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And I’m not stupid. I know we might not be together forever or anything, but I’ll be damned if I don’t eat up every day that we are.

I look out to the field across the street, where the wheat sways in the breeze. There’s this peacefulness that comes with Lewis Creek, with its spring nights and open skies and fields that go on for miles. There’s plenty of craziness here. There’s a lot of good, too.

Marisa sits in the grass and crosses her legs. “Do you ever get scared about next year?”

Shoving my hands into the pockets of my khakis, I cross the distance between us. I’ve had a lot of thoughts about next year, eagerness to get the heck out of this town being at the top of the list. Between that and focusing on ball and school and the girl in front of me, I don’t think I’ve had enough brain space to be scared.

I sit beside her and rest my elbows on my bent knees. Instead of answering, I ask, “Are you?”

She considers that for a minute. “A little.” She leans back on her hands. “While we were in Maryland, I think Dad convinced me to change my major from straight Chemistry to Pre-Med.”

My eyes widen. The idea of her dedicating four years to Chemistry was crazy enough. If she goes the doctor route, well, more power to her. “Wow,” is all I can say.

She lets out a breathless laugh and shakes her head. “I know. It’s nuts. Chemistry’s my thing, so I
wasn’t worried about that at all. But Pre-Med brings in all the science.
All
of it.” She looks over at me. “All my life, I’ve watched Dad help people. And this just feels right, you know? He might be on to something. The question is whether or not I can hack it.”

We stare at each other. She’s the first to crack, bursting into laughter. “’Kay, so that was a terrible word,” she says. “But you know what I mean. And I’m trying to remind myself that things have a way of working out the way they’re supposed to. Maybe not the way we plan, but the way they’re meant to be.”

If anyone can hack it, it’s her. Just not, you know, literally. So when I tell her, “I think you can do whatever the hell you want to do,” I’m not sure I’ve meant anything more. “Anything you want is yours to take.”

She smiles and lies back in the grass, staring up at the sky. All I can stare at is her.

“Stars are kind of amazing when you think about them,” she says. “They’re always there. Even when it’s cloudy or when the sun’s shining, they’re still out there, in the universe. Sparkling.” She pats the grass. “Come down here with me.”

She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I lie back beside her, blades of grass prickling the back of my neck.

“You told me I can have whatever I want.” She turns her head, her face barely an inch from mine. “I want to help people. I want to love fearlessly. I want my heart to be so full that it’s near combustion before I go to bed every night. And I want to keep this feeling forever, this feeling of looking at you and knowing that I’m lo—” She bites her lip. “Knowing that I’m cared about.”

I love you
. The words are right there, on the tip of my tongue, but they’re glued there.

She takes a deep breath and looks up again, to the sky. “I want the world,” she says. “And I want the stars.”

Her hand’s resting right next to mine. I grab it. “Then make it happen.”

Her smile grows. “What do you want?”

And now I look up again, at the billions of stars crowding the night sky. The world would be nice, but that’ll take an awful lot of time. What matters is what we do with that time. “All I want is a life I’m proud of,” is my answer.

She squeezes my hand. I turn my head right as she does, meeting her gaze. “Then make it happen,” she whispers.

chapter twenty-seven

The locker room door screeches as I yank it open before practice on Monday afternoon. Coach called me out of my last class early, so the room’s empty and quiet—
too
quiet—as I head to his office. It’s weird, walking through here this close to the end of the season. The lockers are full now, but our final home game is in less than a week. After that? Empty. They’ll be filled up again next year, but for the first time in four seasons, not with my things. There’ll be a new pitcher, probably Eric, leading the Bulldogs. This won’t be my turf. The Bulldogs won’t be my team.

I stop in front of Coach’s office door. He won’t be my coach.

I knock on the door. When he calls out, “Yeah,” I push it open. Dressed in his practice gear, he waves me in from behind his desk.

“You wanted to see me?” I ask, sliding into the leather chair in front of him.

