Panic set in, but I tried to play it off while standing in the freezingwater.
“Remember, my brother and I got into a fight lastnight.”
He knew that was the reason. It was obvious. He also knew that I was sitting in the ice bath to try to reduce the swelling. He handed me a towel and was eyeing my body. I hated the way he looked atme.
“Can I get anything for you? Do you needanything?”
“No, I don’t needanything.”
I didn’t need anyone for anything. I was capable of taking care of myself. I took the outstretched towel from his hands and wrapped it around my shoulders and chest so he would stop looking atme.
“Ryan, I don’t know if you should playtoday.”
“What? No, I’m fine.” I rolled my shoulders and made a throwing motion. Fuck, the pain in my ribs was killing methough.
He left me alone and I was able to go back to my locker. I had a fresh pair of USC baseball sweats in my locker and changed into them. I had so many hours to kill. After I took a black Sharpie and blacked out all of the “pussies” on my mitt, I re-laced my cleats and found a quiet area outside by a tree torest.
Something that I had been able not to think about up to this point had been the scary fact that I blacked out last night. I hadn’t done that before. The good part of it was that I didn’t feel much of what had been done as it had been done. But I was sure feeling itnow.
* * *
Iwas stillon my knees and felt the dampness of the grass seeping through my baseballpants.
“Get up,” I toldmyself.
Our fans cheered for me. I had just thrown out the opposing team’s batter. It was a hard grounder that followed the inside of the chalk toward third base. I went down on my right knee to keep the ball in front of me and fieldit.
I didn’t have time to pop back up and plant my feet to throw, so I had to throw from my knee. I took a deep breath and put everything I had into the throw and fell forward. My hands broke my fall, and I locked my arms at the elbows. With gritted teeth, I tried to take a deep breath. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t bring my head up to see if my throw beat the runner. My only indication that I had beat him, was when I heard our fanscheer.
I pushed myself upright and sat back on my heels just in time for our shortstop, Josh, to come over to me. He put his gloved hand on my shoulder and bentdown.
“You okay,Ry?”
“I—” I was in so much pain. “I think I pulled something,” I lied. I just had to get off thefield.
“Alright, man. Stay still.” Josh stood and yelled over for ourtrainer.
Fuck. I saw the trainer talking to the coach and then the coach motioned for another player from the bench. I didn’t even care that I was being pulled from the game. Two other trainers accompanied the trainer that knew I had been in a fight with mybrother.
“Where do you hurt the most,Ryan?”
“My sides, I mean, just the right side of my ribs,” Imuttered.
“Alright, let’s get you up and back to the locker room and get an X-ray,” the lead trainerstated.
No, they can’t X-ray me. Who the fuck knows what else they’dfind?
I cradled my right side in my hands while one of the trainers carried my mitt. I had to get out of the X-ray. When we reached the top steps of the dugout, I asked if I could sit and watch the rest of the game. My request was denied, and I was led to the lockerroom.
“What happened to your mitt, Ryan?” one of the trainers asked me as he turned it over in his hand, examining the blotches of themarker.
“Oh,” I tried to find a lighter voice to make me sounds not as pissed off as I really was. “My brother was being a jerk and took a marker to it,” I explained. Technically it wasn’t a lie. Chad did take a marker to it and wrote words on it. I blacked the wordsout.
“Was this the same brother you got into the fight with lastnight?”
“Yes.”
The trainers and medical staff worried me. They were quiet, but working around the medicalequipment.
