Rounding Third

by Michelle Lynn

  I’m saddened that one picture has the capacity to plague his guilt. Healing was the sole reason we promised to move on, away from one another.

  I went through a year of therapy and started stepping toward a future without him while he obviously remained in limbo between his past and his future.

  He finally walks out of my parking lot, his hand continuously threading through his hair, and I’m relieved that he will be leaving my vision before I can run after him, promising to fix him. The urge to crawl into my bed, bury myself under the covers and cry for him only strengthens, but my eyes won’t leave him until he disappears out of sight.

  Just when he’s about to turn the corner to pass the building on the right, he stops, and my heart halts. Turning around, he stares at my apartment window.

  Tears well in my eyes. I wish things were different. I wish we had faced the aftermath of the accident together rather than apart.

  He slowly shakes his head and rounds the corner.

  In an instant, I’m there.

  Crosby pushed his body off his truck, and without a word, he took my hand, weaving us through the trees to find our spot—the one from that night, where he had promised me a future, no matter what happened. I believed him because of his eyes. Crosby’s eyes were like a tunnel straight into his thoughts. It didn’t hurt that Crosby was a determined person, and that showed on and off the baseball field.

  In the darkest of nights with only the glow of a crescent moon hanging high in the sky, we sat on the hill, remembering and wallowing in our sadness. The last two months hadn’t been easy for either of us, but Crosby had been taking the wrath from our small town that wanted to point a finger. I saw it in the deep, dark circles under his eyes and the way his skin hung off his bones.

  The boy—once full of laughter, cockiness, and brawn—had whittled himself down to a cold, hollow shell of a guy who couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “My parents are moving,” he whispered.

  I wish I were surprised by the news, but I wasn’t. Rumors had been filling the streets that the Lynches were getting harassing phone calls, and people were asking Preacher Lynch to step down from the church.

  “They think it will be easier on Spencer,” he said.

  Hearing the confirmation from his lips stabbed my heart as fierce as when Ariel told me. We were in the same spot as the night of the accident. He brought his knees up and rested his forearms on them, staring out at the factory. His outlook on life was now scorned from the night when he’d held the world in his hands.

  “Where?”

  “Reckling, Colorado.”

  “Colorado?” I was taken aback. I’d thought for sure it’d be only a few towns over. Maybe a few hours’ drive. Hours that would mean nothing to us because we were the lucky couple, but Colorado was a two-day drive.

  “They want to get far away, and my uncle got my dad into a church there.” He plucked a blade of grass, wrapping it around his finger.

  “Well, you’re going to Vanderbilt, and we’ll figure out a way to see each other during holidays.” I was desperately trying to find some sort of hope in this thunderous cloud closing in on us.

  We’d thought we’d have summers, Christmases, and spring breaks to see one another while we attended different colleges. Now, that would not be the case.

  “I’m not going to Vanderbilt.”

  “What?” I whipped around and scooted in front of him, giving him no choice but to look at me.

  Still, he focused on the patch of grass. “I’m going to go to junior college out there.”

  “Cros, you have to take the scholarship. What happened was not your fault!” I gripped his arms, thinking I could change his mind.

  My arm went up in the air as he stood fast to his feet, leaving me sitting. He stalked to the edge of the hill, and I followed, wanting to comfort him.

  “Have you ever thought about ending it?” he mumbled.

  My feet stopped inches away from him. I hung my head while my blood rushed through my veins. I had thought about it, many times during the first month. The plaguing question was, How could either of us ever move on?

  “That’s not our future, Crosby. There’s a reason we survived.” I was desperate to talk sense into him. I’d lost two friends, and I wasn’t about to lose the guy who held my dreams. “We have to move forward. Eyes ahead.” I reminded him of his dad’s trademark line.

  Preacher Lynch had said it to the congregation days after the accident. At that point, the town had been in the denial phase of grief, like robots mindlessly functioning through the days. It wasn’t until three weeks later when Kedsey’s mom had snapped her fingers, like a magician, that most of the town switched to the anger phase.

  “No, we don’t.” He left the edge of the hill.

  I released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. I sat next to him in the same place he had been moments before. Linking my arm through his, I placed my head on his shoulder, desperate for us to find our place together again. “I know it’s hard, but time will heal us.”

  “Please spare me the preacher talk, Ella. I’ve gotten enough of it over breakfasts, dinners, and late-night walks. My dad called in all his Preacher friends to make sure this doesn’t ruin me. He’s mad that I turned down my scholarship.” For the first time that night, his eyes met mine. “How can I continue my life?”

  Crosby had stopped showing me any affection after the funerals. I’d thought he was afraid to hurt my injuries. But, deep down, I knew. Neither one of us would ever go back to what we had been before the accident.

  What Crosby said next strengthened my suspicions. It wasn’t only my parents lecturing in my ear about the two of us.

  “My dad thinks we should take a break. That seeing each other is a reminder of that night.”

  A tear trickled down my cheek, but I pushed back the flood that desperately wanted to release because a small part of me agreed. “What do you think?”

