Page 17 of The Art of Catching Feelings

“Exactly.” Randy clapped him on the back. “Now are you going to get your ass out here on the dance floor or what?”

Chris held up his drink. “Not enough of these in the world.”

—

They didn’t have to pour him onto the plane the next morning, but he definitely felt a little worse for wear after his early wake-up call to load onto the bus to the airport. Randy, meanwhile, was bouncing on his toes and talking in rapid-fire Spanish to a few of the other Latin players. Fucking twenty-five-year-olds.

His brother Tim used to love throwing their three-year age gap in Chris’ face. No matter what, it always seemed to come out in his favor. Whenhewas Chris’ age, he’d say, no way would Dad have let him go to Dorney Park alone with a friend. But then later he’d say whenhewas Chris’ age, he was already mature enough to have his own after-school job.

He’d loved his brother, but sometimes it had been exhausting, that constant need Tim had had to compete. Their dad definitely hadn’t helped. He loved to pit the two boys against each other, compare one to the other. And the metrics and standards always changed, so what earned you high marks at Christmas wouldn’t always be impressive by Easter. Then again, Chris was rarely able to be around at Easter, or Memorial Day, or the Fourth of July. Hehadn’t meant to be in only sporadic touch with his brother, but his schedule had been so busy, and there’d been so much other stuff he needed to focus on.

Now he wondered if he’d known more about what was going on, if he’d have been able to do anything differently. He wished he’d paid more attention. That was a dangerous road to go down, one he traveled most nights when he couldn’t fall asleep.

A morning flight when they didn’t play until the next day was definitely a different experience than the late-night variety right after a game. They felt more businesslike, where guys were apt to keep to themselves or keep things low-key in smaller groups. Chris shoved his duffel bag in the overhead compartment and snagged a window seat, pulling out his phone like most of the other guys already seated had done.

He opened up Instagram again and scrolled through his feed quickly, not stopping to really see anything. Thinking about his brother made him type his name into the search bar, pulling up his old account that still sat there, last updated five months ago. It was one of the worst things he could possibly do and yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

The last picture was from a couple weeks before Christmas. It was a picture of the tree in Tim’s house, Tim’s face slightly blurry in one corner as he tried to get a selfie with the decorations in the background.How do lights always get tangled no matter what you do???Comments underneath from various friends of Tim’s had all basically beenRight?!or suggestions for how to pack the lights next time.

Chris had seen Tim at Christmas. His brother had seemed like he was doing really well then. He’d talked about a new network engineer job he might apply for, that had better pay and a shorter commute than the job he had. He’d seemed hopeful.

Chris slid back to his own profile, just as a way to exit out ofhis brother’s. He’d rarely commented on his brother’s posts—not because he didn’t love him or care about what was going on in his life, but just because he always thought it was silly to have these tiny, meaningless interactions publicly with people who you interacted with privately in a more meaningful way. But now he questioned that, too, wondered if those small gestures of reaching out were meaningless after all. If he could go back in time, he’d comment on every single one.

He started going through his own profile, deleting each post starting with the most recent and working his way down. He paused for only a second on one, a video clip of him hitting a home run he could still remember viscerally, the impact of the ball on the bat, the loudcrackthat he immediately knew meant it was out of the park. His agent hadn’t had to post that one—he’d posted it himself, with a caption underneath.This feeling.

It made his chest clench just to see it, to think about who he’d been then and who he was now. He deleted that post, too, and kept going.

The plane had been in the air for twenty minutes by the time he finished. There had probably been a faster way to do that, some way to reset your whole account, but it had been oddly satisfying to go through it one by one. After those first few, he’d barely glanced at the picture itself, not really wanting to take a trip down memory lane. Now his feed was a blank black square.

He was about to delete Instagram entirely, but before he did he opened up his last message exchange with duckiesbooks one more time.

Sorry about that, he typed.I’m not on here much. If you ever want to say hi, just text me.

He sent it before he could talk himself out of it, adding his cell phone number to the bottom. Then he deleted the app from his phone.

EIGHT

Daphne was at a coffee shop, trying to get some work done. She did this once a week or so—“treat” herself to an expensive chai latte and the chance to get out of her apartment, hoping that the change in scenery would somehow make the words come easier. Usually, it seemed to have the opposite effect. She found herself logging onto the Wi-Fi and then back off, telling herself that going off the grid would help her be more productive. But then two minutes later she’d have her phone out just to check one really quick thing, and the cursor on her blank document would keep blinking.

At least the coffee shop was a safe space. No one seemed to recognize her from TV or care anything about what might’ve happened at a baseball game, and she no longer took either of those things for granted.

Another notification popped up on her phone, but she was determined to ignore it. But then she thought about how much more distracting it would be if shedidn’tcheck it, and she needed her full focus to figure out how to write about digital media services and CDN strategy. Sometimes it felt like playing the driest possible game of Mad Libs.

It was another message from Chris.If you ever want to say hi…and his phone number.

What the hell? It seemed like a pretty straightforward message, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure it out. He’d bailed on their last conversation, then three days later he’d sent…this?

Did hewanther to say hi? He must, if he’d given her his number. She clicked on his profile picture to see what he might’ve posted lately, but there was nothing. Not the professional photos she’d seen uploaded before, not the brief bio that stated he played third base for the Carolina Battery. Nothing.

The message had been sent only a few minutes ago. She knew what Kim would say if she were here—she’d tell Daphne to play it a little cool, wait a full day at least before responding. She might even advise Daphne not to respond at all, if she knew the whole story. Nothing good could come of it.

But Kim wasn’t there. And Daphne had felt a zip along her spine at seeing the digits on the screen. She’d spent the last few days thinking about their conversation, reading back through the messages. He must’ve thought about her, too, just a little, if he was messaging her now. The very idea put butterflies in her stomach. This was another open door, and she wanted to walk through.

hi

She started to text more, but then left it at that single word. She’d take his invitation literally and see where it went from there. If he came back with someWho is this?type of response, maybe she’d see it as a sign and give up, claim a wrong number.

But his response came back quickly, almost like he’d been waiting for her text.

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