| |
––––––––
I WOKE UP EARLY, KNOWING the day was going to suck the second I opened my eyes.
Pain was everywhere. My arms, my legs, my face. My back and hips. Even my eyes hurt.
I struggled to find the phone under my pillow and shut off the alarm. I wanted to go back to sleep, to see if I could will the pain and grogginess away. But I couldn’t. Not after last night. Not after everything.
I had two notifications on my phone besides the alarm. Messages from Mom and Star. I sighed. I wasn’t ready to read Star’s yet. Not for a while, I figured. I just didn’t have it in me for her to tell me what a horrible person I was. And for her to be justified in it.
Opening Mom’s message, I blinked as I tried to get my eyes to focus. The swelling had seemed to go down a little over my eye, but it was still pushing down a bit. It was going to be a hell of a thing to convince Coach I was fine. It was going to be another whole hell of a thing to actually seem fine when game time came. If I pulled it off, I should probably start taking classes in the theater department.
Mom’s message was simply a question mark. Ever the caring and eloquent woman, Mom had only needed one character to express her feelings. She wanted to know what happened, but I knew that telling her about me being jumped wasn’t it. She didn’t care about that. Not in the grand scheme of things. She just wanted to know if she was going to be safe. If I was going to handle the situation and save her ass again. Like I had done so many times before.
Closing her message, I opened my bank app and checked my balance in savings. I had just enough. After I pulled it out, I would have roughly two hundred dollars to live on. Thankfully, I had paid my rent for the semester already. Ramen was going to be my friend for a while.
Checking for local branches, I found there was one just a block away from the hotel. I wouldn’t even need to get a ride. It was within walking distance. At least something was going right for me. Of course, that meant walking the block over there, and at the moment I felt like every bone in my body might just go on strike if I tried, but it was better than finding a ride. That would require money that now I didn’t have.
I opened Mom’s message again and typed out a response.
“I’m taking care of it.”
I didn’t expect a response, not this early in the morning. Mom was notorious for going to bed at four and waking up somewhere around three in the afternoon. It had been one of the reasons I got very good at making my own breakfasts and sending myself off to school in the morning at a very young age. Mom certainly wasn’t going to be able to do it very often.
Surprisingly, I got one back immediately. It was a series of emojis. Smiley faces and kissy faces and red hearts. I didn’t have the heart or the energy to tell her what this cost. To tell her that, in effect, this was the last I wanted to hear from her for a long time. If ever. And certainly the last I would ever want to hear from my father.
That would have to wait. It was going to be a conversation I might want to have in person. At the home that I planned on grabbing everything I wanted out of and never going to again. Assuming Mom hadn’t already burned it down for insurance money.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket, still keenly aware of Star’s unread message waiting in my inbox. Then I got up and gingerly went through my suitcase. Finding a pair of jeans and a baseball-cut T-shirt, I slipped those on and transferred the phone and wallet to it. They would cover up most of the bruises. My hat would help cover up my face too. At least somewhat.
Shoving my sneakers on, I slipped out of the door, waiting for a moment to see if I heard Kevin coming to his door to see me. I didn’t, but what I did hear was some very distinctly feminine giggling. For the first time since last night, I felt the hint of a grin.
Good for Kevin.
I went down into the lobby and grabbed a toiletries bag from the front desk before heading out. It was imperfect, but it would be at least something I could keep the cash in. I didn’t think anyone would find it too suspicious if I was carrying a bag from the hotel. At least I didn’t think they would think there was twenty thousand dollars in it.
The walk to the bank wasn’t as excruciating as I thought it would be. The orange juice that I’d grabbed along with the bag helped wake me up some and getting my muscles moving warmed them up enough to not scream in pain the whole time. As I walked into the bank, I was keenly aware of the stares from the other customers and the clerks. I looked like hell.
“How can I help you?” a perky and cheerful middle-aged woman asked as I made my way to the counter. She had the look of someone who was trying very hard not to hit the panic button under the desk.
“Hi, I need to make a fairly major withdrawal,” I said, knowing her fingers were inching closer to the button just on that sentence alone. “I have an account. Here’s my ID.”
“Sure thing,” she said in a voice way too high to be normal. She took my ID and disappeared behind the counter, moving to a computer on the other side and conversing with a woman in a smart business suit. Both of them joined me at the counter when she was done doing whatever it was she was doing with my ID.
