi, and he found me shit-faced and home alone.”

“You were drinking a lot?” he asked, and I wondered if I should’ve kept that to myself.

Although—screw it—it was the truth. Until Michael stepped in, pounding beers while listening to Noah Kahan on repeat was my go-to.

I said, “I got hammered whenever I could, as long as Sarah was in bed, because underage drinking is illegal, you know, and I wouldn’t want to be a bad role model.”

Clark smiled. “Of course.”

“I was a mess, to be honest,” I admitted. “So Michael screamed at me and pushed me into a wall. Asked me what the hell I was doing with my life.”

“Did you hit him?” Clark asked, grinning.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I broke down and cried like a baby.”

“No,” Clark said empathetically.

“Oh yes,” I said, smiling at the memory. “You can ask Michael—I was very pathetic. But instead of feeling bad for me, he shoved my drunk ass in his car and drove me to the baseball field. Flipped on the lights and tried to force me to play catch with him.”

“Forced you?”

“Well, at first he asked, but when I refused to even put on the glove, the dick just started throwing baseballs at me.”

“Seriously?” Clark started laughing.

“For real. Hard as hell. He pummeled me with baseballs until I had to put on the glove and protect myself because those baseballs fucking hurt. And once I had the glove on, he physically hauled me out to the mound—dragged me, literally—and forced me to throw a pitch.”

“And did it feel good?” Clark asked.

“No,” I said, letting out a big exhale. “I threw up all over the mound and kind of wanted to die. But he made me give him ten pitches before he’d take me home, and by the time I was done, I realized that pitching made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time.”

“What’s that?” Clark asked.

“Control. Since my dad died, I’d had zero control of anything in my life. But that ball in my hand was under my power, and it felt good.”

“Is this when you started trying?” he asked. “When did the switch officially flip?”

“When my mom got better and my genius sister started getting full-ride offers to great schools, Michael convinced me to reach out to my UCLA coaches.”

“And…?”

“And I made some calls and sent some emails. They were nice and sent a few responses back, but when I mentioned the possibility of throwing for them or getting a tryout, they ghosted me. I couldn’t reach anyone anymore, which I absolutely understood. A pitcher who takes two years off? That’s an absurd gamble. I would’ve done the same thing.”

“So what’d you do? How’d you get them to finally respond to you?” Clark asked.

“I started texting every staff member—all of them—every single day, sending them time-stamped videos of my pitching practice,” I confessed, grinning at the memory. “I even emailed the AD every damn day. My high school coach let me use the gun, so I just spam-texted them all videos of me throwing hundred-mile-an-hour fastballs that were right in the zone.”

Clark was laughing when he asked, “So did they fly you in for a tryout after all the spamming?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “They told me that if I was ever going to be in LA, to reach out and they’d let me throw for them.”

I’d never say it on camera, but Ross was the only one who’d been honest with me. He’d called me one afternoon, and said in that minimalist cowboy way of his, “I like you, kid, so I’m going to tell you what you need to hear. It’s been too long, and you need to move on. Knock this crap off before you ruin your life wishing.”

Clark asked, “So you flew there, right?”

“I couldn’t afford to fly; are you kidding me?” I laughed at that, able to laugh now at how impulsive I’d been. “No, I left that night and drove my shitty car straight to campus, with Sarah sleeping in the back seat when she wasn’t taking turns driving.”

“How long of a drive is that?”

“Twenty-two hours.”

“Woooow,” Clark replied, his voice loud. “Were they happy to see you?”

“Between you and me,” I said, “I think they were pissing themselves. Like, oh no, he actually came.”

Clark threw his head back and started cackling. He half yelled, “And how was the tryout?”

“Better than I could have ever hoped for.”

Two coaches, begrudgingly letting me throw even though it was obvious they weren’t considering me. Lots of hushed conversation and awkward tension.

Ross shaking his head when he saw me.

An obnoxious little sister, loudly cheering me on from the empty stands.

A slight anxiety attack as I took the mound and got ready to throw the first pitch.

And then—perfection.

Strike after strike after strike.

More coaches watching, one with the gun.

Ross grinning.

More strikes, faster pitches. Ridiculous changeups. Badass breaking balls.

It’d been better than the movies, I swear to God.

When we finished the interview, Clark hugged me—“bring it in, man”—and it pissed me off.

Because it made me feel like an asshole.

I mean, it was an asshole move to be in love with someone else’s girlfriend, right? Especially when he was kind of starting to feel like a friend. Like how the hell had he done that, become something similar to a friend?

I didn’t want to like the guy, dammit, because it was unfair for me to feel guilty for wanting her.

She was mine first.

As soon as I left the office, I checked my phone and saw a message from my sister.

Sarah: So?? How’d it go?

I quickly fired off: Shockingly well. I spilled everything and don’t regret it yet.

Sarah: Proud of you, kid.

I replied: Gee thanks, Ma.

Sarah: So how did Liz react?

I wasn’t sure how to explain it, so I just texted: Late to class—I’ll call later.

That was actually not a lie, so I found an e-scooter and hauled ass toward Kaplan, because we had a test that day that I couldn’t miss.

But as I flew across campus, I was kind of a shitshow of feelings.

And not the ones I’d expected.

I felt like I could cry—literally—because I’d just talked through the entire nightmare and hadn’t wanted to rage. I also wanted to cry with relief because I hadn’t felt like crying. Talking about it hadn’t gutted me, which felt like a win.

I finally had closure, it seemed.

But it was the idea of that—having closure—that made me emo as hell.