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Swallowing the lump in my throat, I finally say, “I’m miserable,” I say, looking down.
That might be the most honest thing I’ve said to her in months.
She runs her hand up my arm. “Stop holding it in,” she whispers.
I let out a shaky breath and meet her eyes. “I’ve spent so much time feeling like this pain is a burden or an inconvenience. That I could figure it out myself. I’m… not sure how to let it out now. Especially with you. After everything… when you said you were hurt because you felt like I gave up… I did. But not on us. Never us. I gave up on myself.”
“But why?” she whispers.
“I don’t know.”
“Come here,” she says, pulling me next to her. We lean back against the headboard and look at each other.
Her grace never fails to amaze me. That she can love and support me like this after everything? I’m lucky. Lucky I didn’t push her completely out of my life. Lucky I didn’t destroy us as badly as I thought I did. I’m lucky she didn’t give up on me.
It disarms me a bit and makes me feel like I might be able to do this.
“Before I start, did Miles call you to come get me? I remember arguing with him about leaving and then you were there.”
“No. I was with Amanda and decided to stop by for a little while. First thing I saw was you. I knew you’d leave if I flirted with you.” Her eyes dance, though they’re glassy. “But then you puked, and that really put a damper on the flirting.”
I slide my hand down and take hers. “Thank you.” My eyes meet hers as she squeezes my hand.
Then she smirks at me and shrugs. “Don’t you know I’d doanythingfor you?”
“Rae…” my voice breaks.
“Tell me. Everything. Let it out. I don’t care how it sounds. I don’t care if it’s broken and ugly. Just let it out, Aaron.”
And as if those words were the key to what I’ve kept locked deep away, everything starts spilling out of me. Things from last year, how I started coming apart at the seams, my mistakes, my regrets, everything as she listens, occasionally saying something, but mostly letting me talk.
Tension welling around me, I crack my knuckles, something I’ve always done when I’m stressed or trying to release frustration. Then I wince. All this time and it still fucking hurts.
“Why did you quit physical therapy?” she asks quietly.
Running a hand through my hair, I blow out a breath. “I was so fucking frustrated that things didn’t magically improve. I—I think I want to go back,” I say, surprising myself.
Her fingers roll over my hand, the stiffness in my fingers softening with her touch. She loosely intertwines her fingers with mine. “These fingers deserve to heal. All of you deserves to heal.”
My heart slams so hard it must be bruising my ribs. Her touch undoes me, more now than ever before. As I unlock all the doors and tear down the walls I’ve put up, I feel our connection more intensely than I have in months. It hurts, and it heals.
“Do you want to be able to pitch again?” she asks softly.
That’s a question I’ve been over from every angle. It feels like hoping for that is setting myself up to have my dreams crushed. I take a deep breath and say the truth. “I don’t want to try to be the pitcher I was before. But I want to be able to throw a decent pitch. I want to be able to teach the mechanics to someone else. I want to have baseball in my life again.” I sigh and scoff a little. “Joel kept trying to get me to talk to the coach, see if he’d put me in as backup and let me work with a physical therapist and see what happened. Or find some way for me to be involved with the team. Coach had offered me that.”
She untangles our hands and lays back against me. “But you never talked to him?” I shake my head. Her eyes find mine and her lips purse before she softly speaks. “Do you think being involved with the team when you couldn’t play or play like you used to would make things better or worse?”
I sigh softly and gently run my fingers up and down her arm. “That’s the question I’ve been asking myself.” I stop as the realization hits. “But I guess I’ve already tried not being involved at all and it hasn’t gone particularly well.” She holds in a chuckle as I bite back a smile before turning serious again. “Maybe it’s time to find out what baseball could look like for me now. If it could look like anything.” I let out a rough sigh. “I’ve got to get PT going again too, regardless of anything else. I’m tired of my hand feeling like this.”
Rae whips out her phone and starts Googling physical therapists in the area. In less than five minutes, I have a ranked list with phone numbers I can call starting tomorrow. She even scrounged up emails for some of them in case I was too chicken to call.
Why was I afraid to talk to her?
She slides her phone aside and looks back at me. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me all this?”
I look away. Saying this to her is painful. It’s painful to realize how little I’ve thought of myself. “I’ve felt completely worthless. And broken.”
Her hand slides up my cheek as a tear spills from her eye. “You are not broken. Please stop saying that. You have things to figure out, but you aren’t broken.”
