It Was Me (17 page)

THIRTY SEVEN

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She dropped her eyes again, focusing on the dwindling liquid in her coffee mug.

“Abby.” My voice was sharp.

She wasn't looking at me but I could tell she was on the verge of tears. “I want you to go.”

“To Arizona?”

She nodded. “You have to.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Back up. What does this have to do with us? Your mom, I mean?” I was beginning to put the pieces together but I wanted to hear it from her.

“I can't leave,” she whispered. “I can't go with you. Not when she's sick.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I wouldn't ask you to. I would tell you to stay here.”

She nodded again, as if she was confirming that she knew this.

“And I would stay, too. With you.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “No.”

“Hear me out,” I said. I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. She tried to pull away but I threaded my fingers through hers, holding tight. “Tell me something. And promise you'll tell me the truth.”

She didn't answer but she stopped struggling against me.

“Do you still love me?”

Again, she was silent.

“Abby.” I stretched my other hand out and touched her chin with my fingertips. Gently, I tilted it upward so she was looking at me. Her eyes were bright with tears. “Do you still love me?”

She nodded and the tears spilled down her cheeks. I brushed at one of them with my thumb, my heart threatening to hammer right out of my chest. It was what I'd known all along, even with everything she'd thrown at me, but it still thrilled me to see her admit it.

“Hey,” I said, smiling, feeling the wetness in my own eyes. “I love you, too. You know that. And I get what you're doing. You freaked and you needed time to work through all of this. Totally get it. Doesn't mean it makes me happy—you should have come to me with it, dammit—but we'll get through it. You and me and your mom and everyone We're gonna get through this.”

She pulled her hand away. “No, West.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You don't understand. We aren't going to get through this.”

I was confused. “What do you mean?”

“I don't want your help,” she said. “I don't want you to stay.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” My voice had risen a notch and a few heads turned but I didn't care.

“You have to go,” she said. “You have to go to Arizona. Take the baseball scholarship and forget about me.”

I laughed. “What? Forget about you? No fucking way, Abs.”

“I mean it,” she said. The tears fell freely now and her voice was choked with sobs. “You can't stay. I won't let you.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm not going to let you walk away from this,” she said. “You've already had one chance slip away from you. No,” she said, shaking her head. “It didn't slip away. It was taken away. By your dad. And I'm not going to let that happen again.”

“You can't make me go,” I told her gently. “And I'm not leaving you.”

“This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” she said. She brushed at the tears and her mascara smeared, leaving a thin trail of black under her eyes. “What if this is it? It's now or never, West. You can't pass it up. And I'm not going to be the reason you don't take it. There's no way I'll live with that. Zero.”

“I'm not leaving you,” I repeated. I wasn't. Not when she said she still loved me, and not when it was obvious she needed me.

She looked away and took a couple of deep breaths. I held tight to her hand.

“If you stay, I won't see you,” she said. “I won't talk to you. We won't get back together.”

“What?”

She leveled her eyes on mine. They were almost dry. “You heard me.”

“You still love me. You just said so.”

“It doesn't matter,” she said. “I'll probably always love you, West. But we're done. We're through if you stay here.”

She wasn't making sense. She was trying to strong-arm me into going to Arizona, into not walking away from what she saw as an opportunity of a lifetime. But she didn't realize that there was something I wanted more out of life than a shot at a baseball career.

I wanted her.

“And if I go?” I asked. “If I go to Arizona, then what? We do the long-distance thing?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“No?”

“I don't want to do that to you. You...you deserve better.”

“What the fuck ever, Abby. Don't tell me what I deserve. What I want is you.”

“So, what?” she asked, her eyes blazing. “I sit here and take care of my sick mom and just write you emails and texts? What kind of relationship is that?”

“It wouldn't be like that,” I said. “If I go—and it's a big if—I'd come back. If not every weekend, then every other. We could talk every day. Skype. All that stuff.”

“All that stuff takes time,” she said. “Time you have to carve out of an already busy schedule. I'm going to be going to school. Helping out my dad at the office. Taking care of my mom. You'll have classes and baseball and friends. There's no way you'd get back here on weekends with baseball and you know it. Two separate lives, West.”

I stared at her. “So you're telling me, whatever choice I make, we're pretty much done?”

