The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,86

I left the house, I was completely broken on the inside. And it had nothing to do with all the name-calling and messed up comments.

Heartache was a kind of pain you couldn’t see, but it existed with each breath, reminding you that you were slowly bleeding out, slowly dying. The wounds might not be visible, but they ran deep.

I did my best to distract myself with work for The Long Ones and the waffle restaurant as often as I could, but there was only so much research that I could do before my eyes felt like they were going to fall out of my head. Not to mention the fact that anything regarding The Long Ones brought back the night I’d screwed it all up, and anything regarding the waffle restaurant … well, it made me think about Cole, too, for obvious reasons. He had become so intertwined with every part of me that there was no escaping him.

When the distractions were gone and my thoughts invaded my mind, I crumbled. Every night since Cole had walked out of that apartment door, I’d cradled my phone, wanting to dial his number. But I knew there was nothing I could say that would make things better. Not that he would have even answered the phone in the first place. And that rejection still would have stung even though I deserved and expected it.

I wanted to text him all the time and tell him how much I missed him, just so he knew I was thinking about him, but it felt selfish somehow. Mostly because I knew I would have been holding my breath, waiting for him to tell me he missed me back. That wasn’t fair to him, and I refused to do it to make myself feel better.

I sat at the kitchen table one morning, sipping coffee and wondering how long it would take before I forgave myself for what I’d done. Why is it easier to forgive other people? Is it because we accept their flaws more willingly than we accept our own? Or is it because we hold ourselves to standards so high that there’s no margin for error, that we simply aren’t allowed to make those kinds of mistakes?

“Have you called him yet?” Lauren rounded the corner and tapped her finger on the table, breaking me from the trance I had been in.

“And say what? I still love you, but I still don’t remember anything. And I miss you so much that it hurts with every breath I take. And I know you think you hate me for what I did, but you could never hate me more than I hate myself.”

Her eyes widened. “It’s a hell of a start.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because nothing’s changed. If Cole was willing to forgive me and wanted me back, then he would reach out.”

I took a small drink of my coffee, which had now grown lukewarm. Lukewarm coffee was as gross as lukewarm beer. I pushed it away, and Lauren grabbed it as she moved into the kitchen to pour herself a cup.

“He’s stubborn. But you also hurt his pride. And his ego. He can’t be the one to chase you this time. Not after what happened. It would make him look weak.”

“I know. You’re right. But I don’t know how to fix it. And until I can actually do that, I can’t reach out to him.”

“Just promise me that you’ll think about it. It’s been weeks. At least send him a text and tell him you’re sorry and that you miss him. Extend that olive branch. After all, he did get suspended for three games because of you.” She placed two fresh cups of coffee on the table as she sat down next to me.

“He got suspended for hitting Logan. That was going to happen with or without me in the equation.”

“That’s not how it happened,” she said with a look that told me she knew more than I did on the subject.

“How did it happen? And why are you just telling me now?” I asked, feeling annoyed because the suspension was old news.

“Logan was talking about you, and Cole lost his temper.”

Even after everything, Cole still defended me? “Are you sure?”

“I’m very sure. Logan said something awful about you, and Cole punched him in the face for it,” Lauren said with a laugh. “Wish I could have seen that. How were we both so wrong about Logan?” she asked, and I knew she was thinking back to