  He swiveled around, grasping my head in the middle of his hands. His thumb wiped the few tears away. “When we’re together, all that fills my head is the sight of blood and the sounds of squealing tires and their screams.”

  My heart shattered into fragments from his words because I still saw the boy I loved.

  At that moment, it was confirmed. We couldn’t continue on this path. Something needed to change if we were ever going to heal.

  I drew back, but his hands held my head harder. “Why did this happen?”

  His eyes morphed into a deeper dimension of sadness. “Because I’m completely fucked up.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not true.”

  My blood boiled as I fought our options. We might never be fixed, but we needed to carry on with our lives as normally as we could.

  “El”—his hands fell from my skin, taking the little warmth I’d felt tonight—“I have to remind you of that night.”

  I cast my eyes toward the uneven ground, picking at a patch of longer grass. “You know what I remember?”

  Chirping crickets hidden under the luminous sky were the only sounds cutting the silence.

  “Your eyes when you slammed on the brakes. Your white knuckles on the steering wheel. That’s it. Everything else is black.”

  A low growl rumbled out of his throat.

  “Because you were unconscious. I thought you were…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ll never again be the guy you fell in love with.”

  “What haunts you?” I inched forward, begging him to let me in, to trust me.

  He shook his head. “I’ll never share that with you.”

  “Crosby, how will we overcome this if you don’t tell me what you saw?”

  “We won’t. I brought you here tonight because this is where I promised you a future.”

  A threat of doom quickly sank into me, and all of his words tonight started making sense.

  “And this is where you’re going to break that promise?”

  He placed his hand on my shaking knee.
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  “You know as well as I do that it’s for the best. The only hope we have is to move forward.” His voice was so even…so unaffected. “Hopefully, years down the road…”

  A glint of hope washed over me. A future? Our future?

  He shook his head again. “No, I’m not making promises I can’t keep. This is for the best.”

  I stared down at my pile of grass pickings in front of me. What he was saying made sense. When I looked at him, I saw the boy I loved, but Kedsey’s screams rang in my ears, too. If I was keeping him from being the guy he was meant to be, then I had to let him go.

  “I can’t live with knowing you aren’t one hundred percent happy.”

  “I don’t know how to live without you,” I whispered.

  His hand moved up to the back of my neck, urging me to look toward him. “Me neither.”

  Deep down, the choice seemed like our only option. We would have to heal apart. My parents had signed me up for therapy at a clinic near Ridgemont, and I knew our parents had been talking to one another about the closeness between Crosby and me. But it seemed crazy to separate from each other.

  “Take out your phone,” he said.

  I nodded, dug it out of my back pocket and held it out in front of me.

  “This will only work if we delete each other’s phone numbers.” He poised his phone in the palm of his hand, my contact information already lighting up his screen.

  “But I know your phone number by heart.”

  “We have to do this. You’ll eventually forget.”

  Never.

  My thumb scrolled through, and soon, his name was on my screen.

  “On the count of three, we’re going to delete.” I heard a crack in his voice and wondered if he was having second thoughts.

  “One…two…” He paused a few seconds, and I watched his chest rise and fall. “Three.”

  My thumb pressed the Delete button, and in a millisecond, his name was no longer there, like the love of my life had vanished.

  His phone vibrated. “Listen, I have to go.” He stood and held his hand out to me.

  He walked me to my car with his hand still in mine.

  Although I felt like this was the right choice for us and our parents would agree with it, my whole body felt as though I’d been in an MMA ring, bruised and battered beyond repair.

  Over the crickets and wind, his phone continued to buzz, but he ignored it.

  “I love you, Ella,” he whispered into my ear. Then, he kissed my cheek.

  My fingers gripped his T-shirt, fisting it in my hands. A fear buried deep inside me that I’d never see him again.

  “I love you.”

  He backed away, my hands having no choice but to let go of the thin fabric. He rested his back on the door of his truck, with longing in both of our eyes.

  “Go, baby. Live.”

  My eyelids closed, cutting off the wetness in my eyes to form trickling tears down my cheeks.

  “You, too,” I choked out before climbing into my car.

  As my car drove forward, I watched him standing there until he morphed into a dot in my rearview mirror. And then he really did vanish out of my life.

  Shivers run up my spine as I remember that night. I step back from the curtains and fall onto my couch. With my feet propped up and my teeth biting my nails, I start to absorb his return in my life.

  My body yearned to be in his arms again. To feel his soft lips kiss the top of my head. His strong hand to link with mine, leading me through life’s ups and downs.

  I can’t though. I can’t dump Liam and go right back, especially since Crosby hasn’t done what he said he was going to do. He’s as screwed up about the accident as before, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt that he had done nothing to heal himself during our time apart. I started counseling with the hope that, when he returned to me, I’d be ready. But he’s done nothing but hide the guilt and sadness.

  Chapter Five

  Crosby

  Three days and I’m keeping my distance from Ella. Seeing her unleashed a pain that I’ve kept roped far enough away not to choke me.

