Growing up, I struggled to keep up with my sisters’ academic prowess, seeing tutors and working with specialists. The only thing that came naturally to me was baseball. At home, shame stuck to me like a second skin because I couldn’t keep up mentally. On the weekends, I’d blow my coaches away. I was consistently hitting home runs over the fence by nine and had my first grand slam at ten. When I had a bat in my hand or my knees in the dirt, everything made sense to me.
Kenzie gets that wrinkle between her brows like she’s calculating something. “Have they been to a Waves game?”
My skin starts to itch, my neck flaring hot. “Like I said, they’re busy.”
“Are you telling me”—Kenzie rotates in her seat, but I keep my eyes straight ahead—“that no one in your family has ever been to one of your games, pro orotherwise?”
I focus on the sensation of the steering wheel beneath my hands, on the hum of the engine, as I draw in a slow breath. It’s kind of ridiculous for someone who gets paid millions of dollars to play at the highest level of baseball to still feel inadequate. But it’s like there’s this corner of my heart missing, because deep down, I’ve never been enough. Knowing that Trish believed in me, that she’s still proud of me, helps that dark spot feel less soul-crushing.
That’swhy I’ve never taken off the necklace.
A forced laugh comes out of my dry throat. “I’m sure they attended a game sometime.”
It’s a lie, but the truth makes my skin feel scrubbed raw.
“Like I said, there are a lot of games in baseball. It’s impossible to watch them all.”
I can feel Kenzie’s gaze on the side of my face, but I can’t look at her.
Not now.
A brown sign in the distance saves me from spiraling. “Oh, look. It’s the turn-off for the lighthouse. Why is seeing a lighthouse on your list anyway?”
Chapter 12
Kenzie
Ilet Trevor switch topics because my heart is twisted up, imagining little Trevor with his floppy hair and his wholesome exuberance, looking into the stands and never seeing his family. How could someone do that to their child? Okay, sure, let’s say you have a demanding job, and you have to work through half of the games, butallof them? And then your son goes pro, and you just…don’t show up? Not once?
“Kenzie?”
“Yeah, um…” I pause, trying to collect my ping-ponging thoughts.
I want to somehow fix the situation—develop a time machine and give his parents a stern talking to. Because Trevor isthe nicest person I’ve ever met, and he deserves to be supported like my parents supported me.
I seriously don’t know where I’d be without their encouragement, without their tireless love of all the strange and squiggly pieces of me. They weren’t even upset when I wanted to have a career that wasn’t in agriculture. They put me in advanced math classes and helped me find tutors who could answer my questions when my knowledge outgrew theirs. My parents insisted I pursue my own dreams, even if that included eventually moving away to live by the ocean.
My palm presses over my stomach as a swooping sensation of homesickness threatens to capsize me.
“We’re almost there,” Trevor tells me, thinking it’s car sickness again.
I nod, staying quiet as the maple trees and loblolly pines part like stage curtains, revealing a towering black-and-white lighthouse. My fingers slap the dash as I surge forward in my seat for a better view. The wide slanted stripes make the lighthouse look like a gigantic black licorice candy cane. Topping the lighthouse, the lantern room gleams in the spring sunlight. A happy sigh escapes my mouth before I finally answer Trevor’s question.
“Seeing a lighthouse is a softball entry,” I admit. “I figured if I wrote a list of things to get me out of my comfort zone and they were all terrifying, then I’d never do any of them. I’d just sit home with Banks, and nothing would change.”
“You don’t need to change.” Trevor’s kind tone further drives home my earlier point about his soft-hearted nature.
I make a noncommittal sound in my throat, keeping my gaze on my nautical prize.
Trevor pulls into a spot in the parking lot, and the truck is barely in park before I jump outside, relishing the full splendor of this structural beauty.
“Just look at it.” I marvel, using one hand to shade my eyes.
My roommate chuckles as he locks the truck. “Do you want me to take a picture of you two together?”
“Later,” I tell him, already marching toward the little building at the end of the parking lot. “After I see the view from the top.”
I’d researched this lighthouse and a few in the Outer Banks. All but one provide self-guided walking tours. If I remember correctly, Cedar Shoal Lighthouse stands at two-hundred and ten feet tall with a ten-story climb up a winding staircase to the topmost landing. The views of the coast are supposed to be spectacular.
