Page 49 of The Art of Catching Feelings

That surprised him. Normally, sideline reporters didn’t say much that could be deemed a judgment on the game—it was more relaying an event and then asking how you felt about it, maybe sharing someone else’s judgment and asking you to react to it. But her comment felt almost…personal.

She didn’t look so good, actually. Her face was pale, and there were circles under her eyes visible even through her makeup.

“Yeah, well,” he said. And then just stopped. For a moment they stared at each other, a beat of completely dead airtime before finally she seemed to shake herself out of it, turning back toward the camera.

“Tomorrow’s pitching matchup is confirmed…” she started to say, and Chris peeled off, heading through the dugout back into the clubhouse. Randy was there, sitting on one of the benches and typing something on his phone. Chris rummaged in the duffel at the top of his locker for his own phone, scrolling through a few notifications before putting it back. Just as he’d thought. There was nothing.

For the first time, he started to feel a little worried. It wasn’t like Duckie, not to be in contact at all for so long. What if something had happened? She was so paranoid about car accidents…

“I can’t believe Marv didn’t even challenge the call,” he said to Randy, trying to distract his heartbeat back to a normal rate.

“Dude,” Randy said without even looking up. “You were out.”

TWENTY

Of all nights for her car not to start, it had to choose that night. When she was at her most bone-tired and desperate to get as far away from the ballpark as she possibly could.

“Perfect,” she muttered, trying to turn it over again. It made a sickening rattle before shutting back off, which meant…what? She tried to remember what her dad had taught her. If it was the battery it wouldn’t start at all, right?

It didn’t matter. Either way, she was looking at calling roadside assistance at best, giving up and paying for an expensive rideshare home at worst. The second option actually didn’t sound that bad, if it meant she could get out of there.

She held her phone in her hand, finger hovering over the app, wondering if she should just bite the bullet. But she hated wasting all that money she didn’t really have, when she paid an annual fee to get help in a situation exactly like this one. She opened up her roadside assistance app instead, opening a new service ticket to fill out all the information they needed.

She’d only gotten through two fields when a text popped up on her screen.

C: Hey, everything okay?

Oh yeah, everything was great. Only I’ve been stringing you along and feeling increasingly terrible about it.

C: I just got worried when I didn’t hear from you.

And as if she needed any more proof that she was a terrible person,thathad never even occurred to her. She typed a quick response into the text message box.

D: Sorry, everything’s fine. I couldn’t make it to the game, but I do appreciate the thought.

C: Okay.

Just when she thought that was all she would get—that single terse word, with the period after it, whichfeltsinister even though she’d already noticed that Chris largely respected punctuation and capitalization in his texts—he texted again.

C: I know I said I’d understand if you didn’t come to the game tonight, but I realized I don’t. Not because I’m mad, but just because I don’t understand any of it. Are you still married?

Her first reaction was an incredulous denial—hadn’t they talked in detail about her divorce just a few nights ago? But then when she thought about it, she realized that would make a lot of sense from his end. It was almost such a neat explanation that she briefly thought about just sayingyes, and using that as her excuse to end things. But telling a lie to get out of another lie didn’t feel like the right answer.

D: No.

She left it at that single word, figuring that any long-winded explanations would only get her in more trouble, or make him question her credibility. She expected him to challenge her further, but she didn’t expect the text she got instead.

C: I don’t think I can do this. Whatever “this” is.

She knew she had no right to be angry, but she also couldn’t stop herself.

D: So everything you’ve said—about being okay to just be friends,about understanding if I wanted to take things slow—was just bullshit? Because I can’t make it out to a game on short notice, that’s it? I have a life, Chris. I might have plans that preclude me from being able to come to a ballgame at 7pm in the middle of the week. Ever think of that?

C: I get that you have a life. But you won’t share that life with me, at all. If you had plans tonight, you could’ve texted back and just said, sorry, won’t be able to make it. You didn’t.

The fact that he had a point only perversely made her more upset. She should’ve responded to his text—it had been cruel not to. She’d just been so unsure of what to say, and then she’d gotten so wrapped up in her actual job covering the Battery that she hadn’t been able to explain why she wasn’t at the game…that she was, in fact, at.

C: I don’t want to fight with you. I do understand if you’re not ready for anything beyond anonymous texting. But it turns out that the anonymous texting thing is starting to be hard for me to keep up, so where does that leave us?

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