COACH ITO swam laps in the pool every morning, legendary for being there at five thirty a.m., Monday through Friday. The story was that no one in the history of his employment at the school, student or faculty, had ever gotten there before him—not even his wife, who worked there a few days a week. So Kyle knew he would be in his office in the locker room by seven, in his red windbreaker and white shorts, literally the only outfit anyone at school had seen him wear.
Kyle tapped on the office door, but Coach had already seen him through the glass. He waved him in and took off his reading glasses. No hello, no how’ve you been, just, “Okay, Baker, what’s your story? Please make it interesting.”
He hadn’t exactly thought through what to say. He knew if he obsessed about it too much beforehand, he’d never do it, because of the way Coach was looking at him right now with that skeptical and annoyed thing that was his permanent expression. Ito might have the body of a man half his age from all that swimming, but his face always said, I’m too old for this shit.
“Um, I know I’ve missed—”
“Are you really going to lurk in the doorway for this whole conversation? Sit down.”
Kyle stepped into the office and sat in the chair across from Coach, the desk between them. For a guy who kept his workout routine so tidy, his desk was a mess. There were three half-full coffee mugs, a blackening banana peel, stacks of forms, a couple of jerseys. Kyle set his backpack at his feet.
“Well, I mean, I know I’m benched for games, but—”
“Yes. And we’re doing fine without you. Ellison stepped up.”
Kyle nodded. “Yeah, that’s good.”
“That’s lucky. What if he hadn’t, Baker? What if we hadn’t had depth?”
He didn’t have an answer for that, and Ito knew it. “I was wondering,” he said, forging ahead, “if I could come back just to practice and work out?”
“You skipped over the interesting part,” Coach said. He picked up one of the mugs, looked into it, grimaced, and set it back down.
“I know I screwed up. I’m really sorry.” He tried to think of everything he was supposed to say. “I let you down, I let the team down. I didn’t show leadership, and my excuses were flimsy.”
“But what happened, Baker? In your life? In over twenty years of doing this, I’ve never had a guy with a starting position just drop out and not have a reason.”
Hell if Kyle was going to sit there and tell Coach Ito about his family falling apart. They did not have some father-son Friday Night Lights kind of relationship. He shrugged. “It’s personal, I guess.”
“That’s disappointing. And not interesting at all.” Coach rolled his chair back and put his feet up on the desk. He was wearing pool slides. His toenails were short and smooth. “I’m probably supposed to teach you a lesson. Make you run laps, be the equipment boy, scrub the locker room toilets with a toothbrush. But I don’t care. I’m not into that macho humiliation bullshit. It’s high school. Baseball is supposed to be fun. It’s a game, okay? I know I’ve got a reputation for being a son of a bitch, but that’s only when it comes to playing the game hard and winning. Because winning is more fun than losing, and I want to have fun.”
Parts of this speech were familiar, but now Kyle heard them as promising and started to get excited despite himself.
“But like you said yourself, you know you can’t play in the games. Ellison is doing great and that wouldn’t be fair to him, and I can’t send that message to the rest of the team. Not now, and not in the future and not in the past. That their showing up and my showing up and all the showing up in the history of the team doesn’t matter, and commitment is optional.”
Even though he’d known this would be the outcome, Kyle couldn’t help but be hurt as it sank in what a mess he’d made. This speech, and the shame and guilt it made him feel, was what he’d been avoiding.
He nodded. “I get it.”
“And I’m not sure what you hope to get out of working out with us for the rest of the season when no one on the team wants to see your face right now. We can’t use you at practice or scrimmage because we need to keep our game-day team warm, and you’re not on it.”
I said I get it.
“However,” Coach continued, “you can try showing up to conditioning workouts in the gym, see how that goes. And maybe you’ll be in a position to reclaim a starting spot again next year if you do me a favor.”
“Oh, yeah, anything.”
“Don’t be so sure. The district wants to implement this mentoring program with the elementary schools next year. Fifth graders.” He shuffled through papers on his desk and pulled one out, reading aloud. “They want to make ‘the transition to middle school easier.’ Not like one-on-one big-brother stuff, but bringing some high schoolers into the mix with their after-school activities. It’s all supervised. They want to try it out on a smaller scale before they make it official. I assume they thought, hey, let’s pair athletes with athletes. And nerds with nerds, I guess, down the line, but I don’t know, they only told me so much. I’m just a dumb coach, and the school district in all its wisdom didn’t ask for my advice. But of course they want me to do something. Anyway, you could go hang out with the Jackson Elementary team once a week, maybe twice. At their practices.”
