Page 4

“Oh, yeah. I knew that.” Brynn’s lips press into a line and she shakes her head, as if what she’s about to say is cringe. The rose in her hand drops petals onto my chemistry textbook. “She gave him gummy worms for Valentine’s Day.”

And just when I think my mood can’t get worse, it does. “Fuck this,” I grumble and lock myself in the bathroom, the door handle sticky from someone’s hair product.

Even with the bathroom door slammed, I can still hear them talking over the ancient ventilation fan that sounds like a dying car engine.

“It won’t last,” Brynn tells Callie.

“Jaxon and Inez?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

I don’t have to see Brynn’s face to know she’s probably giving Callie a disgusted look. “Their personalities are way different. Inez is super awkward.”

Maybe Brynn is right. They won’t last. Regardless, the pain remains and overshadows everything else. Right now, it hurts more than the breakup did—because now someone else is involved. Before, he wanted less pressure. A break from commitment.

Now... he wants another girl.

I think back to the night we ended our six-year relationship out of the blue. The memory hits me like the smell of his cologne still lingering on the hoodie I refuse to return.

It was the day after the NCAA super regionals ended and Washington was making its first appearance in the Women’s College World Series in fifteen years.

That night, in his dorm room, we ended more than our chances at playoff history.

“Where have you been?” I asked as soon as I saw Jaxon lying on his bed. The place reeked of defeat. “I’ve called you so many times.”

“I’ve been here,” he snapped, finishing his bottle of water.

The ceiling fan spun lazily above, doing nothing for the tension in the air.

He tossed the empty toward the trash, missing.

It joined a growing collection of protein shake bottles and Gatorade empties.

He stared at the missed shot and then flopped back on the bed, hands covering his face.

The Washington Baseball poster above his bed—the one I helped him hang—was peeling at one corner. “Where else would I be?”

“I don’t know. You won’t answer your phone.” I sat on the bed next to him, the familiar squeak of mattress springs a sound I’d heard a thousand times. Jaxon couldn’t even look at me. His MLB The Show game was paused on the TV, blue light casting shadows across his face. “Are you avoiding me?”

“No.” His voice was different. Cold. Detached. Like after losing the state championship senior year. “I needed some time to think.”

Jaxon was always moody, but this felt different. The air between us was heavy, weighted with words he hadn’t said yet.

“How’d the game go?” I already knew. Oregon knocked the Huskies from the Pac-12 tournament. His jersey was crumpled in the corner, still covered in red dirt.

“We lost. Played like shit and it showed.” His voice cracked on the last word, like when we were fifteen and he was still growing into himself.

Silence lingered. I watched the rise and fall of his hands on his stomach, the same hands that used to trace patterns on my back while we studied. He was struggling with more than the game. The “lucky” cap I’d given him freshman year sat on his desk, turned backward like always.

He sat up and hunched over, head down. A group of drunk guys stumbled past his door, their laughter a stark contrast to the heaviness in the room.

“Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer at first. He stared at his hands, calloused from batting practice. “I don’t know but I think we should talk.”

“Why?” I choked out, knowing it was about us.

“This is too much. My coaches... I... I think we should take a break.”

His coaches? The words hit my chest hard, like taking a line drive to the ribs.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I’m confused.”

I didn’t want to ask my next question but I needed to. Silence surrounded us, my heartbeat thudding in my ears, every other sound drowned out. “About us?”

He shrugged, making the bed creak. “I don’t know. Yeah.”

“Is it because I got pregnant?” I certainly never planned on getting pregnant at nineteen.

We were both college athletes. Having a baby was the last thing we needed or wanted.

Before we could wrap our minds around it, I miscarried at twelve weeks, in the middle of a game.

And as much as I didn’t want to say it, we were both relieved.

We weren’t ready to be parents. We still had three years of college left.

The air conditioner rattled to life. The curtains began to move, displaced by the vents. Someone’s music thumped through the wall—oblivious to my world falling apart.

Jaxon sighed, running a hand through his hair—longer now than when we’d met, but still that same sandy brown that turned gold in summer. “No. You know I would have supported you.” He meant it. “I just been thinking about it. All of it. Us, you know?”

