Tag You're Mine

by Catherine Charles

  I’m rendered frozen on the front porch at the sight of her climbing into Mr. Keller’s classic truck. I’ve admired that truck for years, I’ve begged to drive it, but it’s always sat in the garage until Gramps takes it out to one of the classic car shows or drives it in the Fourth of July parade through town. And now she is sitting behind the wheel of it. As she wipes her eyes, I stand on the porch feeling responsible for her pain. She stares angrily at me before driving away, leaving me with a pang threatening to tear me apart.

  Making my way back inside, Heather is still on the couch, and Mom is making herself busy in the kitchen.

  “Get out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Get out, Heather.”

  “But Bricee. I’m here to help you.”

  “It sure doesn’t feel like help. I’m confused as it is, and right now you aren’t making things better. In fact, it all feels wrong. The only reason you are even here right now, is because I remember dating you and only you. Trey and Marcus have told me a few things about you. I’m still trying to figure out for myself.”

  An expression flashes across her face, too quick for me to decipher. “What, what did they tell you?” she stammers

  She seems a little on edge and scared, just another thing for me to figure out by myself, but judging from her reaction, maybe there is some truth to what I was told.

  “Just get out. And don’t call me Bricee. It’s Brice, or maybe Robert, I don’t know right now. Just leave.”

  Mom’s leaning against the wall that leads into the kitchen, a proud smirk on her face, making me feel as if I just did something incredibly smart.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Heather says as she stops at the front door.

  I can hear a hint of sadness in her voice, but I need to do this for me right now.

  “So, what are we?”

  I give her the most honest answer I can think of. “I don’t know. But today I need you to leave. Tomorrow might be better.”

  She gives me a small smile, her lips gently curving before she heads out the door saying good night.

  I look over at my mom and she knows before I even say two words. “Come here. Let’s get you reacquainted with Robert.”

  Over the next several hours we spend looking at pictures of when I was younger. There are a few of Presley. Mom shows me the legal documents changing our names, and the date Brice was created. She answers any questions I have about Robert but refuses to talk about Presley, I’m told only Presley can answer those.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The first bell of the day has rung, and I’m still sitting in my truck. The full magnitude of my memory loss hits me as I come to terms that everything about Presley has vanished. It’s the end of March; normally I would feel ecstatic about walking out of here in two short months as a high school graduate, but what if I don’t graduate? What if everything I have learned this last semester is gone. All my finals will be tests of the material I’ve learned since Christmas. There’s no way I can fit three months of knowledge into pretty much a month and a half plus keep pace with the new stuff being taught.

  If I don’t graduate, I don’t play. It’s simple.

  A knock on my window startles me. Coach stands outside of my door, so I roll the window down.

  “You don’t attend class, you don’t play on Friday night.”

  I nod, and roll the window back up, pull my backpack from the passenger seat, and get out of the truck. The building casts an intimidating shadow in my direction as the sun peaks over the roofline.

  “What if I’ve forgotten all of it?”

  “Then you’ll get a tutor, work your butt off and move forward. Now let’s go.” His hand claps against my shoulder blade as he gives me a slight push. “Do you remember your first class?”

  “History, I think.”

  “Well, there ya go.”

  I’m shocked I got it right. Things are a bit hazy as I sit in class, listening to the teacher lecture about World War II, but slowly things start coming back to me. The rest of the morning goes the same way, and by the time lunch rolls around, I’m confident in my ability to graduate on time. Maybe since I didn’t have classes with Presley, they weren’t affected in any way.

  At lunch, I sit at the table with Liv, Trey, Marcus, and Heather. Presley walks by, glances at Liv and then finds a table alone outside. Liv, Trey, and Marcus all look at each other seemingly affected, and then out of nowhere, I get a backhand to the head.

  “Oww. What was that for?”

  “Because you deserved it. And I’m hoping to jog your memory again,” Liv says sarcastically. “You took my best friend away.”

  “Well maybe she wasn’t that good of a friend,” I say under my breath.

  Heather laughs while Liv shoots daggers in my direction.

  “For your information, she isn’t sitting here right now because of you. So, you will get smacked every day until she is back at this table.”

  There’s no way Liv will hold true to her threat; it doesn’t even make sense.

  “Oh, and by the way, you look disgusting. You better hope those spots on your neck clear up before Friday’s game.” She rolls her eyes before going back into a conversation with Trey and Marcus; the three of them act like they want nothing to do with Heather and me.

  I watch Presley pick at her lunch, sitting alone at one of the picnic tables. Coach sits down with her for a few minutes, she smiles a little, but it’s one of those forced smiles; she looks tired. They talk about something and then he gets up, leaving her alone again. I want to go over to her, but what would I even say? I’m sorry? Can we talk? I am sorry she’s hurting, but I don’t know her well enough to grasp why and I’m not ready for the answers to the questions I have. I know, I’m a freaking chicken right now, but how do I completely lose all memory of one person and why her?

  The bell rings; I watch her collect her things, head off to her next class, and I wonder when I’ll see her again.

