The Bad Baller Collection

by Kiss, Tabatha

  Rose continues on with a disappointed sigh, chatting about her wedding but I pause. It was just a little joke that slipped right off my tongue without thinking about it.

  I’ll have to check its schedule.

  I stare at my stomach. I’ve known for a while now whether this kid is a boy or a girl, but I don’t want anyone getting too attached to the idea of it. I have no idea where this kid will be in a few weeks, let alone next summer.

  I stand up off the couch.

  “Where are you going?” Mom asks, her senses on high-alert.

  “I’m going to walk around for a bit,” I say, raising a calm hand. “Just a little restless.”

  I walk off down the hall, feeling her eyes still on me and Rose’s voice hovering over everything. The baby shifts inside as I walk, drawing another uncomfortable pang inside and I pause to lean against my bedroom doorway. I close my eyes, taking slow breaths until it finally settles.

  “Being pregnant sucks.”

  I look up to see my mother standing in the hall with me, easily reading my mind.

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “I remember when I carried you girls, I was pissed off all the time,” she says. “From day one to week forty, it just got worse. Your dad put up with it somehow.”

  I chuckle. Somehow was always her way of nicely phrasing that dad put up with her by banging the neighbor’s housekeeper. “Sounds about right.” I push off the door frame to pace a bit more, entering my room and she flicks on the light behind me.

  “It was mostly just deflection,” she says, watching me. “The reality was that I wasn’t angry at all, I was just scared.”

  I look over at her, noticing the knowing flicker in her eyes as she stares at me. “No, I’m not scared, Mom. I’m fine.”

  “I pulled the same brave crap, too, kiddo,” she says, shaking her head. “I know what you’re thinking. How can I do this? I don’t know anything about being a mom. I’m gonna fail. Sure, I had twins growing in there, but every first-time mom feels the same way.”

  I sit down on my bed. “Mom, I’m fine,” I say again.

  She raises a brow and steps into the room. “The only one that saw through it at the time was my own mother. Finally, after thirty weeks of watching me snap, crackle, and pop at the slightest annoyance, your grandmother pulled me aside and taught me to always remember my ABCs.”

  I frown. “ABCs?”

  She sits down beside me and holds out her fingers, counting down as she lists them off. “Do they still have arms and legs? Are they still breathing? Are they wearing clothes?” She smiles. “If you can answer yes to all of those questions, then you’re doing okay.”

  “I didn’t realize it was that simple.” I chuckle.

  “Some days it will be, some days it won’t be. A. B. C. That pretty much got me through that whole first year with you girls.”

  A lump grows in my throat. “Thanks, Mom, but I’m not…” I lay a hand on my stomach, once again feeling the subtle shift of life inside. “I’m not going to keep it.”

  My mother chews on her cheek. “Well… do you still have arms and legs?” she asks me.

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  “Are you still breathing?”

  I swallow the rock down. “Yeah.”

  “And I can see you’re fully clothed, so…” She grabs my shoulder with a soft grip. “I’d say you’re doing okay.”

  I bite my lip, feeling it quiver. “I hope you’re right, Mom.”

  “A mother is always right, honey,” she says, pointing a finger at me. “Even when she’s wrong. Come here…”

  She pulls me closer, resting my head on her shoulder and I lose even more of the control I thought I had. Stray tears stream down my cheeks and my body lurches as I try to hold back the sob begging to take hold of me.

  “Mom, I’m sorry,” I tell her.

  “For what?”

  “I didn’t exactly turn out the way you wanted me to.”

  “Honey, you turned out exactly the way you were intended to,” she says, holding me closer. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted.”

  I scoff. “Maybe things would be better for me if I’d listened to you sometimes.”

  “And if I had listened to my mother, you and Rose wouldn’t be here.” She raises her head to look at me. “Daisy, you might be a rebellious disappointment to me but I’m still proud of you.”

  “Wow.” I chuckle, wiping my nose. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “You stuck to your guns,” she says, rocking my shoulders. “Now, you have your dream job. You’re independent. I haven’t had to bail you out of anything since you were in high school — don’t think I haven’t noticed that. You took your own path. You’re one brave kiddo.”

  I run my hand over my stomach. “Yeah, real brave.”

  “It takes a lot of courage to do something hard,” she tells me, nudging my chin to look her in the eye, “but it takes even more courage to admit that you can’t do it. If you truly believe that giving this baby up is what’s best for it, then I will support you. I know better than to try and talk you out of anything, but for what it’s worth, I think you’d make a wonderful mother, Daisy.”

  I let the tears fall. “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She pulls me back in and I bury my face in her shoulder. “There’s no doubt in my mind, honey.”

