Page 102 of Things I Wish I Said
She sits up finally, propping herself up against the headboard of her bed, her eyes flaring to life as they settle on my face. “And you’d know what that is, how?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Right.” She scoffs, crosses her arms over her chest. “It’s not like you ever actually tell me anything about yourself.”
Her words hit their mark.
She’s not wrong, but something tells me she’s looking for a fight. I recognize the same flare of defensive anger rising in her eyes as my own.
“This isn’t the Ry I know.”
“Yeah, well . . .” She glances away from me, trailing off.
Before I can stop myself, I sink down onto the bed beside her and pull her into my arms.
She stiffens, her spine straight as a rod. The scent of orange and vanilla assaults my senses as I run circles over her back with my hand until she melts like a popsicle, and all at once, she turns languid in my arms, her hands clutching the back of my shirt as if it can hold her together.
I expect her to cry, but she doesn’t. This moment where she’s clinging to me is the only display of weakness I get.
“I miss it,” she whispers into my neck, her breath hot against my skin.
“I know.” I continue rubbing her back, focusing on the soft rise and fall of her chest.
“When I was on that field, nothing else mattered. Sometimes I think I was more at home in my cleats on the turf than in this house.” She pulls away from me and turns back to the screen. “I used to live for those moments,” she says softly, more to herself than to anyone else. “Every game was like a dance. A beautiful, chaotic ballet where every move mattered, and every second counted. Where I was truly alive.”
She closes her eyes, and I wonder if it’s from the pain of her memories or because she’s picturing them, imagining the field beneath her cleats—green and vibrant, filled with the roar of the crowd and the rhythm of her heartbeat syncing with the push-pull of the ball.
I wonder if she felt the energy of the game pulsing through her veins, challenging her to be faster, stronger, better, like I used to.
“I’m here, if you wanna talk about it.”
“I’ll never experience that same thrill, that same rush,” she continues, her voice strengthening as she speaks. “It was more than just a game to me. It was my whole life, a chance to push beyond my limits and find a part of myself I couldn’t reach anywhere else. Every goal, every tackle—it was a conversation with the universe, a way of saying ‘I’ve arrived.’ That I’m alive. Unstoppable.” She tips her head up, eyes searching. “Do you know how that feels?”
I used to.
But lately . . .
I want to tell her how baseball causes me pain. How it’s a reminder of what I’ve lost. So much of baseball was always tangled up in my father, it’s hard to discern one from the other. Hard to pull the grief and pain away from the joy.
But I want to get back there, to that place she mentioned. And I know I can. I just need to stop fucking up. Stop drinking and smoking and staying out late. Start training, focusing on the things that matter, and the people I still have here with me, so I say, “Yeah, I know how that feels.” Because somehow, it feels closer to the truth than a denial.
She nods, seemingly satisfied with my answer as she glances back at the screen. The camera is homing in on her again. “I miss that certainty,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I miss knowing exactly where I stand and what I’m capable of. I miss feeling like I’m a part of something bigger than me, because that’s what my talent was?always bigger than me. And now, it feels like I’m just standing still, watching from the sidelines, wondering what could have been if things had been different, if I hadn’t gotten sick.”
“Maybe that’s the challenge now,” I find myself saying.
I focus on the side of her face as she glances up at me in question. “Maybe you just need to find a new way to feel alive, even without the game that once defined you, because you can be a lot of things, Sinclair. You don’t have to be just one.”
She pulls one measured breath into her lungs after the other, her chest rising and falling as resolve hardens in the gold-and-green flecks in her eyes. “I’m so afraid all everyone will remember is how I got sick. How weak I am now, instead of how strong I was then.”
My throat bobs. If only she knew just how strong she was.
“My cancer has spread,” she says.
Her words are a lance in my side.
Bile rises to the back of my throat, but I force it back down because this isn’t about me, and right now, she needs me.
“What does that mean?” I ask, knowing I don’t want the answer, not really.
