Just South of Paradise

by Grace Palmer

  Panic lances through Drew’s chest. His eyes widen and he looks at Coach. “What is he saying?”

  “He’s saying that you’ve had a good run, Baldwin.” Coach’s forehead wrinkles and he can barely meet Drew’s eye. “But this is where our journey ends.”

  The blood is pounding in Drew’s ears. “Are you ... cutting me from the team?”

  Coach nods silently.

  “I don’t understand,” Drew says, heart inching up his throat. “I just played my best game of the season. I won the game.” He gestures to the stands outside of the small window. “The crowd loved it. Did you not see that?”

  “It was a great game to go out on,” Graham offers with a syrupy smile. “You’ve done great work on this team and nobody is saying otherwise. But it’s time to take a step back and let some new guys come in. It wouldn’t be fair to the team or all the hopeful rookies out there to keep hanging on any longer.”

  “What about what’s fair to me?” Drew demands. “I’ve given everything to this team. I left my family. I sacrificed the opportunity to settle down so I could spend weeks out on the road. I trained until I wanted to throw up and then trained more. And now you’re just going to cut me loose?”

  The vein in Drew’s temple throbs. He knows he should breathe, that he should focus on something else to try to dim the red flashing behind his eyelids, but doing that won’t make him feel any better. This rage growing in his belly is the only thing keeping him from deflating entirely.

  “Let’s not make this any harder than it needs to be,” Coach says, shuffling uncomfortably in his chair.

  “Harder than it …” Drew trails off, staring at his coach in disbelief.

  He grits his jaw and shoves his chair back. The metal legs screech against the floor. Coach winces, but Graham looks unbothered. This is just another day at work for him. He couldn’t care less.

  Drew storms from the room, slamming the door behind him. He stands outside for a second, breathing heavily, fists clenched.

  Tom, who is loitering at the end of the walkway despite Wyburn’s barked orders, spots Drew and calls out to him. “You look ticked, man. Did Coach tell you to hit it harder next time?” He laughs, but his laughter dies out when he notices that Drew has not acknowledged him, and is standing stock-still, glaring at the wall opposite.

  “You okay, D?”

  Drew can’t even look at his friend. He storms off to the locker room, cursing.

  How could Wyburn do this to him? After everything he has given to this team.

  Rage boils in his veins. He knows he should try to calm down, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to explode and bring down this entire stadium with him. He wants to break things and scream and let this violent fury take over so he doesn’t have to feel the biting pain hiding just underneath.

  And that is exactly what he does.

  Drew snatches a bat from the wall of the locker room and smashes it into his locker. The resounding crash is music to his ears; the feel of the metal buckling under his bat sends a shiver down his spine. He strikes again and again, roaring.

  The last time he felt like this was in high school. He’d flubbed an easy catch that cost his team a playoff game. He’d been beating himself up about it for days, when one evening, his dad came knocking on the door of his bedroom. “Get up, Drew,” he’d said. “Come with me.” Neither of them said another word to each other as they walked to the beach.

  Dad handed Drew his glove and the two of them began to play catch. How many times had they done this in Drew’s life—hundreds? Thousands? It had been a long time since it required any conscious effort at all. Catch, throw, catch, throw—these things were second nature to him now. Almost always, it was like medicine to him, like aloe on a sunburn.

  But today, nothing was going right. And with every errant throw, every dropped toss, he got angrier and angrier. Dad did, too. He didn’t say anything at first, but Drew could see the frustration building in his face. “Focus, D,” he said once, then twice. “Come on, now, get yourself together!”

  It didn’t help, of course. It just made Drew madder.

  A few dozen badly executed throws in, he hit his boiling point.

  He roared wordlessly until his voice cracked. Then he turned and chucked the ball into the ocean as hard as he could.

  He was about to send his glove in after it when he felt his dad’s presence surround him. “Breathe,” Dad said, wrapping his arms around him. “You need to breathe. You can’t let this consume you.”