Abby nodded and the tears sprang back into her eyes. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

I wrenched my hand free of hers. “It's not your decision to make. There are two people involved here. I get a say, too.”

“No, you don't,” she said.

“We love each other.”

“I know,” she said. “But sometimes love isn't enough.”

THIRTY EIGHT

I had two choices. Drink myself into oblivion or burn off my anger doing something productive.

I laced up my running shoes and grabbed my iPod and hit the street at a full sprint before I could grab a bottle instead.

I'd left Abby at the coffee shop, my blood boiling from our conversation. She was being pig-headed and stubborn and she was flat-out wrong about everything. But she wasn't giving me a choice. She'd made a stupid, reckless decision to try to force me into going to Arizona, into not giving up on something she thought was important.

And I was pissed as hell at her.

I ran north on Lamont, headed toward Kate Sessions Park. I needed hills. Lots of them. Cars whizzed past and a horn honked, a familiar VW bus loaded with boards headed toward the beach. Keith, a buddy of mine, stuck his head out the passenger window. I pulled one of the earbuds out so I could hear him.

“Waves are breaking at Bird Rock right now, man. You heading out?”

I shook my head.

He shrugged and waved and they barreled by. I shoved the earbud back in place and cranked the volume and Nine Inch Nails drowned out everything. Everything except my thoughts.

I thought about Abby and everything she'd said. How she was staying here and helping with her mom. How she'd planned to help her dad with the real estate business. I had a dozen questions I'd wanted to ask but there hadn't been time. Because the only thing she'd been focused on was getting me to agree on Arizona and getting me out of her life.

She'd backed me up against a wall with her ultimatums. Whatever I chose to do didn't matter when it came to us. Because she wasn't going to let there be an us.

I hooked a sharp left and headed into the park. It was a Monday evening but it was summer and the park teemed with people. People out running and walking their dogs, people bringing their kids to the park instead of the beach. I circled the path, my eyes drifting to my right to take in the view of the bay. Sailboats dotted the water and, a little further, the spinning compartment of the Skytower at Sea World rose slowly, giving riders a spectacular view of the bay and the ocean. It was the end of another perfect day in San Diego.

Except mine had just gone to shit.

I thought again about my options. Or, rather, my lack of them. Abby hadn't left me with any choices. Not when it came to her, anyway. Part of me wanted to run to her house and break down her fucking door and scream at her, tell her just how wrong she was. That same part of me wanted to grab her and kiss her senseless, remind her just how much there was between us. Kiss her and touch her, over and over, until she was begging for me to take her back. And I would. Without question.

But then I remembered her mom. I tried to put myself in her shoes. She and her parents were close, closer than I'd ever been to my own mom and dad. They'd gone through a little bit of a rough patch when she'd skipped out of going to State in the fall but they'd ultimately supported her decision, even more so when she shared just how fucked up her twin sister had behaved towards her. Toward us.

I knew she was reeling from the cancer diagnosis. And I knew that she didn't want to leave her mom. I totally understood that. I didn't want her to leave, would never ask her to, given the circumstances. But I also didn't want her making rash decisions about us, either.

I looped the park another time, my heart pounding, my mouth dry. I slowed to a walk and wiped the sweat off my brow. I stopped at the water fountain outside of the bathroom building and took a long drink. The water was lukewarm but I sucked it down, anyway. I swallowed one last mouthful and wiped the drops of water dripping from my chin.

I walked a little, my muscles like rubber. It had been ages since I'd run like that. I was in piss poor shape, I realized. Sure, I'd looked okay out on the field at the try-outs but there was no way I was at the top of my game. Not physically and definitely not mentally.

I sank to the grass and stretched my legs out in front of me. I gazed back out at the bay. I wanted Abby. Abby wanted me to go to school. If I went, I lost her. If I stayed, I lost her.

I yanked at the grass, removing a fistful. I tossed it aside and reached for another, tugging hard. It eventually pulled free and I launched it like I was firing a baseball. Dirt flew back in my face, stinging my eyes, but I didn't care. The dirt mingled with tears I didn't know I had. I brushed at them angrily, my fingers turning a muddy brown.

I was fucked.

Whatever I did, I'd lose the most important thing in my life.