  The rest of the afternoon continues like the morning, and soon I’m standing on the pitcher’s mound. Coach wanted me to get a few throws in before he called the schools and the minors to tell them about my injury.

  He takes video and watches me intensely, his smile growing as I throw out each pitch, and by the end of practice, I’m surprised his face hasn’t cracked open. He’s grinning and laughing like a crazy person, running off the field as soon as he ends practice. I’ve never seen him so eager to get off the field since I’ve known the man, and it’s been four years now.

  I collect my stuff and walk to my truck. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Coach and Presley. She looks back and forth between him and his phone, her hands over her lips, her cheeks are high and rounded as she smiles. I feel lucky just to witness it.

  *****

  I watch the video over and over. My heart races, and I notice Coach is watching my reaction.

  “That means something to you, doesn’t it?” His smile is as broad as mine.

  “Before the first game of the season, he told me it was his sign for me. To let me know he was thinking about me. But how?”

  “My only guess is his love of baseball overshadowed his love for you. Baseball was stronger and so it won.”

  “I don’t care if he loves a tiny white ball more than me. I think I’m equally in love with it. I’m still there. I’m buried down deep, but I’m still there. Thank you so much for showing me this.”

  “Presley, I think you need to be at all of the practices. He did alright today, but he’s off. He’s gonna have scouts and reps from Arizona out there watching him on Wednesday. I think you need to be there. Come to tomorrow’s practice, and we’ll test out my theory, I’m not asking you to do anything, or talk to him, just be there.”

  I watch the video a final time.

  “What time’s practice?”

  Coach bumps my shoulder and gives me a sly smile.

  “Four o’clock, Presley, you know the routine.”

  He walks away, an
d I do a little happy dance. I needed something positive after seeing Heather’s arms wrapped around him like tentacles today at lunch. I told Liv I was gonna step back, I was gonna let him come to me when he was ready; seeing them together was so much harder than I had ever anticipated. I’m not mad at him, how could I be. He doesn’t know me.

  -April 1st-

  I make it to practice like Coach asked, sitting higher in the bleachers than I usually do and off on the third baseline. Robert and Coach are working together trying to loosen him up and work out the few kinks that have worked their way into his pitches.

  He throws pitch after pitch to the catcher while Coach takes speed readings from behind home plate. Throw after throw, Robert signals me, sometimes before his pitch, and sometimes afterward, but it’s definitely there.

  After thirty minutes or so Coach brings Trey in to hit against him. He wants to see how many times Robert can strikeout. Unfortunately, Trey gets hit after hit, and Robert’s frustration level builds until he unintentionally throws a ball into the stands. It bounces off the bleachers in front of me. I don’t move, but once again, our eyes are locked onto one another before he angrily yells out that it’s a closed practice, and I need to leave.

  I gather my things and walk out of the stadium. Coach meets me at the exit and apologizes, “He’s mad at the situation, Presley. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “I know Coach.”

  “I know you’re waiting on something, and all of us trust you. Don’t give up on him. He needs you more than I think he even realizes. One day he’ll break through.”

  “I have no intention of giving up. See you tomorrow.”

  “Four o’clock, and here, wear this.”

  I look down at the little bundle Coach gives me. It’s a distressed baseball cap stuffed with one of Robert’s old practice jerseys, a rubber band around the brim to break the rigidness out of it.

  -April 4th-

  I know the scouts are coming this afternoon to reevaluate Robert. He seemed tense at lunch, but unlike the previous few days, today he was angled away from Heather, although still sitting next to her. His hickeys have started to fade, and he’s beginning to look more and more like my man, and less like a vampire’s plaything. He looked so cheap with those things on his neck. He was better than those marks; he was better than her.

  I opened the door leading to the outside courtyard and hear him let out a loud, “Oww.”

  “I told you, you would get one every day until she’s back at our table,” said Liv.

  As funny as it is to see him get some sense knocked into him, the minute he’s ready for me, he can have me. I spend my lunches weighing the pros and cons of the schools I was accepted into, hoping it would make my decision easier when it came time to put in my acceptance.

  I applied to Arizona University as a late applicant the night we decided he would go straight to the minors, but now, I’m torn. What do I do if his memory doesn’t come back before graduation? Do I go and hope it eventually does, or do I move on with my life as Diane had said? Follow my dreams and pray for the best.

  I’m late to practice, which works in my favor. Coach opened the practice to all scouts, making it easier for me to blend in. I did forgo wearing the practice jersey, I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself, and the ballcap made it easy to blend into the sea of other caps.

  Today Robert was power, precision, speed, grace, agility, and sex all tied up in the perfect MLB bow. There was no way any of the three would rescind their offers. If anything were to happen today, it would be Robert receiving more offers making the next five days a confusing nightmare on top of the issues he was currently dealing with. But more than anything, today, he felt a little more like my man.

  -April 14th-

  Today is Robert’s Commitment Day, and as I suspected, he had an additional five offers come in. Two schools in California, one in Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia, but he still chose to take the minor’s offer.