  Richard didn’t ask what was happening between Drew’s ears. He didn’t yell at him to stop. He just told Drew to breathe, look at the waves, and try to relax. Dad held Drew until he calmed down, and when Drew could open his eyes again without seeing red, they went home without saying another word.

  Dad isn’t here to tell Drew to breathe now. There’s nothing to stop him from losing it completely.

  Several of his teammates, attracted by the ruckus, rush into the locker room. “Drew! What are you doing?” Javier yells.

  Vince advances toward him, but Drew holds the bat out and growls, “Stay out of my way.”

  Immediately, Vince inches back, holding up his hands, and Drew hurls the bat across the room and starts ripping framed pictures of former Rangers players who made it big down from their hooks and stomping them underfoot.

  Drew knows, somewhere deep down, that he should stop. He just can’t. His whole life has been leading up to what has turned out to be a big fat goose egg.

  Zero. That’s what he is. That’s the sum of his accomplishments.

  Wyburn bursts into the room. Graham is not with him. He must have slithered off back under his rock.

  “Baldwin!” Wyburn cries. “Stop it!”

  “Or what?” Drew mocks, stomping toward him, fists clenched. “You gonna kick me off the team?”

  “Or I’ll have security drag you out kicking and screaming, like an angry little baby!”

  Drew glares daggers at his former coach, but tangling with the security guards is not what the doctor ordered right now. “I’m done with this place, anyway,” he growls, spitting on the ground at Wyburn’s feet.

  He snatches his duffel bag from his locker and pushes past his former teammates, gritting his teeth the entire way to the car.

  When he finally shuts the door to his truck and is alone, Drew screams. He screams until he can’t scream anymore.

  Only then does he let himself cry.

  The memory sends a chill racing down his spine. Drew buries it.

  “Not now,” he growls out loud to himself in the empty car. “Not now.”

  Fortunately, the terrain around him has begun to shift into something more familiar. Gone are the mossy, scraggly trees of the South. Now, tall pines stand like sentries at the side of the road, and Drew starts to feel at home the second the highway begins winding through the dense woodland. It is late now, and although the moon and stars are extraordinarily bright tonight, the trees hunched on either side of the road make it seem darker than it is. Drew rolls down his window and breathes in the scent of pine and mulch. The salty air licks his face, and for a second, he feels a fleeting sense of peace.

  It’s gone as soon as it arrives.

  Drew squeezes his hand around the steering wheel and takes a deep, calming breath. He has been driving for hours, which should have chilled him out by now, and yet each time he thinks about Rock Hill, he feels the stab of betrayal all over again.

  He’ll be home soon. He can talk to his dad. His dad will know what to do. He always does.

  By the time Drew clears the county line and starts heading into town, he has relaxed again. He turns the radio on low and looks around him at the place he grew up.

  On the outskirts of Willow Beach, he passes a bar with a big, weathered sign out front that reads “Joe’s.” The eponymous Joe was a mega-fan of Drew’s high school team, and used to let Willow Beach High athletes drink there sometimes, even though they were underage. Joe wasn’t an old man by a
ny standard, probably a little younger than Drew’s mom, but his deep wrinkles, drooping cheeks, and yellowed teeth made him look grizzled beyond his years. He liked to tell people he’d been smoking since he was old enough to use a lighter. For some reason that Drew never understood, Joe always said it like it was something to be proud of. He would put his two cents in when the Willow Beach athletes ordered drinks, suggesting an adjustment to the lineup here, a new play call there, but the players mostly smiled and ignored him.

  Drew has only good memories of that place, like the glorious day his high school team won the state championship and they went out for celebratory beers. He remembers a cute girlfriend he had—Randi something or other—hanging on his arm while he shot pool with the guys from his team. Everyone laughing, everyone smiling, everyone with the whole world eager to embrace them. He remembers feeling unstoppable.

