Page 63 of If We Never Met

He thought about how best to express what he was thinking. "I was drafted out of community college. I'd been there two years, setting all kind of records, and I thought I was a superstar."

"It sounds like you were."

"Well, when I got to my first team in LA, they took one look at me and sent me down to the minors almost immediately. They said they wanted me to get experience. It was the right decision, but it wasn't what I wanted. I thought I was ready to be on the main stage, not playing games in a one-stoplight town in the middle of nowhere."

"So, what happened?"

"It turned out to be good for me. I got to pitch a lot and face different kinds of hitters, but it still felt like punishment. After a year, there was talk of bringing me up. I was very excited. But the more talk there was, the worse I started to pitch. It was like the closer I got to my dream, the more problems I encountered. My cockiness vanished. I was overthinking every move I made. I thought I had a hitch in my fastball. The sinker wasn't hitting its mark. I was annoyed with the mound, the dirt, my catcher, my infielders, even the weather. Oh, and the damn birds that would fly over during the late afternoon games, they really pissed me off."

She smiled. "How did you get out of it?"

"I got help from an unexpected person. The scorekeeper for our home games came up to me in the parking lot one night. He must have been close to eighty, but he'd been a player in his day, a pitcher, in fact. He told me to stop thinking about the next pitch, the next game, the next stage in my career. Just to focus on the ball and the batter in front of me. One hitter at a time. Put everything else out of my head. Don't look at the crowd. Don't look at the coach. Don't think about who's watching. I thought it was stupid advice. I barely let him finish before I took off. But the next game, I realized my mind kept sliding into the future. I was thinking about the next batter, the number four hitter, worrying about how I was going to get him out before he was even up. I was also scanning the crowd. I was watching for the scouts. I was measuring my success by the wrong things."

He took a breath, then continued. "When I finally just looked at the ball and the batter and pushed everything else out of my mind, the plate came into perfect focus. I pitched the ball, and the batter swung and missed. From that first strike, it just kept getting better. Concentration had always been the key to my success, but I'd gotten too far ahead of myself. I was so afraid of losing out on what I didn't have that I almost missed being able to get it—if that makes sense."

"It makes a lot of sense."

"Even though I didn't think I was afraid, I was."

"And you think I'm afraid."

He met her gaze. "It doesn't matter what I believe, only what you do."

She thought about his words. "I think I'm good, but I don't know how good. Am I talented enough to make it all the way? Or am I being overconfident? Living here in Whisper Lake, the world is very small. When I was in New York, I saw how cutthroat fashion was, how much power certain magazines or fashion houses or celebrities could wield over the industry. I think I'm talented enough to compete. But I don't know if I can make it. It's a big risk."

"How will you know unless you go for it?"

"I probably won't know. But going for it involves giving up other things that have been sustaining my mom and me, like the real-estate business and the boutique."

"Can you delegate?"

"Yes, but will things work as well as they do now if I'm not overseeing them? And then there's my mom. She's getting better. But is she truly capable of living independently? It's been a long time since she didn't have me looking out for her. Plus, I have immediate commitments, like Hannah's dress. I can't think about the future right now. I don't think I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm too wrapped up in the mess of the moment."

"I disagree. I think we just got to the heart of your problem."

"We did?"

"Yes." He rested his arms on the table as he gazed at her. "When you finish Hannah's dress, you will have to think about the future. But that's the problem—by not wanting to think about the future, you're actually thinking about it."

Her brows drew together as she considered his words. "That's convoluted but makes some sense."

"Maybe you can't finish the dress, because it's the last barrier before having to deal with your future plans."

Her eyes widened. "Wow. You might have just saved me a lot of money in therapy."

"Just throwing out an idea."

"I wish I could say you were wrong, but maybe you're not."

"Since I'm on a roll…"

"What?" she asked warily.

"Maybe your obsession with Mark Langley is because you subconsciously don't want your mom to be independent. If she's dating, if she has a man in her life who can also take care of her, you've just lost another one of your reasons for staying exactly where you are."

He thought he'd nailed it, but he also thought he'd probably pushed it a little too far. There was a gleam of anger in her eyes now.

"That would be a terrible thing for me to—break up my mom and Mark, because I need a reason to stay here."

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