It also was good to be back after having the four days off. Our schedule had been so hot and heavy up to that point, that it’d seemed like we’d been off for a month instead of just a few days. Of course, it could’ve had something to do with my being alone and having too much damned time on my hands, but whatever.
We lost the next two with them, which pissed us all off, then the Phillies came to visit. I was off the first two games because of our rotation and was up for Wednesday’s game.
That morning, I’d gone in and thrown some after the trainer had done his thing, and I felt good. I took the mound that night to the cheers of our fans, ready to give them a show.
Everything was awesome until the sixth inning when I noticed a twinge of pain in my shoulder.
“Goddamn it,” I hissed after walking the batter. I rotated my arm around, swinging it in the hopes of getting things lined back up again. I had a no-hitter going and didn’t want to leave the game now.
Baxter saw me working my arm and called time, running out to the mound.
“You okay, man?” he asked. He knew about my hitting the wall and also what the trainer had been doing for me.
“Getting stiff. Just a bit of pain. Nothing to be concerned about.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Jag. You know that’s bullshit. You know the fucking rule about a pitcher’s arm. Any amount of pain and you step off.”
“I’m in the middle of a no-hitter, Bax. Can’t walk away now,” I said tersely.
“You hurt your arm and you’re gonna be walking away for a damned long time. I’m getting Coach out here.” He turned to motion for Coach.
I grabbed his arm turning him back to me. “Fuck no, Bax. I wanna finish this thing. Trust me. It feels fine now.”
He looked at me for a couple of seconds then handed me the ball. “It’s your future, dumbass,” he said and trotted back to home plate.
I knew he was right, but I was so sick and tired of not being in control of things, and this was the one thing I’d never had a problem with controlling. When I pitched, I was in my element. Nothing else mattered. The world and all its distractions was silent, and it was beautiful.
Bax flashed me the signal for a curve when the next batter stepped up to the plate. I shook my head. This guy was a lefty and my curve always went wide against right-handed batters, so if I pitched him my curve, I’d be putting it in prime territory for him to knock it out of the park.
When Bax gave me the signal once again for the curve, I knew what he was doing. It was one of the easiest pitches and I knew he was trying to save my arm. I couldn’t blame him, though. It was a pretty solid move on his part. I shook my head again, so he signaled for a fastball with a shake of his own head. All right, I could do that. I did my windup and brought the heat.
I’d never felt so much fucking pain in my entire life. It felt as if someone had stabbed a damned butcher knife into my shoulder. And was twisting it. Nonstop. Jesus Christ. Coach and Baxter came running to the mound as I held my shoulder with my left hand trying not to let out any expletives, which wouldn’t have gone over so well on national TV.
“What the fuck?” Coach asked.
Baxter grimaced as he tried keeping his mouth shut. But then it was like a dam had burst. “I tried telling the fucker not to keep going. Had pain the last batter. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“That true?” Coach asked, looking angrily at me.
I nodded somberly, lowering my head, focusing on keeping the nausea from taking over, I was in so much pain.
And I knew I’d fucked up. Every pitcher knows you’re not supposed to pitch through the pain. But I’d chosen to ignore that one critical rule in the hopes of gaining glory for a no-hitter.
Yep. Definitely fucked up.
I lay on the trainer’s table in the clubhouse as I watched the team doctor moving my arm, assessing the damage. He’d shooed off all the trainers, telling them to go back out to the field, that they couldn’t do anything for me, which was a little disheartening.
“What is it, Doc?” I asked.
“Not sure without an X-ray, but thinking it might be a labral tear.” He left me for a few minutes to get ice.
Fuck. Labral tears were the Yoko Ono to many a pitcher’s career.
“Goddamn it!” I yelled. Why had I been so stupid? I lay there and closed my eyes knowing that if I lost baseball, I’d be done. I’d already lost El. I couldn’t afford to be without ball. Not now.
I put my left forearm over my eyes, taking a deep breath as I lay there trying not to think of this as being the end of my career.
Doc came back with a bag of ice, helping me sit up. “You were hurting and threw anyway?” he asked as he placed the bag of ice against my shoulder then put plastic wrap over it, winding it across my back and under my left arm then across my chest and over the bag, doing this several times to hold it there.
“Had a no-hitter going,” I mumbled stupidly.
“Gotta listen to your body, son,” he replied unnecessarily. “Be right back.” He left me sitting there feeling as low as I possibly could feel, the prospect of losing the thing I loved most being ripped from me staring me right in the face.
I could hear my phone going off in my locker, one of Dad’s guitar riffs I’d recorded playing loudly as the ringtone.
“Hey, Doc?” I yelled.
“Yeah?” he hollered back.
“Can you get me my phone? I’m sure my parents are calling.”
I told him it was in the top of my locker and he went to retrieve it. It started ringing again as I reached for it with my left hand, my right shoulder now incapacitated. He left me, going back to what he’d been doing.
“Hello?” I answered, almost choking up knowing Dad would be so upset.
“Jag! Oh, God! Are you okay?” El asked.
I sat there for a few seconds, stunned that she’d called. When I didn’t say anything, she spoke my name again, and it was at that moment that the concern in her voice succeeded in pissing me off beyond all measure, making me want to ram my fist through a wall again.
The anger at hearing her voice came over me so fast it was like a punch to the gut, a slam to my entire system, making me see red. I gritted my teeth as the thought went through my head that if it hadn’t been for her, I’d never have punched the wall in the first place and I wouldn’t be in the situation I was now in. So I spoke before I thought.
“What the fuck do you care, you callous...” God, I wanted to call her every name I could think of, but made myself keep it in check. Taking a deep breath, I hissed through my teeth, “Look, I’m not your goddamned concern anymore. So do me a favor and leave me the fuck alone.”
And then I roared out a Fuck! and threw my phone against the wall where I watched it shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.
Watch for Finally Us (True Love Trilogy, Book Three) coming in June 2014 and Unbreakable Hearts (CEP #2) coming in March 2014!
About the author:
Harper Bentley has taught high school English for 21 years. Although she’s managed to maintain her sanity regardless of her career choice, jumping into the world of publishing her own books goes to show that she might be closer to the ledge than was previously thought.
After traveling the nation in her younger years as a military brat, having lived in Alaska, Washington State and California, she now resides in Oklahoma with her teenage daughter, two dogs and one cat, happily writing stories that she hopes her readers will enjoy.
You can contact her at [email protected], at http://harperbentleywrites.com/, on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @HarperBentley
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Finding Us (True Love) (Volume 2) Page 17