  He wonders what ever happened to Randi. If she, like Drew, has come crawling back home to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

  And there it is again, the acid under his skin. Drew can’t wait to get to the inn and see his dad. At this point, it seems like the only thing that will help. He repeats it to himself like a mantra.

  Dad will have a plan. Dad always has a plan.

  He gets into Willow Beach proper now, the parts that always end up on the postcards. Colorful umbrella stands dot the sidewalks, alongside quaint shops selling glass baubles and refrigerator magnets for the tourists to take home a little piece of the coast. It’s picturesque, certainly, but Drew prefers the other side of Willow Beach. West of the town is thick with trees, with aspens and firs reaching high into the sky and the damp smell of leaves and dirt. It’s quiet out there. The beach is never quiet; even in the winter, the waves crash and hiss all through the night. Drew often enjoys the white noise, but sometimes he just wants some peace.

  He’s made this drive countless time before. Down Main Street, left at the intersection, follow the winding road until it leads you home. Mom always loved telling guests exactly that when she was giving directions. “… Until it leads you home,” she’d say, and you could hear the smile and soft, contented sigh in her voice. He wonders what she’ll say when she sees him. What Dad will say. Mel, too, if she’s around. Tash won’t be here, of course. She left to pursue her dreams. He’s curious if she has gotten farther along than he did.

  And then, just like that, he’s there. Back to his roots.

  Drew pulls into the parking lot of the Willow Beach Inn and sighs as he looks up at the tall white façade. His parents took over the running of this place right around the time he started high school. He remembers well the frustration of feeling like an intruder in his own home. It was a hard adjustment for him, more so than it was for his sisters. He grew to love the place over the years, though. Seeing it now fills him with a sense of calm he’s been desperately lacking.

  He grabs his bag out of the truck and hefts it over his shoulder, then heads towards the inn, gravel crunching underfoot in the quiet night. He doesn’t hear any voices or see any lights. It’s late, so that’s not so strange. He fumbles in his pocket and finds his key. He’s about to let himself into the guesthouse out back when he hears something.

  It sounds like someone crying.

  Drew frowns. He could easily just ignore it. He just had a very long drive, after all, in the aftermath of one of the worst weeks of his life. Sleep is calling his name and it is extremely tempting.

  But he has a nagging feeling that he ought to check it out. Sighing, he drops his duffel bag on the front steps of the guesthouse and follows the noise around the inn. It gets louder as he approaches the front porch. When he rounds the corner, he sees who it is …

  Mom.

  She doesn’t even notice him until he is a few feet away. When she does, her eyes widen and she jumps to her feet.

  “Drew!” she exclaims. “What are you doing here?” She pulls him in for a hug, squeezing a little harder than usual.

  “I, uh, came back to stay for a little bit,” he mutters. “Call it a vacation I guess. Where’s Dad? What’s wrong?”

  A sense of unease settles over Drew. His mother’s face is streaked with tears, and her eyes are swollen and red like she’s been at it for a while now. “Oh, nothing,” she mumbles, waving a hand dismissively. “I just saw a sad movie, that’s all.”

  Drew knows immediately that’s a lie. His mom is a softy, for sure, but he can’t remember a single time in her life that she’s watched a movie by herself. She likes talking through them with whoever will tolerate it, and she likes laughing a lot more than she likes to cry. Something is very wrong here, and he has a suspicion that Dad is involved somehow. It’s strange that he’s not out here with her.

  “Mom,” Drew says, sitting down. “Where is Dad?”

  Georgia wrings her hands in front of her, expression wrinkling. “Your father is, well … he and I are taking some time apart.”

  His heart sinks. “What do you mean?”

  “Why don’t we get you settled before we get into it, eh?” she suggests. “Then we can have a cup of coffee and catch up.”

  “No, Mom,” Drew says, shaking his head. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Georgia sighs in defeat, scrubbing a hand through her hair. “Richard left me, Drew. He ran off with Annika and most of our money.”

