A Game Like Ours: Suncastle College Book One

by Marissa J. Gramoll

  Four hundred and seventy-two? I count backward, closing my eyes as the realization hits: the number of days since Cody’s death.

  “You keep track?”

  “Yeah.” He sighs, and it’s so heavy that I tense every muscle in my body. “And no, I don’t want to. Every day without him just feels wrong.”

  My insides are ablaze, that familiar tinge of emotion working from my throat to the back of my mouth. So much for building planks around my heart, I’ve just burned them all away with my anguish. Eyes stinging, I blink hard, hoping to stay the waterworks–I’ve already cried with Bobby more than enough.

  “We don’t have to do anythin’.” He leans against the wall, silently pleading with me not to walk out this door, his somber smile pulling at his cheeks but not reaching his eyes. “You look tired. Let’s get you some rest.”

  “I haven’t slept in a long time.” My comment does something to him that I can’t quite read while I press against the closed door, mirroring his posture. Looking at his bloodshot eyes shoots pain through my stomach because he doesn’t sleep either. I don’t know what to make of him… or any of this. Too much change at once isn’t good for anyone, and my gosh he’s changed a hell of a freaking ton. This is not the Bobby I knew in high school–not even a little bit.

  “What would help you?” His brows raise and I know he’s sincere and that he wants to be there for me. This realization flutters my heart, and my breath catches, knowing he genuinely cares about me.

  “I’ll sleep on your couch. I just don’t wanna go back to the beach house.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He walks down the hall, stopping halfway, looking back at me, frozen in the doorway. “Come on, now.” His accent is thick and sexy making me swallow hard. What the fuck is happening right now?

  His room is crowded with a queen-sized bed up against the wall, black sheets and a blanket in a heap on the unmade bed. It smells nice in here, like Hollister cologne. Twenty or more Yankees caps hang on his wall and this breaks me because Cody was gonna play for the Yankees. Before all this, Bobby was a White Sox fan. And seeing that he changed his allegiance makes me want to crawl into a secluded cave and cry in the cold, pouring rain from now until eternity.

  Cody meant the world to both of us, and for the first time, I’m not alone in my grief.

  Bobby lifts the blanket, throwing it over the bed, smoothing the edges like a maid at a hotel. “I’ll get your bag outta the car.”

  “Thanks.” I hand him my keys out of my pocket and sit on his bed when a yawn stretches over my face until my cheeks burn.

  “Does it feel like you’re dead inside?” His question plays in my head while I think about all the times I’ve felt that way.

  The thud of my duffle bag brings me back to the moment.

  “Bathroom is that door.” He tilts his head into the hallway. “And here’s a towel if you wanna shower?”

  “A shower sounds heavenly.” I stand near him, observing his presence, acknowledging that he’s really grown up…have I?

  “Whatever you need. I mean it.”

  “Well, I think I’m gonna need some more pizza. You didn’t order near enough,” I tease, thinking about telling him I need a Coke. Knowing he would drop everything to go get me one, I stay silent.

  “What was I thinkin’? Shoudda bought six more orders of cheese sticks.” A half smile shines on his face. “I’m glad you’re back.” He places his arms around me in a hug. My body melts into his muscular frame, cautious at first and then relaxed–like I was always meant to be there. His arms hold me with a gentle strength that makes breath hang in my lungs. He smells like laundry soap and subtle hints of that cologne that fills his room. His grasp is so consoling and for the first time in a long time, I am safe and at peace. When he releases, my body remembers the feel of him against it, wanting more.

  I pull him back in close to me and hold, pretending for a second that nothing is wrong, escaping inside his embrace the way I need. He gasps as I bury my head into his chest, and then he softens, those arms enveloping me while the heavy thud of his heart pounds against my cheek.

  “You’re great, Bobby, do you know that?” I pull back. “Hope I’m not gettin’ in your way by bein’ here.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re not an imposition or anythin’ so don’t even think that, alright?”

  And he’s gone, leaving me to do whatever I need.

