What Endures (9 page)

She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just his way of running away again.” She expelled a short, quick breath in frustration.  “He’s just using his shoulder injury as an excuse.”

“What’s he running from?”

She shrugged. “Tyler doesn’t need a reason. That’s how he deals. He runs.”

“His personal life?”

“He didn’t tell you he broke up with Lizzie?”

“No,” he said. “We didn’t talk that long actually. I was kinda tired from the flight. When did that happen?”

“A week ago.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know Tyler wants to move clear across the country in a few months.”

“Maybe a change of scenery will do him good,” he said quietly, not looking at her.

“Like a change of scenery did you good?” she blurted out, her tone more accusing than she intended.

He looked at her, and she could see that her words had stung him. “Megan-“

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, almost dismissively. “Forget it.”

“No.” His voice was still soft, but she heard the hurt in it. “That wasn’t fair.”

She sighed. “I know.” She met his eyes. “I’m sorry. Really.”

He shook his head. “Damn it, Megan. You know I had to leave! And you know I didn’t want to. But what else was there for me to do?”

“Jason, I said I’m sorry! Can we-“

“If I had stayed here, we would have just-“ He jumped up, agitated. “We wouldn’t have been able to salvage anything from our relationship. There was too much. . . .” He looked at her, eyes challenging. “You know that. Me taking the scholarship offer from Florida State was the only way we managed to save our friendship from everything. So for you to compare what I did to what Tyler is doing is just. . .it’s wrong.”

She sighed. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. But ever since Tyler had told her he was planning to leave for California and UCLA, she had been an emotional mess. She didn’t know why, but she was feeling abandoned. When Tyler was gone, she would be the only one left. Again. She was always the one left behind.

The plan, when they had been young, wide-eyed idealistic romantics, was to have everyone stay in Maryland. But in the end, only she and Tyler had. She got a partial academic scholarship to UM, and Tyler had accepted their baseball scholarship offer. But he had injured his shoulder midway through the season and now he wanted to transfer to UCLA and enroll in their English program. He was done with baseball, and apparently everything in Maryland, including her.

She felt the sting of tears and blinked rapidly to hold them at bay. Jason had left first, and now Tyler. She was back to being alone, just like she usually was and she didn’t think she could bear it any longer.

All their friends in high school had splintered off into a thousand different directions, which was normal but the fact remained – she had been left behind. After losing Jason, to lose her best friend so soon afterwards, it hurt. A lot.

But Jason was right. He had done it mostly for her. . .for them. Their feelings had been too painful and overwhelming at the time. If they had stayed at the same college, they would have irreparably destroyed whatever had been left of their relationship after the divorce. They had managed to become friends again, and she valued that, knowing it would destroy her if Jason was truly gone from her life.

Perhaps that was why she was so upset about Tyler’s leaving. If Tyler hadn’t stayed in Maryland, she and Jason might not have repaired their relationship so soon. But it was Tyler, through his insistent demands for Jason to visit Harbor Bay and then his blatant attempts to get the three of them together, that had started Jason and herself talking in the first place.

She felt as if Tyler was her remaining tie, not only to Maryland and Harbor Bay, but to Jason as well. And the fact that he was now leaving, left her feeling completely adrift. She had made good friends in college. . .even had a few dates. But those relationships had never come close to feeling like family to her. And that’s what her relationship with Tyler and Jason had felt like.

Family.

The tears threatened to spill again as she thought of her parents and the car accident that had claimed their lives. Orphaned at the age of 9, she had been uprooted from her home in South Carolina and shipped to Harbor Bay where her only surviving relative, her mother’s sister, lived. Aunt Susie had been great, but she had been young with her own life so Megan had spent a lot of time alone when she had first moved here. Until she met Tyler, and then through Tyler, she had met Jason and her life had never been the same.

Tyler and Jason had become her family, probably more so than her aunt. Lord knows she spent more time at Tyler's house, and then Jason's, than she had at her aunt's house during her last few years in high school. 

Aunt Susie had met her husband when Megan was still in high school. Her new uncle was a great guy, and Megan loved him, but his job took him all over the place and she knew her aunt had stayed behind to give Megan a stable place to finish her education. So when Megan turned 18, she had given her aunt her blessings and a firm nudge to go follow her husband.

So Tyler telling her he was moving clear across the country made her feel like she was losing the last of her family, and she didn’t know what to do. But it hadn't been fair for her to lash out at Jason. He didn't have to come to Harbor Bay, much less seek her out, so she didn't need to repay him by being a bitch.

She stood up and went over to where Jason was standing, near home plate, staring into the outfield. His tall, muscular frame was rigid with tension. “Jason.” He didn’t move, but a small tilt of his head told her he was listening. “I’m sorry. I really am. I. . .I don’t know why I said that. It wasn’t fair.  .or right. I just. . .I. . .” A sob choked off the rest of her words.

“Meg?” he prompted, turning to her in concern.

She shook her head, fighting to keep her emotions in check. “I hate that everyone I love is leaving.”

He reached out then, in an all-too-familiar gesture and brushed some loose strands of hair from her face, his thumb lingering as it caressed her cheek. “No one’s left you, Megan. Just because people move away doesn’t mean they won’t be there for you.”

She tried to smile and failed miserably. “It’s not the same.”

“I know,” he said softly. “But you know Tyler will always be there for you if you need him right? It’s just a 6 hour plane ride from here to L.A.”

“Right,” she said. She offered him a ‘brave smile’ and turned to stare out at the outfield, still feeling bereft.

“Hey.” His voice was gentle but something in it made her turn and meet his eyes. “You know I’m always here for you right?” He smiled. “It’s an even shorter flight to Florida.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it, Meg,” he said, his green eyes boring into hers. “No matter what. I’m here for you." His hand cupped her cheek. "Always.”

