“Sorry, you know what I meant,” he said.
I pulled on a hat and sunglasses before getting out of the Jeep. Mom and Dad checked us in. I’d booked the rooms under Dad’s name to be safe.
I hid in a dark corner of the lobby while they spoke to the desk clerk and tried to make myself look smaller than I was. It didn’t work. A bellhop spotted me almost immediately, doing a double-take as he walked toward the door. He turned, midstride, and beelined straight toward me.
“Hey, man,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m a huge fan.”
I plastered a smile on my face and shook his hand. “Thanks.”
“I follow you on Twitter.”
I nodded. This could go one of two ways. He either agreed with me, or he didn’t. I stood there, stressing out as I waited for the other shoe to drop. Being so removed from recognition for so long had made me rusty at this. I was more nervous than normal – something I really didn’t need right now.
I should have stayed in the fucking Jeep.
“Thank you for all the stuff you link,” the guy said. “We were gonna put our boys in the local peewee league, but after reading all of those articles about brain injuries, we put them in baseball instead.”
Well, shit. “You’re welcome.”
He nodded and then looked around the lobby. “You park in the garage underneath the hotel?”
“Yeah.”
“In the back corner of it, there’s an elevator no one uses because it’s so damn far away from everything. Takes you right up to all the floors, though. If you’re trying to fly under the radar, you might want to stick to that from now on. It’s way down that hallway,” he said, pointing.
“Thanks. I will.”
“No problem, man. Keep up the good work.”
“Will do.”
Dad came over a minute later, eyeing the retreating form of the bellhop. “What was that about?”
“He told me the articles I linked on Twitter kept him and his partner from putting their boys into peewee.”
“That’s amazing, Benny,” Mom said, joining us. “It makes me so happy whenever someone tells us we’ve made a difference.”
“It’s a pretty good feeling,” I said.
Together, we walked toward the back elevator. I kept my head down and hunched my shoulders, but I’d learned early on that a guy my size draws eyes no matter if he’s famous or not. Still, the few people we passed moved along without comment, and I hoped they didn’t recognize me or Mom.
We settled into our neighboring rooms upstairs. Mom and Dad showered after their long day of travel while I unpacked my stuff and looked through the menus of the nearby restaurants. I texted Ella to tell her we’d made it safely, and she sent me a smiling emoji in response. I wanted to call her. I wanted to see her. I was nervous about talking to my parents.
My feelings about tomorrow were even bigger than that, almost unquantifiable. Was it so wrong for me to want to lean on Ella just a little? To let her distract me from all of this?
In the end, I decided against calling or FaceTiming her. Instead, I gathered my courage and went to my parents’ room and knocked on their door.
“So, about those meds,” I said to Mom after Dad let me in.
“I’ve been on them since the day after Zach, Molly, and Micah’s funerals,” she answered.
I nodded, thinking back. Try as I might, I couldn’t pinpoint behavior changes or signs that might have told me she was struggling. Not ones that couldn’t be chalked up to grief or anger. Then again, I’d kept so busy ignoring my own feelings that I might have been blind to everyone else’s.
I sat down on the couch in their suite. “I got on mine seven months ago, after nearly having a mental break.”
Dad tucked into the chair across from me. “What happened?”
“Did something trigger it?” Mom asked.