“Mr. Freeman?” the woman in the suit asked. “Hi, I’m Tamara, the bank manager here. Sue tells me you want to make a major withdrawal.”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you have an office? I would rather talk about it in private.”
“Sure,” she said. “Right this way.”
Walking through a pair of saloon style doors, the bank manager went to a small office, and I followed her. When I sat down in the leather chair across from her desk, she shut the door and clicked the lock. Part of me wondered if she had triggered some kind of lock that would keep me in if I decided to go ballistic with a gun or something. She was acting awfully funny.
“So what can I help you with?” she said, typing something into her computer.
“I have a savings account. Last four digits 4631. I need to withdraw twenty-thousand dollars from it in cash.”
“Oh, my,” she said. “That is a major one. May I ask what it’s for?”
“No.”
There was silence for a moment as she did a double take and then a long look at me. Then she folded her hands on the desk and leaned over it toward me.
“Mr. Freeman, clearly, this money is yours. You can do with it whatever you like. But we here at First Bank of the Union, we care more about our customers than their portfolio. This would mark a very unusual transaction for any account, but especially for yours.”
“I know,” I said.
She turned back to her computer and moved the mouse for a moment before scrolling through something.
“It looks like here that this was from a scholarship? In Georgia? What are you doing here in South Carolina, Mr. Freeman?”
“Playing baseball,” I said. “I am in a tournament down the street.”
“Oh, the college tournament,” she said, brightening up. “Of course. I knew that was going on this week. So you are playing in that tournament?”
“Yes. Can I have my money please?”
She seemed frustrated and sighed.
“Mr. Freeman, if there is a financial emergency, there are other options than simply liquidating your account. We have a multitude of small personal loans that I am sure could help with whatever purchase you are looking to make...”
“I don’t want to take a loan,” I said. “I want to withdraw my money. I have decided to do something other than keep it in a savings account. I don’t really wish to talk about it any further.”
There was another awkward silence.
“Mr. Freeman, may I ask you one more question?”
Now it was my turn to sigh.
“Sure.”
“Are you in any trouble? I notice that you seem to have some fresh bruises on your face. If this is something that involves illegal activity, I am bound to alert the authorities as part of my job as a bank manager.”
I pulled the hat up and stared at her through what I could see in the reflection of the window behind her was a pretty dark shiner.
“Tamara?” I asked. “I got into a fight last night. I was dancing with a girl, and a fight broke out and a guy punched me in the face. That’s why I have a black eye and this scratch. It has nothing to do with the withdrawal that I have been planning on for a few days. I want to spend the money on a car and some baseball equipment. A pitch clock, to be precise. And some one-on-one time with a legendary pitcher who is offering a class next week. It is a series of purchases, not just one, and I need cash to make them happen. Now will you please let me have my money?”
I hated lying to her, but it was better than the alternative. And it seemed to work. Her mouth, which had dropped a bit when she saw my eye, had snapped shut. She turned back to her computer, typing a few things and then turning back to me, put her hands on the table to stand.
“You can stay right here, Mr. Freeman. I will be right back with your cash. Is there any specific way you would like it?”
“Hundreds are fine,” I said.
She nodded curtly and stood, unlocking the door and leaving it cracked open as she left. I wondered what the conversation between her and Sue was going to be like.
When she returned, she had a fabric envelope with several stacks inside it. She set them down on the table and pulled them out, lining them up one by one and counting them out.
“Now this is twenty thousand in hundreds. I can open each one and count them for you if you would like.”
“No, I trust you,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I hope that you continue to do business here. I see you still have a balance in your savings of two hundred and four dollars, along with a checking account balance of thirty-six dollars.”
“I’m sure I will,” I said, standing. “Do you mind if I have this envelope?”
“Sure,” she said. “Normally I can’t, but we just got a shipment of replacements. Just be careful, that one’s zipper doesn’t close all the way.”
“Thank you,” I said, offering my hand.
She took it, and I saw her eyes travel down to the scrape marks on my knuckles.
“Thank you,” she said.
I stuffed the envelope down into the bag and made my way out of the bank before she could call me back or alert an officer to follow me. The last thing I needed was to have a cop follow me around.
Getting in contact with the gang might have proved problematic since I didn’t have anyone’s number had it not been for a car parked right at the entrance of the parking lot of the hotel. I laughed mirthlessly to myself when I saw it and who was sitting in the driver’s seat. It was the bald one, sporting his own black eye and a bandage covering a place on his forehead where Lila had struck him with a projectile rock.
