Tattoo (5 page)

TEN

The anger built inside me like a storm. It was right along with that feeling I couldn't place. But coach was right, the scouts were at the game against our rivals that Friday and I put everything I had into every throw. Before every pitch I'd see Lauren sitting behind the backstop. She was cheering and smiling and it made me work harder. Made me push myself to my limit. I threw a three hit shutout game. We won and after the game I saw every scout talking to my coach. It felt amazing, it felt like I'd actually done it. Like I'd finally found my ticket out of town, away from my parents, away from everyone but Lauren.  

I was finishing buttoning up my shirt when coach came into the locker room. I had purposefully taken my time, hoping he would find me to tell me good news. He smiled a big smile at me. I knew what that meant.

"Every scout that came wants you to go play for them. If you can get into the high C range for grades, you're going to get your pick. Personally, I think you should pick Meryhist, it's ranked one of the best in the country."

As if he had to tell me that detail. Meryhist was my dream school, one I'd been working for, ever since I found my way to a bat. Not only was it one of the best schools in the country, it was also on the other side of the country.

"Meryhist?" I asked in disbelief. "I didn't even know they were at the game today."

Coach brushed it off. "Eh, I didn't want to tell ya, I wanted you to stay focused. This was probably the best game I've seen you play, Eric. Nice job, keep it going." He patted my shoulder and gave me a smile. I stood there in shock as he left the locker room. I'd done it, I really had. I couldn't race out of there fast enough, I couldn't wait to tell Lauren.

She was waiting for me outside, sitting on the railing. I ran to her and dropped my bag. I swung her down from the railing, her dress floating around behind her. Her laugh rang out in song as I spun her in circles, and soon the laughter was bursting through me as well. I put her down and lowered my face to hers. I kissed her hard on the mouth, hardly knowing how to contain my excitement. When I finally pulled away her eyes were wide, and her lips were red and swollen. I put my forehead to hers and breathed her in.

"I did it," I whispered.

"Did what babe?"

"Meryhist wants me to play for them," my excitement bubbled over and I lifted her to spin her again.

"Wow...Eric, that's so...great!" she answered in my ear.

I could picture the uniform, I could picture the field, I could finally see my life. The last few months of senior year couldn't end quick enough. Meryhist.

I carried her over to the car and we climbed in. I laughed as she squirmed to get away, but I was never planning on letting her go.

"Where should we go celebrate?" I asked, as I started the car.

"Oh, anywhere, you pick."

"How bout our little bistro?"

She nodded and I started to drive. As we drove I rattled off every fact I could think about Meryhist. I felt like I was going a million miles a minute but I just couldn't stop it. If I didn't get it all out, I was going to burst. We pulled into the parking lot of our little Italian restaurant and I looked over at Lauren. Her hair was falling in front of her face and she was playing with a little string in her fingers. Winding and unwinding it tightly around her fingers. I turned off the car and waited.

"What's wrong?" I finally asked.

"Nothing," she answered, avoiding my eyes. "Let's go in."

"No, wait Lauren." I grabbed her hand before she reached for the door. "Tell me what's wrong."

She waited for a long, agonizingly silent moment while she stared out the window. "I'm going to miss you," she whispered.

"Miss me? What do you mean?" I was confused. 

"When you go to Meryhist. It's all the way on the other side of the country, what am I going to do without you?" 

"Without me?" I laughed. "What do you mean? You're coming with me!" I couldn't imagine leaving Lauren in this town any more than I could imagine staying here myself.  But she shook her head and looked down into her lap.

"Why not? Your college test scores were amazing and your grades are at a genius level. You'll get in anywhere, so what's the problem?" I really couldn't think of any reason she would stay in Oakwood. It was starting to feel like something was boiling inside me, something unexpected. I had never been angry at Lauren before, not once in the five months I'd known her, but I was getting pretty close. This was my dream and my only shot at college, why was she making this so difficult?

"After I have the baby, there's no way I can be all the way on the other side of the country. You'll be at practices, on the road at games, I can't do this alone. I'm going to need some help, I want to stay near home, near my mom."

The baby. How had I let it slip my mind? How had I forgotten, even for one second, that my life was no longer just mine? I had so much more to consider, so much more to think about. I felt the anger really start to boil. One mistake was ruining my entire life and I couldn't help but feel cheated. I worked so hard and was losing everything. I turned the car back on and pulled it out of the parking spot.

"Well, I guess there's nothing to celebrate then."

"Why not?" she asked. It was her turn to be confused.

