Conviction (27 page)

Then he wrapped his arms around me and cupped the back of my head in his hand, pressing my head against his shoulder, and I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see anything anymore, not the
look on his face or the glass all over the ground or the baseball bat or the sight of my own body. I pressed my arms against my side and didn’t move.

“I forgive you,” he said in my ear. “All right? That was a terrible thing to do, but I forgive you. I love you, B. I love you so much. I’m sorry you got scared. I’m
sorry. It’s just because I love you. Because you scared me.”

I didn’t move. I don’t know if he even realized he was doing it, but he was gripping my shirt in his fist like maybe he thought I was going to try to get away. That’s the part
I think about now, how he did that. Because what did he think I was going to do? Where else did he even think I had to go?

I don’t know how long we stood there, him retightening his grip around me every time he started to relax. I was starting to go numb, to not feel anything anymore at all. And he told me
again: he loved me more than anything, and he was sorry, and everything was fine. And it was true, wasn’t it? All of that. Because eventually he led me back inside, he heated up a pizza for
me and scooped ice cream into a bowl and made me have seconds, he sat me down at the computer and told me to buy myself something, anything I wanted, and then we watched ESPN highlights until we
both fell asleep on the couch and the cops went back to their own houses, I guess, and for that night, everyone was fine.

M
onday, five days before prom, we play Ceres. After this, there’s only eight games left before we play La Abra.

Maddie comes to watch and waves me over before the game starts. She’s with her dad, who I’ve seen around church but have never actually met. He’s tall and serious-looking,
someone who makes you want to stand up straighter and maybe tuck in your shirt.

“I’ve heard quite a bit about you,” Mr. Stern says, holding out his hand for me to shake. “You plan to come to dinner before you take my daughter to her dance?”

“Yes, sir.” I wonder if he thinks less of me for doing something like prom when my dad’s still in jail, if he thinks I’m a crappy son. “Thanks for having
me.”

“Have you been to many of these school dances?”

“Um—” I’m not sure there’s a right answer to that one. I glance at Maddie for help.

“My dad will probably talk your ears off about baseball all through dinner,” she says teasingly. “He thinks someday he’ll see you on TV and be able to tell people he
watched you play back in high school. He wanted—”

“Raynor!” Cardy shouts from the dugout. “Wrap it up, Romeo!”

I say goodbye, and when I jog back to the dugout, Cardy grumbles, “Better not let me catch you with your head in the clouds again when you’re on my clock,” but he also kind of
whacks me on the back in a way that means
Good for you.

Cardy puts Greg at first while I’m on the mound. It’s a demotion—you stash your worst fielder on first—but I doubt Cardy means anything by it; Greg’s slated to come
in to pitch again as relief. He’s starting to look cleaner on the mound, and I think he has potential. He still hasn’t spoken to me since the Brantley game.

I’m myself again today; I’ve righted whatever was off-kilter facing Brantley. Everything’s going decently, and then, in the third inning, Ceres’s shortstop Adrian
Yamamoto gets caught between bases trying to steal. Chase gets the ball on second and makes a clean throw, and Greg plants his foot on the bag and stretches out to get the ball, and, because, it
should be an easy tag, I let myself relax too soon. Adrian drops into a slide, feet first, and then just before colliding with Greg he lifts his cleats and his spikes slash right across
Greg’s exposed heel.

Greg goes down right away, and even before I run over, I can see the blood seeping through the cuff of his pants. I get there first, and when I reach a hand toward him, he jerks his shoulder
away. He’s fighting back tears.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right, I’d be crying too,” I say. My stomach’s knotted in a rope, and I hate myself for yelling at him like I did after the Brantley game and
for basically calling him gay in front of the entire team. Spiking the first baseman is the dirtiest thing a runner can do, and before today I’ve never seen it happen once. “We’ll
take care of Adrian for you. Okay? We have your back. I promise.”

He doesn’t answer me. Cardy and the trainer thunder over, and I step back as they kneel next to him and the trainer tries to stop the bleeding—Greg yells in pain—and then gets
him off the field.

“Blue!” Cardy yells at the umpire. Today it’s Jason Terry, a guy my dad’s always thought is one of the worst umps in the league. “He slid in with his spikes!”
He’s expecting an ejection for Adrian; we all are. But instead Terry shrugs and lifts his hands like he saw nothing—unbelievable—and issues a warning to both sides that anyone
coming in spikes high from now on will get thrown out. Cardy goes apoplectic, screaming an inch from Terry’s face until he gets tossed. The worst part is, the next batter hits an easy fly to
left field, and because the sun was in his eyes, Dutch drops it and Adrian comes in to score.

I should have never let that happen. I’m disgusted with myself. I wish it had been anyone but Greg. I’ll avenge him, though—I’ll make it up to him. All of it.

I’m up that next inning, and they walk me. Their pitcher’s been good all day and all four balls come so far outside it almost makes me think it’s intentional. But it
can’t be; I’m a pitcher. I barely even
have
a batting average. When I get to first base, though, the first baseman is waiting for me.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s Braden, right?”

His name’s Rory Garcia, their captain. I say, “Yeah, what?”

“Look, Adrian messed up. That was unacceptable. I’ll air him out myself. But”—Rory clears his throat—“listen, man, I know you’re going to want to settle
that somehow, but is there any way this time you can just let it slide?”

You can get away with talking to the first baseman as long as you both keep facing straight ahead, but that startles me enough that I twist my whole body around to stare at him. “I must
not have heard you right.”

“You’re going to make me say it again, huh?” He runs his tongue across a lump of dip jammed inside his cheek. “I’m asking if you can let it go. Shake it off.
Pretend it never happened.”

“Adrian shouldn’t even be in this game. Greg texted from the ER to tell us he needs thirteen stitches and two staples in his leg. That slide just ended his season.”