He lifts the brim of his cap and shuffles the papers on his desk before setting them to the side. “Just real quick before the guys file in. Wanted some quiet time with you. Away from prying eyes. Nosy ears.” He leans back in his chair, grinning as he swivels back and forth. “It’s been a hell of a few years, Braxton.”

That’s the understatement of the century. “Yes, sir.”

He chuckles, tossing his head back. “I remember when you were a snot-faced kid coming out for JV. You thought you were hot stuff because your Little League coach talked you up.”

I grin. I remember that like it was yesterday. I was in the lineup of freshmen trying out for the JV team. Coach stared me up and down, shook my hand, and told me he was going to give me the most worthwhile ass-kicking of my life. “Well, you did switch over to coach varsity once I moved up. I must’ve been hot stuff.”

He points at me. “Yeah, and you knew it. That was the problem.”

“Yeah,” I say, scratching the back of my head. “I was a punk then.”

“Still are,” he says with a smirk. “But you’re growin’ into a good man. I’m proud as hell of how you’re turnin’ out.” He pauses and adds, “I know it’s not necessarily what you want to hear, but your dad would be real proud of you, too.”

Pursing my lips, I nod. So that explains this random pre-practice meeting. “Is that why you wanted to see me in here instead of the field?”

“So you wouldn’t lose your cool in front of your team? You bet.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “We’ve had this talk before.”

“It ended awfully bad last time,” I remind him. My leg bounces as I hold his stare. “I’m not sure why you’re trying again.”

My sophomore season was rocky to say the least, considering Dad died right before tryouts. Coach brought me into his office then, laying into me about going to Dad’s grave. Told me I needed to face my anger head-on. I called him an asshole and told him to shove the psychobabble BS up his ass.

He benched me for three weeks.

“I think that forgiveness goes a long way,” he says. “I told you this last time we had this discussion, and I’ll tell you again: forgiveness isn’t for the other person. You forgive for yourself. For your own sanity. If anything, at least go to the man’s grave. Say what you need to say.”

He and Momma keep going on about this. It’s like some tired-ass Ping-Pong game they’ve got going, and honestly, I’m getting sick of it. What Coach doesn’t know is that I’ve crossed the forgiveness bridge. But going to Dad’s grave? That’s like asking me to jump off that bridge. Confrontation and I don’t get along too well.

“What if I don’t?” I ask. “Go to his grave?”

Blowing out a breath, he shrugs. “Then you get to carry his ghost around with you for a long, long time. He’ll follow you to college. He’ll follow you when you’re drafted. He’ll be in the back of your head when you’re pitching. When you close your eyes. He’ll always be there.” He folds his hands. “I’m talking about closure here, Austin. Everyone deserves closure.”

“Why do you even care?” I spit out. My throat tightens. I rub my sweat-streaked face and lean forward on my knees. “Why the hell do you care what I do? I’m off your hands after this year.”

“Because you’re like a son to me. Now watch your mouth.” He points at me again. “I care because I know what it’s like for guilt to eat at you. I care because I saw how much that man meant to you, and I still see it right this second. I know what his memory has done to you, to your life. If you leave town without making peace with this, you’ll regret it for the rest of your damn life. You can quote me on that.”

My jaw stiffens, and I blink quickly, hiding the stupid, stupid,
stupid
tears that are threatening to creep out. “Well,” I say, clearing my throat. “If this is
so important to you, will you excuse me from today’s practice?”

He stares at me for a moment. “And why would I do that?”

I narrow my eyes. “I got some feelings that need sortin’ out, right? Thought I’d take a drive to the cemetery. Do my sortin’ there.”

He nods to the door. “Only time I’m lettin’ you slide. Make it count.”

I’m already in the doorway when he calls my name. I whirl around. “What?”

He lifts an eyebrow, but lets that one slide. “Friday’s game is Senior Night,” he says. “I need your best memory of the team. Be thinking about it.”