  I wrap my arms around her, clinging to her like a child but there’s nothing else I’d rather be right now than that. Children don’t have problems or responsibilities. They don’t have to worry about paying bills or making sure there’s food on the table and they especially don’t have to worry about that stuff for another person. Growing up is quite possibly the worst mistake anyone can ever make.

  But there are some upsides to it. That sense of independence when you’re handed the keys to your first apartment. That feeling of satisfaction when you deposit your first paycheck. That gasp of excitement when you’re offered your dream job and that deep rumble in your heart when you make eye contact with the right person to share it all with.

  And that stab of unconditional devotion I feel every single time this kid kicks at my ribs.

  Maybe I would make a great mother — or even just an okay one — but that’s not the part that sends me into a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

  I don’t want to do it alone.

  “Hey, Daisy!” Rose shouts from the other room. “Your phone is ringing!”

  I pull back and wipe my eyes. “I should get that…”

  My mother squeezes my shoulders. “You’re okay, Daisy,” she whispers.

  I nod, feeling a weight rise off me as I stand up.

  I enter the living room and Rose raises her arm into the air with my phone in her hand. “Who is it?” I ask.

  “Trisha.”

  I pause, thinking for a second to let it go to voicemail, but I answer it. “Hey, Trisha.”

  “Hey, Daisy. Enjoying your holiday?”

  I sniff away a few lingering tears. “Yeah. You?”

  “Pfft. I don’t get the luxury, honey. Hey, check your email for me, will you? I just sent you something and I need your input.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  I roll my eyes and turn back to my room to find my laptop on the desk. “What is it?” I ask, waking it up.

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  A few clicks later, I open the newest email from Trisha and click on the website link. “Is this the exposé?”

  “Sort of,” she answers.

  The page loads and I freeze, blinking several times to make sure I’m not imagining it. My eyes lock on Hunter’s face, grinning and laughing with his arm around me in a motel bed.

  Home Run Baby.

  “Trisha, what the hell is this?”

  “Isn’t it adorable?” she asks. “Devin came up with the title. It’s perfect—”

  “Trisha, what the hell is this?”

  “Calm down, Daisy. This is the exposé.”


  I flick a finger to scroll down and my gut sinks. “You published my pregnancy photos?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Trisha, these were private moments!”

  “Those photos were taken with SI cameras, making them property of SI,” she points out with her calm, sing-song voice. “Read your contract.”

  “How did you even get them?!”

  “You forgot to delete one of the cards,” she replies nonchalantly. “You know, I’d heard about pregnancy brain, but I never thought—”

  “You can’t print this,” I argue. “Take it down.”

  “Umm…” She hums for several seconds. “No. Our editor loves it. Says it’s one of the most interesting pieces the magazine has ever had.”

  “Take it down!”

  “Daisy, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not!”

  “Why not?” she asks me. “You and Hunter should be proud of your story. This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day.”

  “We’re not even together anymore!”

  “Well, they don’t need to know that.”

  “Why would they even agree to print this?” I ask. “It’s a sports magazine.”

  “The SI subscriber base is forty-seven percent female, Daisy. Also, it’s ludicrous and borderline offensive to suggest that men can’t appreciate a good love story. It’s 2016, for Christ’s sake.”

  I collapse into my desk chair, feeling a harsh stab deep in my gut. “Trisha, come on…”

  “Listen up, Daisy,” she begins. “I’ve got a few years on you, so I’ve had my heart broken a few more times, and I’ve broken even more, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that you and Hunter got it going on. And that’s not just my opinion — that’s the opinion of every baseball player on that bus and I’ve got statements on that if you don’t believe me. Also, you’re an idiot if you think that baseball smacking your cranium was a big, old co-inky-dink. Shit like that doesn’t just happen.”

  “You’re the one that told Hunter this wouldn’t work out. Remember?”

  “I didn’t know all the facts at the time. Now that I do, I’m printing a retraction. That’s just responsible journalism, honey…”

  I sit still, seething with red in my vision. Pain, anger. It all blends together as I scan the words on the screen and the photos on the page — photos that I took of our time together that no one else was ever supposed to see…

  “Daisy?” Trisha says. “You there?”

  I grit my teeth, breathing through the throbbing pain as it overwhelms everything else. “I gotta go,” I mumble before tossing the phone down.

  “Daisy, you okay?” My mother asks from the doorway.

  I see drops of red on my chair beneath me and my vision blurs.

  “No,” I say.

  Chapter 30

  Hunter

  I leave the bar, pausing to make sure the door locks behind me on my way out. A group of college kids take up the sidewalk, stumbling and shuffling at a slow, zombie-like pace and I wait for them to move instead of shoving past them.