But, if I was smart, I could still have the second most important thing.

Baseball.

THIRTY NINE

Griffin was lounging in the recliner, beer in hand, when I came back from my run. He held it up in greeting.

I kicked off my tennis shoes at the front door. “How were the roommates?”

He shrugged. “Fucking kooks.”

“Yeah?” I hated that part of me was happy hearing that.

“Yeah.” He took a swig of his beer. “Pretty sure one was gay. And you know, that's all fine and good, right? I mean, I'm all for the rainbow. But he fucking stared at my dick the whole time we were talking. Like, licked his lips.” Griffin shuddered and swallowed another mouthful. “Yeah. No, thanks.”

I sat down on the couch and peeled off my socks.

“Jesus, dude.” He pinched his nose. “You fucking reek.”

I tossed a sock at him and he swatted it down.

“So one gay guy. Anyone else?”

“Yeah. Some former Marine. Just back from Afghanistan.”

“And that was a no-go?”

“He had dead eyes, man,” Griffin said. “You know? Like, he was nice enough but he was creepy. He smiled and shit but it never reached his eyes. Pretty sure he'd go ape shit some night and slit my throat or something.”

“Probably.”

He sighed. “Got two more people coming by tomorrow. I'm hoping for someone normal.”

“Fingers crossed.”

He drained the beer and set it on the coffee table. “You survive work?”

I nodded.

“Getting home kind of late,” he commented. “You got new hours or something?”

“No.” I sat there for a minute, debating whether or not I wanted to share what had gone down with Abby. If he noticed I was wrestling with something, he didn't show it, just stared at the TV screen.

“So I saw Abby today,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How'd that go?”

I told him.

At one point, he hopped up from the recliner and grabbed a couple more beers. Wordlessly, he twisted off the cap and handed me a bottle before opening his.

When I finished telling him, he expelled a slow breath. “Wow.”

“Pretty much.”

“Gotta say, I didn't see that coming,” he said.

“Yeah. Me, either.”

“And she's serious about breaking things off?”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “I will never understand women. Ever. Maybe I should try the gay thing.”

I shot him a look and he grinned.

“Kidding,” he said. “Not an ass man. In any way.” I smiled and he said, “I just mean that chicks are fucking psycho. They make no sense. None.”

I didn't argue.

“I mean, here's this girl who's insanely in love with you. And she's got you totally whipped. Her mom gets diagnosed with cancer. She could probably use a shoulder to cry on. Probably needs some sympathy fucks.” He raised his eyebrows when I made a face. “Don't deny it's true. We both know it. Chicks crave sex when they're sad or worried.”

Abby and I just craved sex with each other, period.

“She's gonna need a support system. Just like her mom is gonna need one. And, like it or not, you've been her support system for the past fucking year. It's a total no-brainer. But she doesn't want you to miss out on the baseball thing. And kudos to her for putting that first. Thinking about you and how important that is. But to just cut you off at the balls and give up? To say you're done, regardless of whether you stay or go? That's a shitty thing to do.”

“Agreed.” I took a long pull from my beer. “So now I'm just kind of stuck, I guess.”

Griffin frowned at me. “Stuck how?”

“Stuck on what to do.”

His frown deepened and he shook his head. “No, you're not. You're still doing exactly what you said you were gonna do. You're going to Arizona, West. With or without her.”

I opened my mouth to say something but he held up his hand, cutting me off.

“What the hell's the point of staying here? You stay and keep going to Mesa and keep working your twenty hours a week at the baseball joint?” He rolled his eyes. “Where the hell is that gonna get you? I mean, you kind of hit the jackpot at the tryout, having the Arizona coach there. It's not like other schools are beating down your door. What is staying here gonna do for you?”

He didn't let me answer. “And what about Abby? You don't think you're gonna run into her here? She'll probably still be taking classes at Mesa. Tell me that isn't gonna be awkward. Seeing your ex-girlfriend. Knowing you gave up a fucking scholarship and four-year degree for some chick who won't even give you the time of day.”

My gut tightened at the thought.

“I know you love her, man.” His voice dropped a little and, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was trying to be all sensitive and un-Griffin like. “But you gotta forget about that. Just like she's trying to forget about you.”