  It’s the first day of classes, and trying to figure out my way through this campus is similar to a treasure hunt. Buildings are linked to others while propped on hills or tucked in and out of coves. Luckily, Brax is a business major, too, and he guides me to the buildings where my classes are.

  “This is White Hall.” He points to a building with ivy climbing the white bricks.

  Other students line the steps leading to the front door. I scour them for Ella.

  “She’s on the other side of campus where the science building is.” He laughs, rolling back on his heels.

  I snap my eyes back to him and spot an emerging smirk. “I wasn’t looking—”

  “Cut the bullshit. I know you want her back, and I don’t blame you.”

  My fingers weave through my hair, and I release a deep breath. “It’s complicated.”

  His hand clasps my shoulder. “Not nearly as much as you guys are making it. But her boyfriend, Liam, will be a roadblock for you.”

  I scoff. I’m Crosby Lynch, Ella’s first and only love. “Yeah, I heard about him. He’s competition, huh?”

  He shrugs his shoulders, one side of his lips rising. “Depends on how much you want him to be. There’s definitely room for you to wiggle in.” With a mischievous smile, he climbs the stairs. “See you at practice.”

  “See ya,” I mumble, processing the information about her boyfriend.

  As if I conjured them from my mind, Ella approaches the building, walking hand in hand with who I assume is her dickwad boyfriend.

  She’s gorgeous this morning with her chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her shorts are so short that they show off the long legs that I remember being wrapped around me. Our eyes catch, and I can’t turn away from her, even when she diverts her gaze to him.

  She quickly fidgets, and her eyes ping everywhere but to me. The asshole looks like he walked off the pages of a J.Crew catalog.

  Who honestly dresses in a polo shirt and khakis to attend classes?

  I glance down at my track pants and T-shirt. Crap. If I want Ella back, maybe I need to step up my game.

  Liam ends his call and kisses her good-bye. He climbs up the same stairs Brax did moments ago, the steps I should be ascending, too, but Ella stands there, staring at me, and there’s no way I’ll allow my eyes to waver. The hustle of students rushing to their classes becomes mute as I climb down the few stairs instead of up. She doesn’t move from her spot.

  When I approach, she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Good morning,” I greet her.

  Her eyes peek up at me. “Hey, Crosby.”

  I forgot how great my name sounds coming from her lips. It’s better when she’s breathless and panting, but I’ll take it however she gives it.

  “Do you have class?”

  “No, I have a break.”

  I glance up at the building. Shit, I should be up those stairs and in my seat. I have to keep up my grades if I want to keep my spot on the team. Between baseball and Ella, there is no comparison.

  “Coffee?” I step a little closer, and she doesn’t back away.

  “Um…”

  “Come on. It’s a caffeine run. Friends.” I shrug.

  Her eyes question my intentions. “Do you have class right now?”

  I glance back up at the building, seeing only a few students milling around on the front steps.

  “Supposed to.” I shrug and smile.

  Her hand pushes on my stomach. “Then, go.”

  I grip her hand with mine, linking our fingers, and she tries to pull, but I tighten my hold.

  “Crosby.” Her voice semi pleading.

  “You’re more important.”

  “I shouldn’t be. Baseball is your future, and you need the grades for it. Ditching your first class would not be a good decision.” She tries to escape my hold, and this time, I g
rant her.

  I wish I had the balls to tell her that she’s my future, but if I move too fast, she’ll be sure to hightail it away from me.

  “Rain check?” I ask.

  I know Ella will not let me ditch class. She did only once in high school, and it was senior ditch day. Both our parents knew we wouldn’t be there. They didn’t know that we left Great America and our friends early that day. Instead, we spent the rest of the day in the barn on the far edge of her parents’ property. Good times.

  A small smile cracks her lips but she catches herself, transforming her face to a nun-like expression. “I said, time.”

  “I’ve given you three days.” I cross my arms over my chest, proud of myself. Three days is a long time to wait for something I’m growing impatient for.

  We share a smile with one another, and my stomach flips at the sight of her lips spreading wide toward me.

  “Are you free tomorrow morning?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “No, Crosby, you can’t ditch class to have coffee with me. What time is your first class?”

  “I have a break between eight and nine. We have early classes because of practice.”

  “Eight o’clock at Java Go.” She turns on her heels and starts down the path.

  I watch her ass teasing me in her shorts.

  “Still love passion tea?”

  She twists on her heels, following the path backward. “Yeah, I do.”

  Flipping back around on her heels, she turns right at the corner of the building.

  I turn my attention to the stairs of White Hall to find them vacant. No one is there.

  “Shit,” I mumble.

  Jogging up the stairs to the second floor, I sneak into the back row of the classroom. I pull out my laptop and quickly catch up with the professor’s lecture. The guy a couple seats down passes a syllabus over, and when I turn to thank him, I’m reminded that nothing comes easy in my life.

  “Is there a reason you were holding my girlfriend’s hand?” Ella’s boyfriend whispers, sliding into the open seat between us.

  Well…shit.

  “She won’t be your girlfriend for long,” my cockiness answers for me. My arrogance is a great intimidator that’s always worked in getting me what I want.