“No. We’re well past that. I think we were talking about what a huge jerk you were to me when I was a young, impressionable fan who only wanted an autograph.”
“Right.” I chew on my lip. “It’s a long story.”
“Since there’s no place to go …”
I nod. Here goes nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
COOPER
“You said I had a walk, hit a single, and …”
“Hit a sac fly,” Liesel says. “It was incredible.”
I nod. “Do you rememberhowI got walked? It was my very first at bat.”
She shakes her head.
“I was hit. Chris Kirby drilled me. I’d never faced a pitch that fast and hard, and I barely turned enough to take it in the shoulder.”
“Oof. Do you think it was intentional?”
“Iknowit was. He smiled at me as I ran to first. But that’s not all.”
“What else was there?”
“Do you remember what my team did?”
“I don’t rememberanything.”
“Exactly. They saw an opposing pitcher target a rookie at his first appearance in the Majors, and they did nothing. No one stormed the mound for me. No one got outraged. My coachyelled something at the ump, but that’s it. I was 20. I’m not saying I was a little kid, but I was the youngest person on the field by, what, four or five years? You called me a classless punk, but I wasn’t mouthy in the minors. I wasn’t some hotshot jerk looking for attention. I was hustling day in and day out to get to the Show, and the second I arrived, I was punished for being too good.”
Her mouth twists to the side. “I didn’t realize that.”
“It’s not like I could talk about it. I wasn’t going to sit in interviews and complain about how everyone was out to get me. But I couldn’t just act like Colt Spencer, either. I’m not him. I don’t have that ability to be diplomatic or … manipulative when I’m upset. And above anything, I couldn’t let my mom find out that what they did to hurt me.”
Liesel cocks her head to the side. “Your mom?”
“Yeah, my mom. She follows my career like a hawk, and she’s a little overprotective of me.”
“What did she say after the game?”
“I had six furious voicemails?—”
“Voicemails?”
I swallow a pain almost as old as I am. “She didn’t come to the game.” I inhale, pausing just a second before admitting, “She’s never been to a game.”
Shock hits Liesel like a fastball to the helmet. “What?”
“I don’t mean just MLB; I meanever.”
Tears spring to her eyes, and they’re shedding before I can stop her. Before I can stop my own eyes from following her lead. My lips pull into a frown that I can’t wipe away. “Her social anxiety became full blown agoraphobia when I was a kid. It’s been bad my whole life. So much worse than bad.” The wind howls outside of the car, an echo of the howling pain I’ve suppressed for so many years. “When I was little, she was always late getting me, and I found out later that she’d sit in the car forminutes that eventually became hours trying to psych herself up to leave our apartment complex or the parking lot. One day, she couldn’t pick me up at all, and my dad—who used to be a long haul trucker—was miraculously home at the right time to get me before the school called the police.”
“Coop.” The word escapes her mouth like a sob.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I was just a kid,” I say, brushing tears from my face. “I thought there was something wrong with me, some flaw in my personality that made her not care. My dad put me in therapy for a few years after that happened, and I learned how to accept that her problem wasn’t a reflection of me. But understanding that intellectually and feeling it emotionally aren’t the same thing.”