“Ms. Williams?” the phone on her desk squawked, jolting her back to the present. “Sean Richards is on Line 1.”

She shook her head, as if to clear it before she reached over and pressed a button on her phone. “Thank you, Cindy. I’ll take it.”

She rubbed her head tiredly, the memory of that day still fresh in her mind. She had thought back to that conversation often since Jason had revealed that he could recall bits of it yesterday. It was odd that he remembered that conversation because that was the start of the journey that had led to their reconciliation and engagement.

Her heart so desperately wanted to believe that it was significant in some way. But her head told her to not read more into it. After all, her head argued, ‘Always’ came with an expiration date in this case.

She sighed and pushed the button to line one. “Hey Sean.”

“Hi Megan,” the voice coming from her speaker phone greeted her warmly. “How are you?”

“As well as can be expected,” she answered out of habit. She found this answer seemed to preclude any further prying from most people.

“And Jason?”

“He’s, um, doing better each day.”

“Good, good,” Sean said. She could sense that there was something he wanted to discuss with her but didn’t quite know how.

“What’s up, Sean?” she asked, giving him the opening he clearly wanted.

There was a pause, followed by a sigh before he finally answered. “Um, I just talked to Rick Edelson and-“

“Rick Edelson?”

“He handles all the PR for the Mariners.”

“Right,” she replied. 

“So, um, Rick says the team wants to hold a press conference this week. . .” Another pause. “Um, with Jason.”

“What!”

“Megan-“

“No, no way!” she exclaimed.

A tired sigh. “I don’t think we have a choice here, Meg.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rick said that the Mariners are getting swamped with requests for. . .something on Jason’s situation and that the weekly, standard ‘he’s showing steady progress’ press releases aren’t cutting it anymore.”

“Well, that’s-“

“Look, Meg, you’re doing a great job with everything. I mean keeping Jason out of the press and all but. . .” A pause. “Maybe it’s time.”

“For what?”

“To get him out there. The press are already wondering why he’s been AWOL since his accident. So are his fans. The Internet is buzzing with all these rumors.” Rick sighed. “Jason just signed a multimillion dollar contract last year and everyone has high hopes he would lead them to the playoffs this year. Maybe even the World Series.  And then the accident happened and while people have been patient in letting him recover, they’re wondering where the hell the Mariners’ star outfielder is and whether he’s going to come back to the team and in what shape.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” she said, annoyed. “I care about protecting Jason. He is not ready to do a press conference! Are they crazy?”

“They’re under a lot of pressure.” A beat. “So am I.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from Jason’s endorsements lately. They want to know how their investment is doing.”

“Then tell them he’s doing better,” she said impatiently.

“Megan, we might not have a choice here. The rumors are saying he sustained a career-ending injury and the Mariners want to put a stop to that. Jason’s endorsements would like to put a stop to it too. They need the public, especially the press, to actually see Jason.” Another heavy sigh came over the line. “The latest rumor is that Jason’s injuries are permanent. That he’s never going to recover.”

“That’s not true!” she cried, frustrated. “Sean, we’ve talked about this. When he was recovering in the hospital, I thought we agreed that keeping Jason’s memory loss under wraps would be the best thing for his career. And now you want him to go meet and greet the press? That’s going to do more harm than good!”

“I know,” he said, sounding tired. “But it seems like the more we keep him under wraps the worse it’s getting. Usually when there’s an injury you get some kind of photo-op with the athlete in the hospital or with his doctor or something. Obviously we couldn’t do that with Jason then. And now the questions are popping up.”

“Couldn’t we just issue a personal statement or something?”

“They would just treat that as another press release from the Mariners or my office. In other words, they’d ignore them.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Megan. We need Jason for this.”

“Even if I were to agree, Jason’s not up to it. He doesn’t remember Sean! How’s he supposed to answer questions without giving his condition away?”

“I’ll be there,” he replied. “And I’ll do most of the talking. They just need to see Jason. After this, I swear, Jason can go back into hiding for as long as he needs.”

She rubbed her head. “I don’t know.”

“Megan, if we don’t put an end to these rumors now, it’ll just get worse.” He paused and she could hear him tapping his pen agitatedly. “Look, we’ve known each other a long time. And I think we both respect the other for always looking out for Jason’s interests so I don’t think I’m being out of line for asking you to trust me on this.”

“I trust you, Sean,” she said sincerely. And she did. Unlike some of the smarmier sports agents that she had encountered, Sean Richards was like a real-life ‘Jerry Magure.’ He genuinely cared about his clients beyond how much in royalty they could generate for him. That was one of the reasons Jason had gone with Sean, even though the ‘big boys’ of sports management had wooed Jason with increasing intensity as his college career had taken off. Once he had been drafted to the minors, there had been a feeding frenzy. “I don’t know if Jason’s up to this.”

“Like I said, I’ll be there and I’ll do most of the talking. If things get dicey, we’ll cut it short. I already talked to Rick and he says whatever we come up with is fine, as long as we get Jason to the press conference.”

She sighed. She knew Sean was right. They didn’t have much of a choice here. Jason’s career was on the line, and while no one knew at this point whether he would even play baseball again, she wasn’t going to close that door prematurely. For all the heartache and pain that baseball had caused him in his life, and by association in hers, she knew that in that deepest part of him, Jason loved the game.

So if he decided he wanted to come back to the game, to this career, she had to make sure it was still there for him. As much as she didn’t want to at the moment, she would protect it for him.

“I’ll talk to him.”

#

“I don’t know why I agreed to this,” Jason mumbled, nervously fidgeting with his tie.

She quashed her own nervousness and smiled at him reassuringly. “It’ll be fine. You heard Sean, just let him do the talking.”