“Fifth graders? They have a team?”
“Well, no, ‘team’ is the wrong word. It’s just an after-school activity for any kids who want to. My buddy Greg is a history teacher there, and he put it together.”
“So, more babysitting than coaching?” This wasn’t what Kyle wanted or expected. It sounded like a punishment to Kyle. He’d rather run laps or drag the buckets of balls out for practice every day.
“A little coaching,” Ito said. “Mentoring. Helping out. Cheering them on. These aren’t exactly elite athletes.”
“Does it pay?” Kyle asked.
Coach took his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “No, it doesn’t pay, Baker, what the hell do you think being a mentor is? You do it because it’s a good thing to do. And as a favor to me to get you off my shit list.”
The goal here had been to put something in his life back the way it used to be, not to add a whole new thing.
“I’m taking your silence as a yes,” Coach said. “I’ll email you the details later.”
All Kyle could do was nod and say, “Can I come work out this afternoon? With the team?”
“No. We’ve been going hard and I called a rest day. Come tomorrow.”
“Yep, okay.” He got his backpack and ducked out.
“You’re welcome, Baker,” Coach called after him.
When he came out of the locker room, Nadia was waiting, leaning against the wall.
She looked extra pretty with her dark hair down and wavy, messy instead of ironed out and sleek. Either way, any way, she’d be beautiful. But today it really hit him.
“You can’t escape,” she said. “I got here early to run around the track with Hailey and saw your car.”
The first words out of his mouth were “I’m sorry.” He braced himself for what he deserved.
“Don’t look so scared, Kyle.” She put her hand on his waist, pulled it back. “I just want to know what happened. I know it’s not something I did. I know that. So what is it? What’s so awful you couldn’t talk to me?”
“It wasn’t you,” he said, wanting so bad to reach for her hand, but afraid to.
“Like, we talked every day and told each other everything for months? You told me you loved me? Then you weren’t there and there wasn’t any warning or reason or . . . You could have said, ‘Hey, I’m going through something and need some space.’ You could have said, ‘Let’s take a break.’ That would have been shitty and selfish, but you didn’t even do that.” The hallway was getting busier, people were sneaking glances at them. Nadia’s eyes remained fixed on his.
“You dodge me in class and around school like a coward. Where do you even go at lunch? Everyone’s asking me what’s up, and I have no answer. Cooper and Mateo come up to me all ‘Why is Kyle bailing on baseball?’ and I’m like, ‘Kyle bailed on baseball?’ and you don’t even . . .” Her eyes welled up. “You left me. We built this whole you-and-me thing, and then you disappeared.”
Hearing her lay out all the things that he knew were true, that he’d avoided thinking about for weeks, was like getting sandblasted. Every little rough edge of denial blew off, and what remained was the clean, smooth reality that he could have and should have turned to her instead of shutting her out.
Maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe they could go somewhere and talk and he could fix this.
“Nadia, I—”
“And now I don’t trust you.”
The bell rang.
Without trust, there was nothing, no chance. The reality of what he was losing, what had already been lost, crashed down in an avalanche of pain that made him hurt everywhere. Limbs, gut, head.
“So this is our breakup,” Nadia said.
He leaned agains the lockers, letting his head bang softly against the metal. “Are you sure?”
“Don’t do that, Kyle. Don’t.” She took a step away from him. The traffic in the hall had thinned out. “Don’t avoid me for weeks and make me chase you down and say all that and now all of a sudden be back in.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” She was right. And so much braver than him, tougher. He found a scrap of courage in himself and asked, in a whisper, “Can we hug?”
She nodded, wiping a tear away, and reached up to put her arms around his neck and shoulders. He slid his around her waist, found the solid expanse of her back.
He couldn’t believe he’d let this happen.
They were both crying. “I’m sorry,” he said again, into her hair. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
He let her go.
After they said goodbye, he knew he was cutting the rest of the day. He wrote himself a note about an appointment and signed his dad’s name, dropped it at the office, and headed off to his parking spot under the tree.