Page 34 of The Strike Zone

With a scoff and a heavy eye roll, the phone was shoved back in my pocket. Unzipping my backpack, I rummaged around for the packet of Twizzlers I knew was in there somewhere and grabbed a couple of strands.

Urgh, boys were so annoying.

I didn’t even know why he was still messaging me.

We’d broken up over three months ago, just after New Year. I’d seen him once to return his things and get mine back, and since then he’d barely stopped texting me. Possibly more than when we were officially dating last year.

Douche.

I bit down on the strawberry licorice, before stuffing the entire strand in my mouth and starting on the next.

As I stood there, trying my best to chew without my teeth being stuck together, the annoyance, the pain, all the infuriation I’d worked hard to rid myself of came surging back up. It sat on my chest and squeezed hard.

“Ugh,” I grunted, pulling my phone back out.

Scout: Stop texting me. You explained yourself just fine the first time. I didn’t come away for New Year and you found a girl who would. Congratulations. We’re done, Mark. Get it through your dense skull.

With a deep breath, I hit the Block button on his contact—something I should have done a long time ago. This time my phone was chucked into my backpack, zipped away, and slung over my shoulder, but not before I grabbed another couple of Twizzlers.

I’d met Mark—orShit Head—on a night out last summer.

The Lions had beaten the Yankees during the Saturday afternoon and a bunch of us had headed for drinks after, riding that winning high. We’d been at the outdoor pop-up market in DUMBO, and he’d been standing next to me at the bar when it was my turn to pay. He’d leaned over me to grab a napkin before picking up the beer bottles in front of him.

He was cute, with deep dimples that were present whether he was smiling or not. In hindsight, those dimples were the whole problem. They gave the illusion he was a decent guy, because no one with dimples like that could ever be a dick, right?

Fucking dimples.

For the next two hours we’d caught each other’s eye from across the seating area, lit by twinkle lights. As the sun lowered onto the horizon, we snatched glances, traded soft smiles, locked gazes. When the guys and I called it a night to head home, we stood up. Mark decided this was his last chance, and before I knew what was happening, he’d rushed over to get my number.

In front ofall my friends.

He messaged the next day.

Our first date I discovered that he worked for the New York Rangers. But the Mets was his favorite New York team, followed by the Giants. He wasnota Lions fan, he told me.

So what? No big deal, it’s just where I work,I had thought. New York has three baseball teams, it stands to reason not everyone is going to be a fan. And sure, it was kind of funny that he didn’t ever seem to have any interest in my job, or whether I’d had a good day as it revolved around a team he’d hated since he was a kid.

Because it was my first year with the club, I was still learning about all the players and their history, so I didn’t always notice the small gripes he made about them.

Or how his mood always seemed to be so much better when the Lions lost, even more so than when the Mets won.

One time, I got him tickets to the Lions and Mets. The Lions won and I didn’t hear from him for nearly forty-eight hours.

He ignored me fortwo whole days.

Once the baseball season finished, we had time to hang out more because I wasn’t traveling with the club. We went for dinners, we spent Sundays walking through the city or spending time with our friends. He took me to see Rangers vs. Bruins and afterward we headed up to Vermont for a couple of days. It was cute.

Except, looking back on our time together, I realized it wasn’t all that cute because every five minutes he had to reply to one of a thousand group messages from his friends. Annoying is a better word.

Then New Year came around.

The week before Christmas, he’d been invited to one of his friend’s ski cabins for the weekend, and I was invited too. Sounds awesome, right? Getting out of the city, breathing in that mountain air.

Any other time I would have jumped at the chance, but Alice had invited us to her New Year’s dress-up bar crawl that she’d meticulously planned, and it’s all we’d been talking about for two months.

We’d given our word, that’s how we’d be spending New Year’s. We could go skiing another time.

On Christmas Eve, Mark announced he’d changed his mind. He was going skiing. What’s more, he didn’t seem that bothered about me joining him either. That alone would have been the final nail in our coffin if a couple of weeks later one of his friends hadn’t uploaded pictures onto Facebook of their weekend without properly vetting them.

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