"Because I'm not going then." I couldn't control the sharp tone that was coming out, and the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach was growing stronger. All I wanted to do was get her home, be alone before I said something I regretted.

"Why wouldn't you go?" she asked, still not understanding.

My knuckles started to whiten as I gripped the steering wheel with everything I had.  I was holding back lashing out the best I could, but I knew I wouldn't be able to hold back for long. I didn't want to answer questions as my dreams were going down the drain.

"Because I'm not going without you and the baby. Where you are is where I will be, so if that's not at Meryhist, if it's in this shit town, then that's where I'll be." I didn't mean for it to come out sounding so nasty, even though I knew it did. I couldn't look at her; all I could see was the blurry road ahead of me, clouded by my anger.

"Eric, you don't have to.."

"YES I DO, GOD DAMNIT! I WILL NOT BE A FAILURE WITH THIS BABY, LIKE EVERYONE THINKS I AM!" I yelled so hard the windows shook. I saw her flinch and cower to the window. 

I lost my breath as I realized what I had just said. That feeling buried deep down had finally come to the surface, I was scared. My parents, Mrs. Roe, Lauren's parents, all knew who I was. I was a disappointment. Who else knew it, too? These thoughts sat heavy on my chest as I pulled into Lauren's driveway. She bolted out of the car quicker than I could stop her, but I saw her brush tears away as she went. Even if I could have stopped her, I don't know what I would have said. 

I drove home with my mind blank. I didn't want to let myself go to those dark places where shadows were lurking. But when I got home and flopped onto my bed, those shadows had nowhere else to escape. Who were you, if people didn't believe the good in you? If people believed you weren't good enough. For the first time since I was a child, tears slipped from my eyes. I didn't want to be me anymore. I wanted to be more. And I knew there was only one person who could help make me more, and I needed her.

I parked down the block and walked down the road in the damp spring air, to the window I knew would be waiting. I didn't need to call her first, I knew the window would be open for me. Her room was cast in shadow when I climbed inside. I heard her steady breathing and knew she was asleep under the covers. I kicked off my shoes and climbed into the bed with her.

I curled around her, my hand coming to rest on her abdomen. She settled herself into me, warm with sleep. I kissed her hair and she stirred awake. 

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.

"I don't want to ruin your dreams." Her voice still thick with sleep.

I smiled in the darkness." Well, I have a new dream now. It's you and the baby."

She turned to me, her eyes locked on mine. "Do you mean that?"

"Absolutely. I'll talk to coach on Monday. I'll tell him my family is here, and this is where I need to be. You're my family now."

She kissed me long and sweet. Her lips parted and her tongue found mine. I held her in my arms as tightly as I could. I'd made my decision, she was where home was. She suddenly gasped and pulled away. She looked down toward her tiny protruding belly.

"Did you feel that?" she asked.

"Feel what?" I looked at her and panicked a little bit. "Are you ok?"

She laughed and nodded. She grabbed my hand and put it back on her abdomen.

"It's the baby. It's kicking. This hasn't happened before."

I kept my hand there in disbelief. There was a life inside there that needed me, and I would be there. We fell asleep that way, for hours, our hands entwined, and holding onto our baby.

ELEVEN

It took a lot of deep breaths to walk into coach's office, to tell him the decision I had made. But I kept to my word and told coach on that Monday, that I needed to get a scholarship somewhere locally. The disappointment showed in his eyes, but this was one I could live with.

"Meryhist is the best baseball school in the country. Do you have any idea what you're giving up?" he asked me.

"Do you know what I'd be giving up if I left?" I asked him back.  I'd made up my mind. My dreams would have to be put on hold. I knew there was a very slim chance of being recruited to play in the majors out of one of our local colleges. But I'd made up my mind. I'd train ten times harder than anyone else, throw faster, pitch better than anyone we played. I knew it was a long shot, but it wasn't impossible. I was letting one lifelong dream fall away, but I'd be damned if I'd give up already on my next one.

Coach nodded his head. "I'll make the call."

I left the office with such a heavy feeling of sadness, even though I knew I did the right thing. My head was so stuck in the dark clouds that swirled about me when I started walking down the hall, that I hardly noticed Blake running up to me, until he was right in my face.

"Hey man! You decided about prom yet?" he asked me.

"Prom?"

"Yea man, I asked you like two weeks ago if you and Lauren were going to be in the limo with us for prom. You said you'd let me know."

I had totally forgotten all about prom. I felt like I was starting to lose my balance everywhere.

"No sorry. I'll ask her tonight."

