ONE
JED
This is my year.
I nod at the greetings flung my way by my teammates as I head to the field, but I don’t stop to talk. There’s no room for distraction.
This is my year.
To prove I still have it. That throwing out my arm didn’t affect my ability to play.
My skin prickles, and my stomach tightens. My return late last season said otherwise. After missing half the season to rehab, I was finally able to start playing some Triple-A games in July. But when I got out on that field, it was like I was moving in slow-motion, like I was throwing underwater. And then…I pulled my fucking groin. Out for the remainder of the season.
I step into the dugout. Muted chatter, balls thwacking against glove leather, and the thump of cleats against earth swirl around me. The sound of comfort. Of routine. Everyone is milling around, warming up and getting loosebefore we have our team meeting to kick off the first day of Spring Training.
I plant my ass on the bench in the dugout that looks out to the field of the Jetties’ big league training facility. It’s what I do before every practice, every game. Those thirty minutes or so before a game is when every guy falls into his ritual.
Some people only chew a specific flavor of gum or eat one flavor of sunflower seeds. I knew one guy who would talk to each person on the team, but only in a specific order. If you broke that order, it would totally kill his game. Me? I sit on the bench, tune out all the noise, drop my head in my hands, and talk to Dad.
Life has shoved a universal truth down my throat, made me choke on it until my lungs finally gave out.You don’t know what you have until it’s goneis permanently etched into the front of my skull.
In. Big. Bold. Letters.
Me and Dad? We were set to be the next Ken Griffy and Ken Griffy Jr. Jed Stone and JJ—that’s me, Jed Junior—father and son playing major league baseball. Everything was in motion, hovering just before me, our dream only a few years away.
I was drafted my senior year of high school, but Dad convinced me to havethe college experience. He was drafted straight out of high school too, and he knew I had what it took to make it out the gate, but he didn’t want that for me.
Be a normal kid, JJ. Just for a little while. You have your entire life to be a major leaguer, to live in the spotlight. Go to college, be a kid, drink too much, do foolish things, have a little privacy. Then join me on that field. I’m not going anywhere. These old bones have a few years left in them.
Old bones. I snort even as I try to swallow down the lump in my throat. It’s no use; it’s like fucking pine tar.
He was thirty-five.
I’m not going anywhere.
It was always assumed he’d retire somewhere in his early forties, barring any injuries.
Life had other plans.
He was thirty-five.
And a drunk driver speeding the wrong way down the highway stole him from me.
My eyes sink shut as the all-too-familiar pain lances through my ribcage. I was in my first month of college when I got the call. Life irrevocably altered. My dad—my best friend—gone.
I lost my father. I lost my dream. I lost my world.
All in a split-second.
The burn builds behind my eyes, and I squeeze my skull. The first day back in Spring Training is always the hardest. The wound that won’t ever heal, the freshest. My gaze falls to the metal bench I’m sitting on. To the space next to me. Empty. Vacant. He was supposed to be here with me.
It was a dark four years after that phone call.Drink too much, do foolish things. And boy did I. I jeopardized my baseball career, tempted fate over and over. How far could I push the limits before it’d take me too?
I begged it to.
Let me be with Dad again.
But apparently the Grim Reaper isn’t interested in me. He only wanted Dad.