  The words feel like an anvil to the head. “What?” he hisses. “Mom, you should have called me.”

  “It only happened yesterday,” she defends. “I was getting around to it. It’s kind of been a lot for me to process.”

  “It’s a lot for me to process,” Drew snaps. “What happened? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” Georgia says, slumping into her chair. She rests her face in her hands. “I don’t know.”

  Drew wants to yell at her. He wants to demand how she could not know something as crucial as the thing that caused her marriage to split. He wants to know how hard she tried to make Dad stay. He forces himself not to react, not to fall apart like he did in the locker room in South Carolina. His mom is not the enemy, and he can see from the forlorn look on her face that she has suffered more than enough over this.

  “In the note,” she begins quietly, then clears her throat and starts over. “In the note, he said that he needed some time but that he would be in touch when he’s ready. He said to tell you and your sisters that he loves you.”

  “In the note?” Drew repeats, not believing what he’s hearing. “What do you mean, ‘in the note’?”

  Georgia looks up at him, face ashen. “Why don’t you let me make you some coffee, Drew?”

  He shakes his head. There is so much adrenaline coursing through his veins that he feels like he needs to run ten miles, not sit. “I don’t want any. What do you mean in the note?”

  She sighs. “That was how I found out. Your father left me a note. A ‘Dear John letter,’ I think they call it.” She wrings her hands, grimacing as she speaks like each word is poison on her lips. “He said that he and Annika had fallen in love and that they were leaving together. He didn’t say where. He didn’t say much else, really. Just that.”

  Drew can think of a number of things to call it, none of which are particularly appropriate. How dare his father do this when Drew needs him the most? He doesn’t want to believe the words coming out of his mother’s mouth. But he can tell just from the sad, defeated expression she wears that every syllable of it is true.

  “Annika …” Drew says slowly, thinking back to what he knows of the inn’s maid. “She’s like half his age.”

  Georgia nods slowly.

  Drew goes silent, trying to process this new information.

  “You’re more than welcome to stay, of course,” Georgia continues after a pause. “I’m glad to have you here. I’m just sorry that it’s not going to be the best vacation.”

  Drew sighs. He slumps into the chair and rests his face in his hands. “I’m not here for a vacation,” he mutters.

  “What?”
/>
  Drew repeats it a little louder. “I’m not here for a vacation.”

  “Oh.” Georgia blinks. “Why are you here then, darling?”

  Drew keeps his eyes pressed against his palms. He can’t look at his mom. He wishes he didn’t have to look at anyone. He came all this way, hoping that seeing his dad would fix everything, but his life has just become more broken.

  “I got cut from the team,” Drew whispers. He is having a hard time looking his mom in the face. “They said I’m too old. And that I’m not good enough.” He lifts his head to eye his mother. The gentle expression on Georgia’s face helps a little, but it doesn’t change the world-destroying news she just foisted on him.

  “Oh, Drew,” Georgia murmurs, reaching for his hand. “I’m so sorry to hear that. What absolute fools they are.”

  “It hardly seems to matter compared to what’s going on here.”

  “Of course it matters.” Her hand is soft and warm as it squeezes his. It brings some comfort but Drew doesn’t want somebody to hold his hand. He wants his dad.

  Drew swears under his breath and the itching feeling in his limbs becomes too much for him. A voice in the back of his head tells him he should stay, but he is already on his feet. He knows it is selfish, but he can’t be a shoulder for his mom to cry on right now.

  “I need to go,” he says.

  Georgia sits up. “What? Go? You just got here.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  There is disappointment in her eyes but Georgia doesn’t stop him.

  Does he even know his father at all? They went on road trips and took pictures with giant balls of string at roadside attractions. They walked on the beach and skipped stones. They played Monopoly by candlelight when storms knocked out the power.

  That all feels fake now. And Drew feels fake, too.

  There’s only one thing for it: Drew needs a drink.