  The water runs over me, a fog filling the tiny bathroom. Head and Shoulders shampoo, a bar of Lever 2000, and lots of soap scum buildup like he and Mickey haven’t cleaned the shower for a long time. Something about his apartment is welcoming. The bit of reality that exists in this not quite perfect bathroom calms me. I feel relaxed, almost, the memory of his hug lingering on my skin.

  I’m here with Bobby and his presence soothes me in a way I didn’t expect. Shaking my head, I wonder why on earth I’m associating the word soothing with Bobby. He’s always been my friend, but he and Cody were like blood. That’s why he gets it even better than my therapist did.

  I feel queasy, wondering if I’m subconsciously trying to replace Cody with Bobby. They are a lot alike, in some ways. But that wouldn’t be right. I can’t betray Cody like that and I shouldn’t mislead Bobby into thinking he is what I’m after.

  I’m even more confused at these thoughts running through my head. Am I into Bobby? Didn’t think I was.

  His bed is the ideal combination of firm and soft, just like his body was mere minutes ago. The moment I hit the pillow, I’m in a deep sleep–so deep I don’t realize I’ve slept in until I look at my phone and it’s almost noon. Good heavens, I haven’t slept through the night in so long I can’t even remember the last time it happened.

  Throwing on some jeans, I go to the kitchen and notice immediately that Bobby has cleaned up the clutter and junk from the night before. Something else is missing. Him. He’s not here. I look around for a note, but there isn’t one. And Mickey isn’t home either.

  Okay, Bobby….

  I gather my stuff, make up his bed and head to my car to get out of here. It’s time to face campus. The night of real sleep will help. Maybe one day I won’t be so dead inside.

  5

  BOBBY

  I didn’t want to leave her. She looked peaceful for the first time since she returned to Suncastle. When Briar and I got back from our morning run, I tapped her shoulder. She didn’t even stir. Made me happy to see her passed out in my bed.

  I watched for a second, scolding myself with each heartbeat until I pulled away. I wanted to climb in beside her, feel her body against mine. Just like when she held me so close last night. It was like everything I’ve hungered for was filled. I don’t know how she makes me feel so much. But she always has. Every casual hug or bumped shoulder our whole life. Being with her does something to me. I don’t want this feeling to end. Ever.

  I shake my head. This is not going to work.

  Walking to my car, I wonder if Lex is still at my place. I wanna see her again. Hell, I wanna spend all my time with her.

  Get a grip, yeesh.

  I need some distance from her, before I do something. If I go too far, I’ll regret it and hell, so will Cody’s ghost. She needed someone last night. Who she needs is my best friend and some fucking closure from the death that left us both wide open.

  My stomach drops like a fly ball that shoulda been caught.

  God, Cody, I wish you were still here. Every day I wish you were still here.

  My throat tightens as if my guts are trying to climb out. I can hardly breathe. It’s not like the usual retching sensation that would come next. It’s replaced something else.

  A sort of visceral hope. A connection. A tear in the fabric of reality.

  An otherworldly tremor.

  Like whatever is beyond hiccups long enough that Cody and I are together.

  This millisecond burns me with the knowledge that there’s an afterlife, even if it's just the energy of a person that lives on. Call me crazy
, I know. But there has to be somethin’. Or else I wouldn’t feel this at all. I wasn’t trying to.

  Good to feel you close.

  Losing him usually makes me hollow inside, but sometimes it’s this connection. I know he’s close right now. Like if I had immortal eyes, I could see him. What do you think about all this with me and Lex, hm? I know, I know, that’s not what you want.

  Because I am in love with her.

  How do I know this? Because I haven’t felt a real connection with anyone else. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  I get around. Open-minded as long as word doesn’t get out in a way that would hurt baseball. Tons of practice, experiments, kinky stuff, good times. I’ve had casual girlfriends. Drunk fucks–like Claudia. One-night stands with hot guys that don’t know my real name.