“I’m really sorry about that.”

“You’re
sorry
? You play first base. What would you do if someone did that to you and the ump didn’t even flinch?”

“I mean, granted, I’d expect my pitcher to take the guy out, but—”

“And you’re the captain, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then that just doesn’t make sense.”

“Meaning what?”

“You’re not the pitcher and not the catcher and not the shortstop; in fact you’re on
first
, and I don’t think you’ve gotten a hit off me once in three
seasons. So I would’ve thought they made you captain because even if you aren’t any good, then at least you knew the rules.”

It’s far and away the most insulting thing I’ve ever said to another player. But all Rory says is, “I’m not telling you what I think you should do. I know exactly what
you
should
do. I’m asking you a favor.”

“If you know, then why are you even asking me?”

He starts to answer, then stops himself. I don’t know Rory, I have no idea what he’s thinking, but even I can see he’d pay a lot to not be having this conversation right
now.

“His sister’s pretty sick,” he says at last. “He just found out this week he’s not a match to give her his bone marrow. He’s been telling everyone for weeks
how he was all set to do it, and he’s not taking it well.”

We watch as their pitcher steps off the mound and kneels down and does something with the laces on his cleats. He’s taking long enough that it occurs to me to wonder if he’s waiting
for us. There’s something like a clamp inside my chest. I ignore that. I glance out at the stands. “How old is she?”

“His sister? She’s—”

“Never mind, actually,” I say quickly. I don’t know why I asked. I don’t want to know. “It doesn’t matter. Greg never did a thing to him, and now he
won’t play again this year. And you don’t spike the first baseman ever. You know that.”

Their pitcher steps back onto the mound. “Look, brother—forget it,” Rory says, crouching forward again to get ready for the play. “I know you’re probably exactly
the wrong person to ask about this. In every way. So forget I said anything. Have fun.”

Adrian comes up again in the sixth. His last at bat, he wasn’t showing any of the tells batters sometimes will when they’re nervous, circling his bat or taking too
long to get into the box, but this time he does both those things and then brushes his feet against the dirt, too, like he’s trying to stay light on his cleats.

Colin and I settle on a two-seamer that comes up the inside corner, high and tight on him so he can’t possibly mistake the message, but—he’s got quick feet, which I
knew—he’s got just enough time to arc himself away.

Colin throws me back the ball. Adrian circles his bat in the air loosely. I know he has to know what’s coming. From the stands, someone—a girl’s voice—cheers and calls
his name, and for a split second I imagine I can physically feel Maddie watching me.

And I don’t know why I do this. I know it’s wrong. I know that. But my next pitch sails right across the plate, centered and slow and right across the middle at his knees, and Adrian
swings.

I was right: he was ready. I don’t turn to watch, but I know from the roar from their half of the crowd that it’s gone.

It’s quiet at night around here, and at the junior high, with all the lights off for the night and the whole place empty, it’s like being the only person left in the
world. When you run on the bleachers in that stillness, the footsteps explode against the metal and the sound assaults your eardrums, piercing the night like artillery.

I’m here, obviously, for penance. Even though we won, I still betrayed a teammate, in public, on the field. I go as hard as I can. By the end of the fifteenth or sixteenth round,
it’s like someone’s slashed through my thighs with a knife; by twenty-five, they’re dousing the wounds with acid. I get to the top—I’m slowing down already—and
tap the wall and then turn back around to go back to the bottom. Every time I hit another step, it pounds through me, and I feel close to throwing up. I can feel every nerve ending in my lungs lit
up like a fuse.

I didn’t bring water, on purpose, but I wish I had. It’s on number thirty when I look down and see, in the dark, four shadowy figures coming toward me. Nothing’s happened with
Vidal or anyone else since the Hughson-Brantley game, but I know it doesn’t mean things are over. My mouth goes dry.

Maybe I shouldn’t be out here alone, in the dark, when no one knows where I am. I didn’t even bring my phone. I turn so I’m facing them and lean over like I’m stretching,
pretending I’m not watching. They come closer and closer. It’s guys, all of them walking in a straight line, and I’m looking down over the edge of the bleachers, trying to think
how bad I’d get hurt if I jumped over to run for it, when they get close enough that I realize who it is: Colin, Jarrod, Chase, and Dutch. That might actually be worse. When they get to the
bleachers, Colin says, “Thought we’d find you here.”

“We went by your house,” Dutch adds. “Your brother didn’t know where you were.”

“Oh.” I left the game without talking to anyone. “You here to settle something for Greg, or what?”

Jarrod makes an irritated noise. “No, dumbass. We’ve got a bottle of JD and we’re going to go out to the lake and kick back a while. And you’re coming, too.”

“I’m busy.”

“Come on, Raynor, lighten up,” Colin says. “It’ll be good for you. You’ve been even more uptight than usual lately. Everyone got all worried the way you left after
the game. Let’s go. Come on.”

“I’m running.”

“Braden, come on. You missed
one
pitch. Ease up. No one’s perfect.”

“I didn’t miss.”

I know they know that. I know everyone does. The four of them exchange a glance. Finally Colin says, “How many of these are you doing?”

I turn my head away. “A hundred.”

He sighs and shoves his cap back. “God, Braden, you’re such a drama queen sometimes. How many have you done so far?”

I mutter that I’ve done thirty.

“Okay,” he says. “Well, seventy over five is…crap. Fifteen? That’s not right, is it.”

“Fourteen, moron,” Chase says. “What, did you fail fourth grade?”

“All right, fourteen, Mister Mental Math.” Colin motions with his head, and the four of them come and line up on the bottom step of the bleachers, flanking me. “We’ll
split them with you, Raynor. Fourteen each. Let’s go.”