Page 38 of The Echo of Regret

“Since when does Bishop Mitchell get nervous when it comes to baseball?” I ask teasingly.

He chuckles. “Since I’ve seen what a small fish I really am in the big baseball pond.”

“You’re not a small fish.”

He shakes his head. “I know my swing is good. I do. But the more elite you go, the more competitive it gets. Some of these guys can hit like me and run that 30-yard dash in under four seconds. They can hit like me and throw the ball to home plate from the outfield.”

“Bishop Mitchell, you’ve always been someone who believes in himself wholeheartedly. Don’t tell me you’re starting to doubt your dream.”

He laughs. “Nah, nothing like that. It’s just…you have this idea of what your future will look like when you’re young, you know? What ‘making it’ looks like, how hard it will be and the kind of dedication you’ll need.” He shrugs a shoulder. “And you don’t actually know what it will really look like until you get there. That’s where I’m at right now. My life just looks a little different than I pictured it when I was first building that dream.”

His eyes focus on mine as he says it, and I can’t help but wonder if I factor into it at all, if any part of what he’s said has to do with me. We used to talk about him being in the big time, playing for the MLB, and we were always an us in those conversations. There’s a part of me that wants to know if he always pictured me at his side as he was reaching these milestones—the draft, the Triple-A team, etc. I want to know if he wished I was there when those happened.

“Alright, your turn,” Bishop says, probably sensing the emotional turn of our conversation and rerouting us.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, thankful that we’re moving on.

“My turn, what?”

“Tell me about art school.”

“It was artsy.”

He rolls his eyes. “Was it school-y too?”

I laugh under my breath. I did two years at Monterey School of Art a few hours away, and even though it was a rough transition, going from a small mountain town to a busy beach city, it was still an amazing experience.

“It was great. Only two years, I’m not sure if you remember. But I learned…so much. And I found my love for ceramics.”

After a beat passes, he leans forward. “That’s it? I shared all my secrets and you’re giving me a few sentences?”

“There’s no way you shared all of your secrets.”

“All the good ones.”

“Mhm. Fine, ask me my secrets. You want to know, I’m an open book.”

Bishop purses his lips, assessing me for a long minute.

“Worst grade.”

“Ugh…art history,” I grumble. “I might love ‘the arts’, but the historical stuff is just a snooze-fest. Maybe I’m a bad artist for saying it, but it’s the truth. I really struggled to finish the paper we had to write for our final. Fifteen pages on how Expressionism paved the way for later art movements. Literally the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

He smiles. “You did always hate having to explain art.”

“I don’t like having to verbalize what art means. Like…it’s just supposed to be something you feel,” I say, though I know without a doubt he’s heard me say some version of that before.

“Alright, next secret. Best moment from the entire time you were there.”

Twisting my lips, I think about it, trying to pull from everything that happened. Two years is a short time in the grand scheme of your life, but it felt really long while I was there. A lot happened.

“Probably when I got an A in my ceramics class first semester. I loved that class so much, and it opened up an entire world to me that I’d never considered before. Knowing my professor saw promise in my work meant so much.”

Bishop grins. “You really love it, huh?”

I nod. “I do. I never thought I’d find anything I was this passionate about, you know? You always had baseball, you were always in it 100%. But me? I just knew I was an artist. I thought I’d do a little painting, probably wait tables or maybe work at one of the businesses in town. I never thought I’d be able to make a living off of work that I love to do.”

“It’s pretty magical, right?”

---