“I’m happy for you, man, but are you sure about this? You really want to retire from pro ball to be a… high school baseball coach?”
“If Jack Carter can do it, so can I. He’s perfectly happy being retired from the game and coaching at Fullton State,” I remind him, referring to our friend who played for the Mets and was one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
“Jack fucking Carter is an anomaly, and don’t forget; he’s got his Kitten to make everything better. I’m assuming since you’ve already packed up your life and made this big decision that you took my advice of apologizing to your pen pal for being an asshole, she forgave you, and now you’re going to live happily ever after on a Podunk island in the middle of nowhere? When’s the wedding, and can I wear purple?” Nick asks, laughing and shielding his face with his arms when I raise my fist and threaten to punch him again.
Nick was never a fan of me cutting off all communication with Wren a year ago, mostly because it turned me into the moodiest of bastards. He’s been telling me to apologize to her ever since I ran out of my last package of salt water taffy and spent fifteen minutes screaming at him in the locker room about what a shitty friend he was for never sending me any surprise goodies in the mail. I didn’t just miss the damn taffy, and Nick knew it. I missed her. I missed hearing how her day was, I missed her giving me shit all the time. I missed giving her advice about Owen’s baseball. And I even fucking missed her kid, and I’d never even met him. I’d seen enough videos and heard her talk about him so much it felt like I had though.
When I got the clean bill of health from my surgeon and the Hawks’ team doctor, and months later that empty feeling in my gut still hadn’t left me, I knew why. I knew what was missing, and I knew what I had to do, where I needed to go, and the only person who could make this feeling go away. I wanted more from Wren the very first time we talked again after high school. She made me laugh when I was feeling sad and alone in a hotel room in Minnesota, eating room service by myself in bed with the local news on. I had been mesmerized by a butter sculpture of a woman, while the rest of my team was out to dinner with their significant others.
But when we spoke about her son’s father still being in their lives, she never corrected me. I naturally assumed they were still together. I turned us into pen pals and kept us strictly in the friend zone out of respect for her. I never asked about him again, and she never brought him up, but he was always there, hovering in the back of my mind. This nameless, faceless man who got to see the smile on Wren’s face when he said something that amused her, who got to hear her voice when she said his full first and last name, because he said something that annoyed her. The man who got to hold her when she was having a bad day, who got to celebrate with her when she had a good one, and who had the privilege of waking up to her in his bed every morning.
It was hard not to hate a man I’d never even met.
Every damn time I saw a new message pop up in my inbox, every time she said something to make me laugh, every time I felt less lonely out on the road when she’d send me ten pictures of cleats and ask me which ones were best for Owen, I would almost cave and tell her I would give my left arm to have her standing right in front of me instead of thousands of miles away. My right arm to see if she tasted as good as I imagined. And my entire baseball career and all the money I’ve ever made to see her wearing nothing but my jersey and hear her moaning my name while wearing it.
I had every intention of going right to Wren as soon as I got to Summersweet Island a few weeks ago and apologizing as soon as I saw her, begging her to be my friend again, even if we could never be more. I would gladly take any part of her she would give me and that her man would be okay with. And then she wasn’t at the ballfield during her son’s game when I was in town, because she had to work. And I got to hear quite a few conversations from Wren’s family while I watched the last hour of the game, to make me realize a quick trip to Summersweet Island to apologize to Wren would never suffice.