  Sam is the only one who knows my identity. We respect that we’re both closeted. They have as much on the line if I tell their secret as if they tell mine. Not that either of us would. It’s nice to have a safe place with them. But at the end of the day, it’s just a hookup.

  The last several years, I’ve done a little bit of everything. They’re people to have fun with. Get laid. But even though I feel things deeply, I can’t feel much for any of them. Not like what I’ve felt for Lexie since the first time we hung out right after one of our games back in junior high. They don’t do it for me.

  I try.

  Really, I do.

  Lexie, though...well, she’s different. I know, I know. Sounds ridiculously cliché. Hey, you went out with her. I don’t have to tell you how amazin’ she is, Cody.

  I sigh. Everything is so different with her. Despite my constant effort to ignore it. Whether she knows or not, my being lives within her. Companion souls. A link I’ve felt since we were kids. My mind can’t make any sense of it.

  Trust me Cody, I didn’t ask for it to be like this.

  I’m dying to know if she has felt any of it. May just be me and my out-of-control feelings. No. It’s something. I know it’s something.

  I wish I knew you’d be okay with this.

  He doesn’t reply. I just get feelings. Or memories of what he used to say popping into my head. The tremor is gone, and I’m hollow again. Grief is like riding rapids. Unsure territory in constant shift and flow.

  How do I snap out of it?

  I drive to the gym and spend two hours pumping iron to my AC/DC playlist with Briar. The news plays on the TV. A car crash. Fuck.

  I shouldn’t look. I know what it’ll do to me. But I’m glued to the screen like I couldn’t move if my life depended on it.

  “That’s too bad.” Briar’s voice is heavy, his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.” He gets it. His brother passed in a motorcycle crash several years back.

  Vomit comes up my throat as the memories overtake me. Running to the hospital. Seeing him dead on the gurney. I knew he was gone. We all knew he was gone.

  Can you hear me, Cody? Because I’m mad. I’m fuckin’ mad at you for leavin’ us behind.

  Because every time I remember, it’s not just Cody’s body covered by a steril white sheet, too wrecked for us to see him. It’s not just a cold, antiseptic smelling emergency room. It’s not just the somber face of a nurse, eyes trying to convey how sorry she is that there was nothing to be done.

  It’s Lexie’s by his side, in so much pain. Slamming the hospital bed and then crumbling into my arms with her tears. Like it was yesterday, her shouts of no again and again ring in my ears. She was left so broken. Destroyed.

  Just like I am.

  6

  LEXIE

  Getting books for classes shouldn’t be this hard when I’m a senior and I’ve done this a dozen times.

  Regina comes up beside me. “Oh, hey!” She has a stack of books in her hands. “When did you get back?”

  “Yesterday.” I shrug. “I thought you graduated last fall.”

  “Oh, I’m doing the grad program now.”

  “Really? That’s great!”

  “MATC.” She smiles and sourness fills my gut because I could be there now, done with my undergrad, getting my masters in Sports Nutrition...or heading to art school.

  “What team you workin’?” She grips her books to her chest.

  “Baseball.”

  “No shit.” She beams. “You’ve been waitin’ for that.”

  “I know.” This does little to make me feel better about all the delays. But hey, college isn’t a race, I’ll get through when I do. “The last team I need to work.” I’m referring to the requirements for my athletic training degree, but it holds double meaning. Baseball is the last place I want to be, now that all I’ll think about is Cody. And I’ll have to work with Mindy. I’m not looking forward to that after the way she acted when I told her I wasn’t coming back after Cody passed.

  “That’s amazin’. Mindy is gonna love havin’ you. You gone to see her yet?”

  “Heading there next.” I pretend to be happy. Really, I love Mindy to death–but she didn’t take it well when I left.

  I can’t put this off forever, and maybe she doesn’t hate me as much as I think. Maybe,maybe, maybe. I hope….

  On the short trip from the campus bookstore, I walk past several athletes I know. We smile and wave. I go from the Underbelly–the prime campus hangout spot with the smoothie place and the Redbox–to the crosswalk, passing the soccer fields where the team is running two-a-days. I remember the hell it was to work two-a-days with them.