It was a moment or two before I realized Blake stopped walking with me and just stood there. "Ya know, it's not my fucking problem that you got her knocked up. It's not my fucking problem that no one likes her, but I was trying to be your friend and ask you with us. You act like you don't even give a shit about anyone anymore."

I was starting to feel my chest burn with frustration again. I wanted to scream until the windows shattered. "So sorry that my life interferes with your drinking and partying. But friends? Do you really think we're friends?" I was spitting the words at him. "Would friends completely ignore my girlfriend and treat her like trash? Would friends stop inviting me places just because I'm about to have a kid? No, they wouldn't. I didn't plan to have a kid at 18, I didn't plan to ruin my life!"

I turned to storm down the hall and I saw her. She didn't wait two seconds before she turned and ran away. I was gulping down air like I'd never had it before, like I just realized I needed it to live. I was looking from person to person; they all stared at me like they'd never seen me before. Even Blake just stood there with his mouth hanging open in disbelief. I stormed down the hall and through the doors of the school.

To anyone else it would have looked like I was leaving school. But I wasn't, I headed down the path to the baseball diamond. I saw her standing on top of the pitcher's mound, kicking at the dirt, rubbing circles over her belly. My pace slowed when I saw her, because even though I knew where to find her, I didn't know what to say. 

"I can see why you like it out here," she called to me. I stood behind the backstop wondering where she was going with that.

"It's pretty powerful stuff, being the center of attention here. The whole game rests, literally, in your hands."

I shook my head and opened the gate, letting myself into the field. "That's not why I like it." I crossed over to her and stood on the mound with her. I turned her toward home plate and wrapped my arms around her from behind, taking her arms. I ran my fingers down to her hands and closed mine around them. I picked up her hand and put her into a wind-up, to mimic a throw.

"Up here, my head clears and every pitch I throw, it just makes sense."

"What does?" she asked.

I breathed in the scent of her hair, ran my hands along her arms again.  She was turning me on and she wasn't even doing anything. I wanted her there, right on the pitcher's mound. 

"My life," I answered. I started kissing the soft spot on her neck, the spot that almost always made her weak for me.

But she quickly broke from my arms and turned to face me. 

"Eric, you need to figure it out. I'm sorry we got pregnant, and I'm sorry that your life isn't what it was. But there's nothing I can do now. We made a choice and I'm not backing out of it. So you need to make your decisions. I don't want to be the one that ruined your life."

She turned and walked from the pitcher's mound, and began walking on the path back to school. This mound of dirt always held the answers for me, it always made my life complete, even when I felt like I had nothing else. With Lauren walking away, without her face behind the back stop, it felt lonely. For the first time it gave me more questions than answers. 

All weekend I'd thought about it. Baseball. I'd laid awake every night that weekend, picturing myself pitching in that stadium. Seeing myself playing on that field, picturing the batter step up to the plate. I could already smell the grass, I could feel the ball in my hand. And then I'd look behind the backstop, and Lauren wasn't there. 

"Lauren," I called after her.  She turned around and looked at me in the eyes. "Do you want to go to prom?"

Her smile split her face, so genuine so beautiful. I jogged down the field toward the gate and in one quick move, hopped over it. I grabbed her in my arms and kissed her, slow and tender. I wanted her to feel it down to her toes. She moaned quietly and I needed her again. I picked her up without even breaking us apart and took her back to the gate. I broke us only for a second to open it and let us back into the field.

I didn't think I could wait to get all the way to the pitcher's mound so I carried her over to the dugout. Her lips found every little part of my neck, light airy kisses. I ached for her everywhere. I needed to be inside her, be as close to her as possible. I wanted to fill her the way she fills me. As I laid her on the bench, I slipped my hand under her dress and I caressed her lightly, carefully. I wanted to see her when she let go. She had other plans and pulled away my jeans. She didn't need to do anything to get me ready, I was more than ready to feel her, and she pulled me inside. We found our rhythm together and I held back until I saw her release everything she'd been holding inside, before I did too. 

We never made it back to class that day. 

The next day I caught up with Blake in the hall. I couldn't figure out if he was pissed or if he felt bad. He looked a little of both.

"You guys have room for two in the limo?" I asked him.

"Sure do," he said.

"Will anyone have a problem with Lauren?" I asked. My jaw clenching unintentionally at the thought of what it might be like.

"If they do, I'll take care of it," he told me. And just like that, it was over. I realized maybe I didn't have to push everyone away and maybe I did have one friend on my side.