Right now, best memories aren’t at the top of my list. Storming out of his office, I stride through the locker room, out of school, and to my truck. He wants me to go to Dad’s grave? Fine. Let’s give this shit a try.

I smack my steering wheel and yell. Yell. Yell until my throat’s raw and my lungs are out of air. Yell until my heart stutters and my cheeks flame up. Once my throat can’t take any more, I crank the engine and peel out of the parking lot. My pulse pounds in my ears as I speed down the back roads toward the cemetery. I navigate through the narrow paths of the graveyard until I come to the familiar spot. And for the first time in over two years, I get out of the truck.

Michael David Braxton
Beloved Husband, Father, and Friend
All Our Love, All Our Promises, All Our Swears

All our freakin’ love. Promises. Swears.

When I was a kid, Dad patted me on the back after every game. Praised me up and down, whether I won or lost. At those moments, more than ever, I knew he loved me like crazy. And nearly every day, he swore
he’d love me and Momma ’til the day he died. But the funny thing is, our love didn’t keep him from leaving. It didn’t keep him from dying. It wasn’t enough for him.

We weren’t enough for him.

“You—” My voice cracks. I bite my fist, gnawing on it, but my head goes blank as I glare at his headstone. There’s no air out here. There’s no air. I don’t know how Momma ever breathes out here because there’s no air.

And it’s quiet. Too quiet. All you can hear are your own thoughts, mingled with the silence of death, which is louder than a bullhorn. My breathing returns with a vengeance, coming too fast, too quick, too much at once.

“You,” I say again, struggling to keep my voice even. “You died over two years ago, but you’re here every damn day. You won’t leave me alone.”

I take a step forward and try swallowing back the lump in my throat, but it’s useless. Tears swim in my eyes, blurring his headstone, his name, the line between the year he was born and the year he died. That little line dictates our lives. How insane is that? Everything we do in our lifetime is encompassed in that one stupid line.

Momma and Coach say I need to forgive him for what he did. But what they don’t understand is that I don’t need to forgive him—not anymore. Somehow, in the slightest, most miniscule of ways, I get it. Because of Marisa. Because now I’ve seen firsthand how even the best of people can fight demons and almost lose. Because I’ve seen that bad shit happens to good people.

But Dad—Dad did lose. And I can’t fix that. I wouldn’t have been able to if I’d tried.

For the longest time, I hated him. I hated him for not telling someone what was bothering him. I hated him for not getting help. I hated him for being selfish
enough to take his life when there were people behind who loved him more than their own lives.

Earlier this season, Coach told me to suck up my pride and that real men know when to ask for help. But that’s not always true. Sometimes pride is debilitating, especially in a town where people put their heroes on pedestals.

“We wanted you here,” I choke out. “You know that, right? We would’ve done anything to keep you here. All you had to do was ask.”

Tears slip down my cheeks. No matter how tightly I squeeze my eyes, they just keep coming. I fall to my knees. The wet grass squishes against my skin as I stare at the marble headstone.

“For a long time, I hated you for leaving us. For how you left us. But now—” My voice cracks again. Now that I’ve seen the pain that leads up to that decision, the ache, the freakin’ torture that goes through someone’s head… “—I hate myself for hating you. And I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”

Wiping my nose with my arm, I stand. “Coach sent me to forgive you, Dad, but I just hope you can forgive me.” I take a step back. And another, and another, until I hit my truck.

I climb into the Chevy, and I sit. I sit for a long, long time, staring at the grave-markers ahead, stretching across the cemetery. I stare at good people, bad people, okay people. People who lived their lives to the fullest and people who screwed their way through life without thinking. I’m sure I’m staring at other people who were like my dad, who had the world at their fingertips but were haunted by something.

And I think that’s my biggest regret: not knowing what led him to the bridge. I don’t know what was going through his head that night, what made him think death was the only way out. But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that I hope every single person in
my life knows how much I love them. And that I would really miss them if they were gone.