Chapter 208 Game Three: University Preparatory H.S. 7

Mr. Atkins and I thanked him and left the tent.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but I cut him off. "How's the game going?"

He glanced down at his phone. "Not so good. Mary said she would meet us at the car."

I blinked in surprise. "So quick? What happened?"

"Mercy ruled. We lost 10-0 in the bottom of the fifth." Mr. Atkins sighed. "She said the boys are packing up the baseball bags in the car now. Let's go." He guided me towards the parking lot.

"What day will we see Dr. Moore this week..?" I asked.

"Wednesday evening. Is something bothering you at the moment? Is it about others seeing your scars? I can call and ask to see if he can move us up a couple of days?" Noah obviously got his rambling from his dad. The similarity was a bit uncanny.

I shrugged a little. "Not really about the scars. I can just hide those. It's-I-there was-" I started to ramble again, trying to find the words that could explain my nightmare. "This morning, I didn't sleep well because I had a nightmare. That involved my mom."

Mr. Atkins slowed down to a stop. He gave me a look of sympathy. "It's good that you brought it up. If you kept it to yourself and bottled it up, it can come back to bite you later on."

Did that happen to him? Noah and I overheard him talking to Mary about his past and how he had to hit rock bottom before letting anyone in to help. Knowing that something similar had happened to Mr. Atkins and seeing him be a functioning a.d.u.l.t makes me think everything really will be okay in the end. But...I want to ask: how long did it take? Where did it start? When did it end?

"Jake?" Mr. Atkins called for my attention. "What do you think? Want to talk about it earlier? We could also talk about it together before we go in? What do you want to do?"

I want to ignore it. But, that's not realistic. Especially seeing how jumpy I was today. It's not something I can hide, like my scars. "Wednesday is okay. Noah and I talked about it a little so I'm fine."

Mr. Atkins looked relieved. "Okay, we'll wait until Wednesday." He started to walk again, with me right beside him. We walked to the car in silence, yet I wasn't bothered by it.

At the car, all the Atkins boys were standing by the opened trunk, talking.

Noah was the first to notice us walking towards them. "Everything okay Jake?"

I gave him a thumbs up.

"What a relief." He sighed.

"As long as Jake doesn't have any trouble breathing, he should be good to go." Mr. Atkins said. He looked at Zeke. "So no crazy amount of laps and running. I'll be texting your Coach."

Zeke frowned. "How are we ever going to get better if you keep restricting their intensity of practice?"

The twins and Noah were dead silent, not even breathing too loud.

Mr. Atkins tilted his head to look at his oldest son. "Last I checked, I'm the parent here. Would you like to be held responsible for someone's health? For your own? Could you handle the consequences?"

"I can be held responsible for my own health." Zeke continued to talk back to his dad. "I could have played today. We could have had a chance. I could have easily done just as well as Seth and Hayden."

Mr. Atkins looked at the rest of us. "Why don't you boys get in the car while Zeke and I have a talk?"

Noah didn't hesitate to grab me and we got in the very back of the car. The twins got in the middle rows right after us.

"Oh, Jake? How are you feeling?" Mrs. Atkins was in the front passenger seat.

"He's fine. Shhhh." Noah answered. "Zeke is talking back to dad. He's still mad about the game."

To my surprise, Mrs. Atkins didn't say anything about being shushed by her own son. She just turned to look out the trunk with the rest of us.

"Zeke, I know where you're coming from." We could hear Mr. Atkins say in a light tone.

"If you could, then I would have been playing." Zeke's tone became aggressive. This is the first time I've heard him so upset. "This was one of the few chances I would have had to play against these guys. Now it's gone. In five innings. Dad, how could you possibly know what I'm feeling?"

Mr. Atkins sighed. "Zeke, it's called being empathetic. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Knowing you, and knowing how much this means to you...I'm sorry. You did miss out. But, think about this: would you rather miss out on this game or miss out on playing baseball for years to come? Let me tell you, when you don't take care of an injury immediately, it'll never fully go away. It'll keep plaguing you and dragging down your potential. Sure, you might have made a difference in today's game, but what if you didn't? What if your contusion got worse and you needed more time to rest? In the grand scheme of life, this one game won't make or break you. There'll be more games with more importance."

Zeke didn't speak right away, after his Dad's speech. His dad waited patiently to see what he would say. Surprisingly, I heard Zeke sigh with heavy remorse. "I didn't want to raise my voice. I just don't like to be left behind. This was a good chance to prove myself in front of college and professional scouts."

"You've already have their eye, son." Mr. Atkins reassured him. "You're a standout on the field and off. Wherever you decide to go, they'll be lucky to have you."

"And if I decide to enter the draft to become a pro?"

"Then you better come up with a PowerPoint presentation for me and your mom on all the reasons why." Mr. Atkins replied. "And I don't want to hear money as a reason."

"Yea, yea. I know." Zeke waved him off, giving off the feeling of a rebellious teen for the first time. "Let's go get lunch. I'm sure the twins are complaining to mom right now."

Mr. Atkins agreed as they shared a smile and headed towards us.

Noah immediately faced forward and gave the twins a look.

Kyle understood the unspoken command. "Mommm, what's for lunch? My vote is steak."

"All you think about is steak." Noah rolled his eyes.

"Then pasta it is!" Dave voted.

"You didn't even play in the game, why do you get to decide?"

The bickering went on as Zeke and his dad both got in the car. A decision was made by Mrs. Atkins and we were off.

As we drove, I felt an ache in my chest. An ache unrelated to being hit by that grounder. Instead, it came from inside. Seeing Zeke and his Dad have what looked to be an argument, that in turn, became a display of parental love and care, made me feel like I was missing out. I was always missing out.