  Baseball here is the biggest deal. So much revolves around this sport it’s not even funny. Scouts and reporters come to the games. I can count on one hand the games we’ve lost. These boys are good. Coach Conners and Coach Denson run a tight ship and Mindy is one hell of an athletic trainer.

  Sandy, the head professor of the athletic training program, steps out of her office. “Lexie?” Her face lights up, looking over a handful of notebooks. “Oh my God!” She pushes the notebooks aside, trying to give me a hug while I inhale her pleasant perfume.

  “Hey, Sandy. How you been?”

  “Great! I’m thrilled to see you back. I saw the note from administration.” She gives me another hug. I’ve always loved Sandy. She really is the mother of the athletic training program. I met her as a freshman, and I always felt that, under her wings, I could learn to fly. I’m so torn because I do love so much about this program and so much about the people here. I wish there was a better way for me to pursue my art and be involved in athletics. I used to run myself raw trying to make it work, but there’s not enough time for both. Not with how much I’d like to spend on my art...if I can ever bring myself to paint again. “It’s great to see you, too.”

  “I’m so glad you came back.”

  The word back makes my throat thick.

  I am back. Without Cody. He doesn’t get to finish school. He doesn’t get to go play for the Yankees. He doesn’t get to wait for me to walk down the aisle in his old church in Willardson. I swallow, holding my breath and hoping the look on my face doesn’t betray my thoughts.

  “I gotta run, Lexie, I’ll see you in class.” She heads on her way and I’m thankful she doesn’t see the tear sneaking out of my eyes. Deep breaths. Keep going, keep moving, keep shifting. Mental note: watch a Nicholas Sparks movie so I can get all of this crying out of my system in the privacy of my own home.

  I walk past the baseball coaches’ offices and they are there, always working, even way before season. Coach Conners smiles at me through the glass with an enthusiastic wave.

  The team photos are in the display case. My Cody, right there for all the world to see, his eyes so bright. So full of life.

  Anything can change in a moment.

  A second.

  “Hey, Lex.” My friend Jae comes in front of me, wearing an athletic training t-shirt and khaki shorts, his thick English accent lacing his words.

  “Good to see you.” I give him a hug, welcoming the distraction from my pain.

  He’s one of my best friends. We worked together in the
training room a lot before I left. “Looks like we’re going to have baseball together.”

  “I know.” I smile, genuinely happy for something to look forward to.

  “Have you seen Mindy yet?”

  It’s the million dollar question. No, and I don’t want to. “Heading there now.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Thank fuck I won’t have to do this one alone.

  He opens the door and the smell wafts up my nose: a mix of sweat, lemon-scented cleaner to make sure no one gets MRSA, and bandaids. Ice baths are churning with players submerged, discomfort playing across their faces. Nine of the twelve tables have athletes on them.

  This is more my home than the beach house. I doubt that place will ever be home again. I love that Bobby was supportive of me getting out of there. He’s being so nice to me. My skin tingles with the memory of him holding me last night, and it brings a small comfort as I anticipate the reckoning that’s about to occur.

  The track team shuffles in like a stampede of zebras in their striped uniforms, waiting in line for ice bags and heat packs. A few of them talk about classes while others talk about their summers.

  I jump in motion, helping suck the air out of the ice bags and tying a knot. The giant roll of plastic wrap screeches, wrapping one bag of ice after another against overworked thighs and shins.

  “Thanks.” Bryce Woudermilk says with that goofy, toothy smile of his. He’s holding a banana. He usually carries a banana. Funny thing to remember, but hey some things never change.

  “You ready for the meet on Saturday?” I suck the air out of his second ice bag.

  “As ready as I can be.” He props his leg up so I can wrap the ice on his shin.

  “That’s fair.” I’m glad he doesn’t ask me how I’ve been–I’m sick of all the attention. Yes, I left and yes, I’m back. I wish everyone would stop making such a big deal about it.

  “See ya around, Lexie.” Bryce follows his team toward the locker room.