“Yes,” I say. “How bad is it?”
There’s a long pause. Very long.
But at last Liam says, “I think it’s probably very bad.”
There’s an agony I’ve never heard lancing each of his words. He’s suffering, muscling through it.
“Is this the same thing that’s been bothering you for a few weeks?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “It was stupid to ignore it.” He sighs. “Really fucking dumb.”
I’ve only seen Liam react to his left shoulder twice. He brushed it off both times.
“They’re gonna take me to the hospital here.”
Hospital. He isn’t solving this with an athletic trainer. He needs to go to thehospital.
“Paige,” he says, voice shaking, “can you come?”
It’s uncharted territory to be needed.
No one in my family has ever needed me like this. No one has ever asked me to drop everything and be there for them. Which is probably why I wouldn’t have suggested coming myself even though my instincts told me to get in the car as soon as Liam walked into the dugout. I would’ve assumed his coach, his teammates, his family had it covered, that I wasn’t necessary or vital to the situation.
That theory is proven totally wrong during my three-hour drive to Nashville.
One of Liam’s roommates, Carlos, who I’ve met only twice, travels with him to Vanderbilt Medical, gets my number from Liam’s phone, and calls me every thirty minutes with an unprompted update.
“He’s getting X-rays and scans right now.”
“He’s got a SLAP tear.” When I ask what that means, Carlos says, “Basically, the cartilage in Liam’s shoulder is damaged.”
I ask if that’s serious, and Carlos says, “It’s as bad a diagnosis as a pitcher can get.”
“They have to start surgery to get the full extent of the damage,” he updates me a bit later, “but based on his pain level, they think it’s a severe tear. Liam just admitted to the doctor it’s been bothering him for a while, so they think it’s a combination of cartilage deterioration over time and that one pitch today that exacerbated the damage.”
And a little later still: “He’s in surgery now. The doctors just gave me the update that they need to reattach his labrum to hisshoulder socket. Apparently, they are drilling some kind of hole? And also suturing something, which I’m pretty sure is like, sewing. But he’s going to be fine. Like, he’ll live,” Carlos clarifies, “And he’ll recover, in time.”
In time.
Liam will live, and he’ll recover in time, but he won’t be playing baseball anytime soon or possibly ever again.
Tears begin to stream down my cheeks as I make it into the city, navigating my way to the hospital. I hate that Liam is in pain. That he’s probably been hurting for a while now and hiding it, with the false hope that it would go away, or he could force it not to be true.
And now, the emotional torture of this—having it end so much worse than it might’ve if he’d only listened to his body. If he hadn’t been so focused on pitching steady and strongat all costsahead of the draft.
I wish I’d questioned him on it more than I did. I wish I’dpushedhim about it instead of letting him lie to me, to himself.
My thoughts flash again to his family. The jokes about bankrolling. Whatever he’d promised his mom. Before the doctors knocked him out with anesthesia, I have a feeling that’s the thought that was eating at him.
But if I know Liam at all—and Ido—nothing will break his heart more than the simple loss of not being able to do his favorite thing in the world.
I park and hurry into the building. Carlos meets me in a waiting area, still in his uniform. He hugs me tight, like I need soothing.
Idoneed soothing. My eyes are puffy, hands shaking.
“He’s going to be okay,” Carlos repeats several times in between other medical updates. “They’re done with the surgery. It was quick and successful. They’re going to let us know as soon as he wakes up. This is a good thing; Liam won’t be in any more pain now.”
“Did you tell his family?” I ask.
