Page 14 of Skin Deep

Chapter4

Harrison

By the time I checked the computer, went for a jog, hid from Bernice when she knocked on the door again, took a shower, got dressed, checked the computer once more, and had to take the train to work, I was twenty minutes late.

My supervisor handed me a list of things that needed to be done. It consisted mostly of repairs. I grabbed my toolbelt, made sure it had everything I needed before securing it around my waist, then headed in the direction of the field.

The view never ceased to amaze me. It was like looking at Mari and getting paid for it. Except this dream—or maybe plan—was unobtainable to me.

Baseball was my first love. I was seven when I first remembered my da taking me to a game. The feelings going through the crowd, like electricity through flesh, was as clear to me as the taste of my first hot dog as the game started.

It was the moment I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Play ball.

My entire universe had adjusted itself to that one idea. There was no room for anything else.

I’d even caught a fly ball that day. Jackie Mays had signed it for me, too. It was one of my most valuable possessions.

That one day had set my life into motion. I threw myself into the sport. I was damn good at it, too. Then the day to end all days hit me as hard as the injury that benched me. A torn rotator cuff, one of the worst injuries the doc had ever seen. After that, I lost my college scholarship and any chance I’d had with the major leagues.

More than one coach had told me that I’d been destined to play with the best of the best. Then it all ended, and I felt like I’d never recover.

I’d known since the age of seven what my life was supposed to look like. Never playing ball was not part of my plan or an option. What the fuck was I supposed to do with my life after that? I’d felt too old, even at seventeen, to come up with another plan.

Mam once told me that, where Lachlan had come out ready to cause trouble, I had come straight out with no fuss. He was after the recklessness of life, his feet never really touching the ground. I was after obtainable visions, solid ground beneath my feet.

For the first time in my life, I lost control and started to spiral. In many ways, and for so many reasons, I blamed myself for Lachlan’s welcome into the world he seemed to thrive in. Because when the darkness swallowed me up, I couldn’t see the path I was on. The wrong one. I started hanging with people who made a living out of being career criminals. The difference between Lach and me, though, was that he latched onto the life while my attention turned to something—or someone—else.

Mariposa Flores. My little sister’s best friend.

It started out harmless enough. After my surgery, when I refused to get out of bed, occasionally she’d help Kee bring my lunch to my room. It usually sat there until I was too hungry to ignore my body’s needs.

Mari was just a kid at the time, around seven, but I’ll never forget what she said to me one day. “So many starving people would want that food. I know it feels like your shoulder died, but people still eat and drink at funerals. Donuts, mostly, and coffee.”

It was the first time I’d smiled since my diagnosis. I started eating regularly after that.

Mari knew what it meant to go without a meal, even as young as she was then. After her adoptive grandfather and mother died, she was put into foster care. She became a system kid—a big change from the Gianellis wanting nothing but the best for her. Kee had lost touch with her for a little while, but when our mam couldn’t take her “fits” anymore, she went looking for Mari.

We kept up with her after that, but it was hard when she’d get switched from house to house or place to place. It was a good day when she came to visit.

As she got older, we’d see her more. Though I had my own thing going, when I noticed her, I noticed the changes. She was becoming a person who refused to owe anyone else. Even so, when she found me sitting out on the porch one night, the smell of blood on me from a night out, she came to sit beside me.

She had started to fill out some. She still had a youthfulness about her, but I could see the woman starting to take shape.

“Everyone’s worried about you, Harrison,” she’d said.

I didn’t say anything. None of them knew what I was dealing with. How hard my life had shattered when my muscles and tendons did.

She sighed. “It always surprises me how some people have so many opportunities, even if they’re different from what was planned, and they let them go to waste. Other people have to fight to get even one of the opportunities left from the other person’s plate.”

Somehow, her comment brought back memories of what she’d told me about my shoulder dying. How some people would love to have the food that I was wasting.

She became quiet after that, unaware of the epiphany I’d just had. It was as if she’d brought my entire life into focus, and for the first time since my surgery, the entire world lit up. No one more than her. But she was still so young at the time.

After Lachlan got into trouble for something and the court-appointed lawyer did nothing to help him, I started reading law books, and I was hooked.

I had a plan again.

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