“Oh.” I couldn’t understand where this was coming from, but maybe I had seen the signs: the unanswered texts, the missed FaceTimes. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. A while.” His eyes darted to the photo on his nightstand—us at the beach last summer, his arms around my waist, both of us sun-kissed and laughing. Before everything got complicated.

Anger hit me like a wave, pulling me under.

The room felt smaller, the walls closing in.

I tried to breathe, but I felt the blood rush to my face.

My cheeks burned and I knew I was about to burst into tears.

The same tears I’d held back during that game after the miscarriage.

“Whatever, Jaxon.” I stood up, ready to walk away, my legs shaking. “Do whatever you want.”

He reached for my hand but I shook him off, his callouses grazing my skin one last time. “What do you want, Camdyn?”

“What do I want? I want us. I want you. Jaxon, I thought we were happy and now you’re doing this right before the most important game of my life.

” My throat tightened, words forced out like trying to speak after running poles.

“I... don’t understand.” I knew something was wrong when he wasn’t picking up, but I never thought he didn’t want to be with me.

Jaxon blinked rapidly, regret flashing in his eyes. His posture crumbled. “I... I should have waited.”

“Or you should have been honest when you started losing feelings.” My hands trembled like before a big game, but this wasn’t the kind of nervous energy I could shake off in the bullpen.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. And it’s not that I lost feelings. I just think we need a break from all this pressure.”

Pressure? I was pressure for him?

Tears slipped down my cheeks, blurring my vision.

I tried to sweep them away but they only came faster.

I was losing it. The urge to escape grew, like wanting to flee the batter’s box when a rise ball comes at your head.

I needed to get out of this room but I couldn’t make myself leave.

It was as if I was frozen. Caught in a rundown with nowhere to go. “I don’t know what to say.”

He slipped off the bed and knelt in front of me, holding my face in his hands—hands that had wiped away my tears after every loss, every bad game, every doubt about whether I was good enough for D1.

My tears rolled down my cheeks and onto his knuckles.

“I still want you in my life, Camdyn.” His words were honest, but him struggling with this too didn’t help.

It didn’t make me feel better about him ending it.

“I still love you, that will never change.”

“Yeah.” I nodded a few times, the movement making more tears fall onto his Washington Baseball hoodie—the one I’d stolen so many times it smelled more like my perfume than his cologne. Not that I agreed with anything he was saying. “Just not as your girlfriend.”

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by distant bass thumping in the room across the hall.

I walked away after that. I got on a plane to Oklahoma for the Women’s College World Series.

Days later, I lost the biggest game of my life because all I could think about was after.

Jaxon didn’t feel the same about me any longer, and the one constant outside softball for the last six years was gone.

When I had a bad game, I talked to Jaxon. Who would break down my plays, my pitches, my at bats with me? Who would talk me through why I couldn’t hit the inside corner? Or why my screwball was breaking late?

Since freshman year of high school, two things have been consistent: Jaxon and softball. If I didn’t have him, would I still love the game?

If I didn’t have Jaxon, would the game still love me?

Would it challenge me and push me to become the best version of myself?

I wasn’t sure, because so much of that came from Jaxon’s unwavering love of the game. The boy who taught me how to chart pitches, who explained ERA calculations, who made me fall in love with not just him, but the sport.

As I stand in the bathroom eating the chocolates Jameson gave Callie, I turn on the shower. The pipes groan, a sound as familiar as the ping of a bat or the smack of a ball in leather. Maybe washing away the tears will help. Maybe the steam will clear my head like morning fog lifting off the field.

It doesn’t. When the water eventually turns cold—because three floors of college athletes never leaves any hot water—and my tears haven’t stopped, my anxiety gets heavier.

It’s as though my chest is caving in and I’m suffocating, drowning in everything I can no longer control.

Like being caught in a pickle between bases.

I shouldn’t focus on this, but I keep thinking about Jaxon and Inez together tonight.

Him texting her good morning and goodnight.

Game day selfies. “How was your day?” texts he used to send me.

Everything I used to have and don’t anymore.

The bathroom mirror fogs up, hiding my reflection but not the memories.