He nods a final time before bending to pick up his glove, turning, and jogging back towards the dugout.
“Oh my god. You’re on the camera.” Imani smacks my shoulder before pointing towards the stretching screen broadcasting the field to the whole stadium.
My fingers prod at the stitching of the shirt, the embroidered T that starts the wordToronto, but my eyes lift to the screen where I can see myself, blush painted across my cheeks like the wisps of red hair flying free from my ponytail, and I give a tiny, nervous wave before ducking my head and focusing on the lettering again.
Cheering and screaming vibrate against my eardrums, but the whispers from my colleagues sound the loudest. One in particular.
“She was always a bit of a mess,” Scott mutters to Graham, who breathes a laugh of agreement through his nose.
His words might seem like a joke, lighthearted and reminiscent of the way we knew each other for years.
But I hear them for what they are—bags of the burden of me he carried until he got too tired of it.
My eyes prickle, fingers stumbling over the shirt when I flip it over to the back.
A giant seven stretches under a last name. My lips move with the letters just as the commentator moves through announcing the lineup.
Miller Colson-Burke
# 7
Shortstop
My eyes find the field again as he runs out, hand back in his glove, a wave to all the fans in the stadium, a fresh jersey stretching across broad shoulders, almost identical to the one in my hands, save for the tiny embroidered ten now stitched over his heart.
I watch as he comes to a stop beside his teammates, stomping each foot into the ground once, tapping his glove against each shoulder before it comes to rest over the ten.
“Here,” Imani reaches out, palm open for the jersey. “I’ll help you. You can go get changed after the first pitch.”
“Oh.” I nod through a mumble, handing the jersey to her and shifting in my seat so she can help me slide it on. “Thanks.”
It hangs large over my shoulders, heavier than I would have thought.
But his name, across the back, feels like a brush of reassurance from someone who, maybe, even though I don’t know him, didn’t seem to mind a bit of mess.
Miller
I stopped wearing Matthew’s number on my jersey after the first home series of the year finished.
The second it wasn’t mandatory—I ditched the one with the ten right above my heart and went back to the one I’ve worn since I was drafted three years ago.
I didn’t feel the need to keep his number on my jersey for everyone to see.
I wear him around like a sweater, anyway.
And he’s there, with me, on the back of my hand under the leather of my glove. I’ve never commented on it publicly—I try really hard not to comment on Matt at all, even though it’s all anyone wants to talk about. That makes it worse, probably. There’s enough press and general people of the internet who think the inked M has something to do with vanity or maybe guilt.
But it wasn’t about me. It was about him.
He was always the better of us—in more ways than one. On the field, at bat, at home, in life. Everywhere that mattered.
So I ditched the jersey the second I could. But I left it hanging on a hook in the dugout in case I ever felt the need to put it on, or god forbid, his parents came to a game. They never did, and I never went home, either. I tattooed the back of my hand, closed my eyes, and I think I put myself and everything I loved about life to sleep, because I’m not really interested in being awake in a world where he isn’t.
But today—I saw that flash of red hair, the blink of bright blue eyes trying to hide tears, the spreading stain of an overpriced, watered-down margarita, and a hot dog flying through the air, and I don’t know—I jogged over right away.
It was what Matty would have done.
This jersey, though, the one with him, hangs heavy on my shoulders. I tap each one with my glove, rolling them back before I rest it over his number and my heart.
