Page 23 of Pitching for Keeps
"Can we please?—"
"Does he know? Does he know you saved all this?"
"Of course he doesn't know! How would I explain this?" I gesture at the evidence. "Hey Jay, I kept grass clippings from your games. Totally normal behavior!"
"Tracy." She sits on the bed, surrounded by my secret shame. "Honey. Why didn't you go with him?"
The question hangs in the air. I sink down beside her.
"Because I loved him too much," I finally say. "He worked so hard to get drafted, overcame the surgery, everything. How could I ask him to worry about me when he needed to focus on making it back?"
"Did he ask you to?"
"No. He asked me to come with him. Said we'd figure it out together."
"And you said no because...?"
"Because what if I was the reason he didn't make it? What if having to think about my career, our relationship, what if it was too much?"
"Tracy." She takes my hand. "What if you were the reason he did make it?"
"I couldn't risk it and I couldn't be what held him back." I pick up a photo of us after his first complete game. "So I kept all of this instead. Pathetic, right?"
"It's not pathetic. It's love." She squeezes my hand. "But Tracy, you can't live in the past forever."
"I know. I just... I couldn't throw it away."
"What about the jersey? I didn't see?—"
"That's... in my suitcase. At the house."
Her eyes widen. "You brought it with you?"
"I sometimes... sleep in it," I admit quietly.
"Tracy!" She jumps up. "We have to go back. Right now."
"What? Why?"
"Because Jay's about to leave, and you need to show him."
"Show him what? That I'm a crazy person who kept his jersey?"
"Show him you never stopped loving him!"
"Tracy?" Jay's voice suddenly carries from downstairs. "Everything okay? Your mom let me in—said you were up here?"
We freeze.
"Oh no, he followed us," I whisper.
"This is perfect!" Megan whispers back. "He can see?—"
"No!" I frantically start shoving things back in the box. "He cannot see this!"
"Tracy?" His footsteps are on the stairs. "Your five minutes turned into fifteen. Ted's getting antsy?—"
He appears in the doorway and stops dead. Taking in the photos, ticket stubs, and the scouting notebook scattered on the bed. And the worst of it was the Ziplock bag of grass I'm trying to hide behind my back.