He was sitting there for a purpose. He was trying to intimidate me. To remind me that I had two ways out and that he was going to see to it that I followed one of them. Or else. But with the bag of money in my hand and a sudden, intense anger in my belly, I decided to turn it on him. I marched right up to the car and knocked on the window.
“Here you go,” I said, holding out the envelope. We were in full view of a camera over the parking lot, and I watched his eyes float up to it before he snapped the envelope out of my hand.
“What the fuck, kid?” he growled.
“It’s all there,” I said. “Twenty K. I just had it counted out at the bank, so don’t try to fuck with me. It’s all there.”
He looked from me to the envelope and back a few times like a confused caveman.
“So you’re not going to throw the game?” he asked.
“No, dumbass,” I said.
“What did you call me?” he thundered.
“I called you a dumbass,” I repeated. “Now listen to me. I don’t give a fuck what happens to my dad from now on. Or my mom. As far as they are concerned, I don’t fucking exist. This is every dime I had, so I am no good to you in any way. They won’t do shit for me, so you can’t threaten to hurt me to get to them, and I seriously could give a shit from now on if you do threaten to hurt them. I’m done with them. This is their fucking problem now. But you are paid up. Leave them alone until they make another dumb-fuck mistake. And leave me alone. Forever.”
He sat there, blinking for a moment, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He was trying to decide if he wanted to be angry at me or not. To try to force some respect out of me or something. But then I saw him notice my black eye, and it was like the memory of just how bad he and his boys had gotten their ass kicked hit him. It was just the two of us in that parking lot at the moment. In broad daylight.
He was either going to have to shoot me or leave me alone. Any other response was going to end with him getting his ass handed to him, and he knew it.
Then a smirk crossed his lips. It was sickening. He had won, and he had done the calculations, however slowly, to figure it out.
“Thank you for your business,” he said. “From now on, as far as we’re concerned, you don’t exist. Unless you need to borrow some money someday.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Have a good life, kid.”
“I will now,” I said.
As he drove away, I had to hold back the desire to kick at the taillight of his car.
Heading inside, twenty thousand dollars poorer and angry as hell, I grabbed another orange juice and a couple of slices of bacon from the breakfast bar and headed upstairs, munching on them. The game wouldn’t be until this evening, but I had some energy to work out.
––––––––
I WAS UPSTAIRS, STRETCHING and mentally preparing myself for the game. Or at least trying to. Every time my mind felt like it was focused on my scouting report, Lila would appear in my thoughts, and everything would go haywire. Sighing, I pulled my phone to me, thinking I should at least try to text her. She was probably already on the fields, considering her team played an hour ahead of mine. But maybe she would have a message to get back to.
As soon as I opened the phone, though, the notification from Star stuck out at me. I needed to deal with that. Sooner rather than later. And before I could do anything else with Lila.
I opened it and stared at the short message. Another mirthless laugh fell out of my lips.
So it was like that.
“I agree. Bye Gavin.”
That was it. Four words. And just like that, the relationship, whatever kind of relationship it had really been, was done.
I didn’t know if I was angry or relieved. Or sad. But I did know I was going to pitch.
My arm felt like fire and hatred, but I had a need to hurl a baseball as hard as I could. I was going to finish getting dressed, go down to the field, and tell Coach I’d fallen down some steps but that I was good to go. To give me the fucking ball. That I wanted to strike some people out tonight.
Kevin wouldn’t contradict me. He was the kind of guy that would stand by while I made a horrifyingly stupid decision, then help pick up the pieces when I fell apart. I was going to trust him to guide my adrenaline through a game tonight, and if I couldn’t go, if I was a detriment to the team, he would be the one to tell Coach to pull me.
But I was going to throw until my arm fell off otherwise.
I grabbed my bat bag, throwing it over my good shoulder, and headed down to the locker room the second I was fully dressed. The gym was empty already, and guys were heading to the field. I followed them, spotting Kevin in the distance. Most of them were going to the girls’ field to watch them play for a bit first.
As I passed the field where the girls’ team was going, I saw Lila on the mound. She didn’t notice me. I wanted to keep moving, to head out to the field and focus. But my mind arrested me right there. I couldn’t stop staring at her.
She fired in a strike, ending the inning with a strikeout-looking. She pumped her fist and roared as she headed to the benches, and I felt a little part of me cheer with her.
Then I looked down at the ground and started heading to my own field. I passed right by the bleachers where she sat, but I didn’t say a word to her.
I wondered if I ever would again.
THE END
