Page 137

In the days following that blog post, I hide in my dorm room under a mountain of blankets, my phone turned off. I avoid everything. I don’t go to class. I skip two practices. Eventually, I have to crawl out of my blanket cocoon and actually participate in life before I get kicked off the team and out of college.
A day after Inez’s blog post, she takes it down, but the damage is already done. The worst moment of my life is out there: the miscarriage, the World Series breakdown—all of it exposed like cheap tabloid gossip.
I spend three days dodging Jaxon’s calls, texts, and random appearances at my dorm until he finds me at practice the day before he plays USC at home and I leave for Missouri.
It’s a bad day. Full-on, absolute garbage fire. The kind where I’m running foul-pole drills in the middle of a Seattle rain that feels like it’s been sent directly from hell’s most miserable weather system, and I’m crying so hard I can barely see the next pole. My footsteps echo off the stadium walls, slapping in the muddy grass, endless, empty.
The field is a mess. Puddles everywhere, my cleats soaked, my T-shirt heavy, creating its own little ecosystem with sweat and rain mixed together. Each step is a splash, each breath a sob. The rain is relentless, as if the universe is adding insult to injury. I keep running. I have to. If I slow down, the panic, the humiliation, the crushing weight of knowing the world knows my secrets, will flatten me.
I hear him before I see him. Jaxon’s footsteps—soft, hesitant.
Of course he finds me here. Where else would I be?
He stands by the bullpen as I make my last lap toward the left-field foul pole near the wall. I stop, panting when I see him, and make my way over to where he’s leaning against the fence. He’s wearing baseball pants, a Husky baseball hoodie, and his usual hat. This time it’s forward, casting shadows on his eyes.
The only sound left is the rain, steady and relentless, hammering against the metal bleachers and splattering in muddy puddles around the bullpen. Water runs in rivulets across the chalk lines and turns the infield to a mess of slick, brown clay. Jaxon stands under the weak shelter of the dugout’s overhang, but he’s already soaked—his hoodie clings to his back and drops of water bead on his eyelashes. His face is flushed. He lingers by the bullpen fence, fingers curled around the cold, wet chain-link, not wanting to let go but feeling the rain press down, making it clear that he has to.
He closes his eyes, and for a moment, I catch a glimpse of the boy he once was—before the world taught him how to guard his heart. I remember the way he used to laugh without thinking, the open wonder in his eyes when he talked about the baseball and his future. Now, as his lashes rest against his cheeks, I see the faintest trace of that innocence, flickering just beneath the surface, nearly lost but not quite gone.
“Callie said you’d be out here,” he finally says after a beat of silence, his words muffled by the wind and rain.
I nod, but don’t say anything. I’m not sure what to say to him now. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels like I don’t know him anymore.
He leans his head back, looks up at the rain, and sighs. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” His voice breaks on the last word. And God, I hate that I can feel his pain. I hate that I still care.
I shake my head, tears mixing with rainwater. “I know you are.” It doesn’t make it okay, but I know Jaxon is sorry. He says he didn’t tell Inez, but I don’t know who to believe at this point.
“How can I make this better? I’d do anything to make you feel better.”
Anything. Right. Except give me the one thing I actually want.
The rain keeps falling. The field keeps getting more waterlogged. And here we are—two people who love each other but can’t seem to get it right.
“You can’t this time, Jaxon.”
And here’s the kicker—the truth that hurts more than any article, more than any public exposure. I still love him. Even now. Even after everything.
But sometimes love isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to choose yourself.
“Camdyn, please.” His voice cracks and he steps forward. “I can’t stand that I hurt you again. I don’t want to ruin another season for you with my shit, and I miss you so fucking much.”
“I know, and I miss you too, but…” My voice sounds strange, worn out, tired, sad. “Jaxon, love isn’t supposed to be this complicated. It never was with us until somewhere along the line you decided it was too much.”
He steps forward and reaches for my hand. I pull away. “It’s not too much for me. I want this.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I know I’ve been confused and thought us not being together was right, but maybe it isn’t.”
To all you romantics out there thinking love conquers all—sometimes love is just two people wanting different things at different times. Sometimes love is knowing when to walk away.
“Maybe that’s the problem, Jaxon. I don’t think you’re as ready for us as you think. I wish you’d let me go if this isn’t what you want.”
“I can’t,” he mumbles. And God, the vulnerability in his voice—it’s like watching a perfect pitch go right past you—beautiful, but ultimately useless.
“You need to figure out what you want. And that’s not me right now. Maybe it will be in the future, but I think you’re right. We don’t need this pressure. I know I don’t.”
His face is blank, almost as if he’s trying to hide from his own feelings. There’s a stiffness in his jaw, a tightness around his eyes, as though he’s forcing himself to be numb. But he can’t keep it up. The darkness in his eyes isn’t just sadness anymore—it’s something sharper, heavier, as if he’s bracing for pain he knows is coming. Tears slip down his cheeks, silent and steady, because he finally understands he has to let me go. He doesn’t want to—every part of him is screaming to hold on—but the truth sits heavily in his chest, impossible to ignore, and all he can do is stand there and watch me slowly let go.
“I don’t know if I can let go,” he chokes, his chin shaking.
“I think we need to, Jaxon,” I finally say. “I’m always going to be here for you. No matter what.”