  Diane came up to the school for the ceremony and invited me to attend with her, but I declined. This was his moment to shine, and so I watched from a corner in the back. I found strength in being hidden. I could watch him uninhibited by expectations, and I could truly see him.

  He and Heather were still dating, but yet she couldn’t be bothered to attend the most significant event in his life. I felt sad for him as I watched him search the crowd for someone who never seemed to show.

  *****

  Today has been a bustle of nerves and excitement. I’m surrounded by my mom, Coach, and members of the Rangers’ staff; I still feel as if someone is missing, but I don’t know who. There are questions I need answered, but no one will answer them for me. I’m told over and over again I need to ask Presley, but I don’t feel ready to.

  This should be easy, but for some reason, I can't manage to talk to her. She passes by me every day in the hall, a small smile, and then she casts her glance downward as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Beautiful green eyes draw me in, and I’m stuck in her trance, and then she’s gone. Every day I have multiple opportunities to talk to her, but yet I don’t.

  Liv, Trey, and Marcus don’t say much about her or our connection, but I know there’s something there, there’s no way this feeling is made up.

  I step off to the side for pictures after my signing, and I see her, or at least I think I see her. It was for a second, her beautiful dirty blond hair catching my attention as she turns the corner, and I instantly feel better knowing she might have been here.

  -April 15th-

  “Oww, Liv! Will you knock it off!”

  “No! I told you I was gonna knock some sense into you one way or another, and since this is the only way Presley will allow me to get involved, I’ve gotta take what I can get.” Liv’s hands quickly fly to her mouth to stop the word vomit flowing out of it.

  Her eyes aren’t the only ones that have widened as Trey and Marcus look at her.

  “Liv, shut up!” Marcus scolded.

  “What do you mean, allowed?”

  “She misspoke,” Trey quickly said through clenched teeth as his eye bared into Liv.

  Has she been calling the shots on this? Preventing me from getting any answers? This timid, shy little thing, who seemed content to blend into the background has been calling the shots for the last two and a half weeks? All it’s gotten me is a bruise on the backside of my head and an unsettled feeling. Now, knowing there’s more, but not being able to get it?

  “Olivia—tell me now.”

  Liv slams her hands down on the table and matches my glare. “I told you what it would take to get me to stop. All you had to do was go over and ask her to sit with us, and you didn’t. So, if you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at yourself. And will you please fucking break up with your little homewrecker already? Can't you see NOBODY likes her.”

  “Yea, well—she’s the only one that’s been honest with me. She’s the only one that has filled in the last seven months of my life. Some friends you are.”

  Heather is smiling like a proud peacock, but her usefulness is wearing on me. She tells me things, but none of it feels right. If, I’ve only forgotten stuff with Presley in it, then why can't I remember anything she’s told me we’ve done.

  “Has she Robert? Has she really been telling you what you missed, or are you just eager to fill the void with something, you’re dumb enough to believe her? Think about it. If you had done whatever she says you did with her, don’t you think you would have remembered any of it?”

  I look at Heather, and she seems a little too eager to get away from the table, so I let her go. I sit there, leaned back far in my chair, my eyes glued to the light grey vinyl top. It’s cracked and peeling up around the edges from years of use. Shit.

  “You can apologize for your mantrum whenever you’re ready, I’ll wait, but that girl out there, the one you so desperately need to talk to, she won't be. She’s patient, but you weren’t the only one hurt that day. She will only wait so long.
So, like I keep telling you, don’t fuck this up, Robert.”

  Liv, Trey, and Marcus get up, leaving me alone as my eyes drift out to Presley. I’ve always taken the seat with a direct line of sight to her. Every day is the same: she says her hellos and goes outside, sets her lunch down, takes out a notebook, stares at the pages until the bell rings, slides it back in her backpack, throws her lunch away because she hasn’t touched it, and then goes to class. Tomorrow everything changes. Maybe. Maybe I’ll grow a pair and talk to the woman who seems to hold all the answers.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The halls have been relatively quiet today. Liv isn’t at our lunch table when I get there, only Heather and Trey. I don’t even acknowledge her.

  “Where’s Liv?” I ask him.

  “Choir competition.”

  “Oh. You won't see Presley either, in case you were wondering.”

  “He wasn’t,” Heather snapped back as she ran her fingers against my hair.

  “Why are you still here?” I say as I pull back from her.

  “Silly Bricee.”

  “It’s Robert. I haven’t been Brice in a long time. And I think we’re through here, Heather.”

  “Excuse me? Are you breaking up with me?” Shock settles deep within her.

  “See the thing is, you have to be dating to break up with someone, and I don’t think that’s what was going on. I think you’ve been using me for some unknown reason. I don’t remember a single damn thing that you’ve said happening. The only thing that happens when I’m around you, is that I become more confused, not less. So, I think it’s time you left.”

  Marcus has joined us, and he and Trey are grinning like two fools, while Heather storms off in a fit of fury. I kinda feel bad for wanting to laugh, but as soon as she’s out of sight, the three of us are cutting up.