Page 54 of Nothing Like the Movies

Of course not.

Because he’s dead, you psycho.

I was going to blow it, goddamnit.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“I love you. I knew it the minute I met you. I’m sorry it took so long for me to catch up.”

—Silver Linings Playbook

Liz

“Why does he look like that?”

“Like what?” Clark was on my left, filming, and I was crouched over by the visitors’ dugout with my camera.

“Like he isn’t pitching,” I said, my zoom fully engaged on Wes’s face. “He always looks like he’s going to murder someone when he’s throwing, but today he looks like he needs a nap.”

Clark made a noise like he found that funny. “I don’t know what that means.”

I watched as Wes threw another ball that Mickey had to chase, and I could sense in the dugout across from me that the coaches who appeared to be standing around doing nothing were actually watching closely.

I looked through the camera and could almostseethe doubt about the new freshman lefty. It had that vibe, like they werewatching something fall apart and didn’t quite know what to do.

Shit.

Regardless of my feelings for him, I didn’t want him to fail.

“It means he needs to find whatever always pissed him off on the mound,” I said, feeling panicked as Wes looked nothing like the way he’d looked every time I’d ever seen him pitch. “Or something.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I felt anxious. Like, anxious to the point where I wanted to talk to him, to find something I could say to remind him to chill the hell out and just do what he knew how to do.

Just pitch, Wes.

I didn’t know him anymore and had no idea what was going on in his head, but it was obvious that his issue was there. He still had the talent and mechanics, but he was clearly sabotaging himself.

Which, honestly, wasn’t surprising.

Right after his dad died, when his coaches wanted to know when he’d be coming back to school, Wes kind of lost it. I vividly remember the panic in his eyes as he told me (on a FaceTime call) that he didn’t think he could even look at a baseball now that his dad was gone, much less throw one.

The idea of it made him physically ill.

So that had to be what this was, not the actual pitching itself.

He had to know that, right?

I mean, of course he did.

But what if he didn’t in this moment? I set down the camera, reached into my bag, and ripped a page out of my notebook.

“Can you do me a huge favor?” I asked Clark, digging out a pen. I knew my words probably wouldn’t help, because he had an entire coaching staff with all the baseball wisdom in the world to share with him.

But I was compelled to dosomethingto try to help him.

Just in case.

I scrawled out a sentence, then folded the paper in half.

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