Your father was in a car accident.
Major league ballplayers. Father and son. It was our dream. My dream. And we were so close to making it happen.
I’m so sorry, son, but he didn’t make it.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to walk onto that field without him.
There’s a gaping hole inside me, and nothing can fill it. Not therapy. Not time. Not baseball.
Shane’s whispers pierce through the blackness. Small slivers of sunlight.
“I’ve got you.”
I sink into a soft surface.
“I’m so sorry, babe.”
Something wraps tight around me. Warm. Strong.
“I’m here.”
It helps, but not even my Sunshine can steal away this darkness.
FORTY-TWO
SHANE
Want to know something terrifying?
Watching the man you know to be an absolute rock fall apart before your eyes.
I clutch Jed to me, his head buried in my chest. My fingers tighten on his scalp, but no matter how hard I hold him to me, I can’t slow the violent tremors tearing through him. The most agonizing, destroyed sounds rip from him. Each one sends a shiver down my skin. Haunting. The sound of a loss so deep, you’ll never heal.
I press my lips to his hair, tears streaming down my face. I can’t fathom what he’s going through right now. My heart is breaking, and that’s purely from even imagining what it would be like to lose someone that essential in your life. And to face that lifelong dream, walk out on the field, the spot next to you empty?
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I choke out on a broken whisper.
The words are pathetic when it comes to a response. But I don’t know what else to say.I’ll love you through this.I can’t say that. Not right now. After everything we’ve beenthrough the past few days, I don’t deserve to give him those words. But I want to earn my way back to that.
Because I do.
I love him.
Any doubt I had about being able to support him, shoulder the weight of whatever comes at him, at us, when he can’t—is gone. The moment I saw his face tonight, I knew.
I can.
I will.
He’s never going to be alone again. I refuse to allow that.
I don’t know how I’ll make that happen, not now that he’s leaving.
A motion catches my attention, and I glance at my doorway. Paulie, East, and Maddy hover there, sentinels. Easton rests back against Maddy, tear tracks marking his cheeks. Maddy’s chin rests on his shoulder, arms squeezed tight around Easton’s stomach. Paulie leans against the doorframe, uncertainty wavering in his glossy eyes.
I wave them over with a shaky hand.
They inch toward the side of my bed, and one by one they drop into a crouch and huddle in close. Maddy’s hand drops to Jed’s back. Easton rests his forehead against Jed’s shoulder. And one of Paulie’s hands finds mine on the back of Jed’s head.