  I look up into the black sky, hoping to count a few stars but the city lights have made that impossible. Trisha’s prose instantly floods my thoughts again and I remember her call to look up into the sky every so often.

  A girl stumbles into me and grips my jacket to hold herself up. “Oh, hey, bar guy!”

  I stare down at her puffy, pink cheeks. It’s the same blonde girl from earlier, obviously fueled by one too many of those whiskey sours. “Hey…”

  She lays a finger against her lips. “Shhh…” she says, drawing giggles from the other girls behind her. She raises her hand with something pinched between her fingers. “Hold still.”

  I feel the thin stem squeeze between my ear and my head as she pushes the flower to balance there. She takes a step back and smiles at me as her friends give her a playful shove down the sidewalk.

  I shake my head, ready to pull the thing loose and discard it but I stop with the thing in my hand.

  A daisy.

  “Wait—” I call out to her and she spins around, almost falling over in the process. “It’s almost December. Where the hell did you get a daisy?”

  Her eyes grow wide, locked on mine for a few calm moments. Then, she throws her head back and her cackles echo throughout the street, mixing with the others from her friends as they continue on without answering the question.

  I stare at the flower in my hand. A perfect daisy with long, white petals and a bright, yellow middle.

  The urge to hear her voice digs at me again. I can’t escape her tonight. The football game. This girl and her whiskey sour. That damn article. And now that same girl hands me a fucking daisy on the sidewalk?

  Coincidence is a lot of things. Repetitive isn’t one of them.

  I walk around the building and down the alleyway toward the parking lot in the back while staring at my phone. It’s late, maybe too late for a phone call, but I swipe to her number anyway and start a call.

  “Hey, you’ve reached Daisy Hawthorne. Leave me a message if you’re into that kind of thing, you freakin’ weirdo.”

  I chuckle and hang up without saying a word. She’ll call me back in the morning, maybe. She might not bother at all.

  Go to her.

  I shake my head and start the car. Hartford is hours away from here. I’ll wait until morning, maybe. I might not even bother at all after sleeping on it for a night.

  Yeah, that’s probably for the best. If she does call me back, I’ll just tell her it was a butt dial.

  I drive through Trenton to my apartment in the city and I beeline toward my fridge the second I step inside. I grab the first bottle my fingers touch without looking and I twist the cap off. The very smell of it sends me back in time and I freeze the moment it touches my lips.

  It’s the whiskey I snatched from work the night I brought Daisy home with me.

  I stop and set it down on the counter.

  My senses tug me back and forth; growing from a spot in my gut. It’s something beyond instinct and science. Beyond what I’ve ever felt, and I haven’t been able to shake it off since I saw that article.

  Home Run Baby.

  I turn to the photo attached to the fridge. The ultrasound. The first and last time I heard my kid’s heart beating.

  My own heart caves in. It’s been months since I’ve seen her face, heard her voice, or felt her skin. I wonder how big she’s gotten. I wonder what her life is like. I wonder if I even have the courage to ask.

  I plop down on my couch and grab the television remote, hoping for something — anything — that will take my mind off the idea of going to see her right now.

  “We now return to our late-night movie: Ridley Scott’s Alien.”

  Dammit.

  I bolt off the couch and grab my keys.

  * * *

  It’s past midnight but the universe can’t let this wait, apparently.

  I take the stairs two at a time, navigating the unfamiliar building until I find her apartment number.

  There’s only two ways this can go. Either she’ll be happy to see me and she’ll invite me in so we can talk or she’ll slam the door in my face. I’d prefer the former, but the latter should be enough to make these signs stop.

  I pause in front of her door, glancing once at my phone to check the time. I’m going to look like a fucking maniac knocking on her door so late, but here I am.

  I knock twice, making it loud in case she’s sleeping.

  My mind flashes with imagery, easily picturing that blonde hair and those little, blue eyes.

  I knock again. “Daisy?”

  I press my ear against the door, hoping to hear some movement but there’s nothing.

  It’s Thanksgiving week, I recall. She’s probably visiting family.

  I groan, smacking the door with a few more open palm slaps before giving up. Dammit. Why didn’t I think of that before driving all the way out here?

  “You looking for th
e pregnant girl?”

  The woman down the hall sticks her head out to glare at me, most likely for making too much noise.

  I look at her and nod. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  She slips out a little further. “Ambulance picked her up a few hours ago.”

  My heart stops. “An ambulance?”

  “Yeah.”

  Daisy. My baby.

  “Which hospital?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  I reach for my phone. “Thank you.”

  The woman closes her door, leaving me alone to sink into my panic.

  “Pick up, Daisy…” I say, listening to the repetitive ringing echoing back at me.

  “Hey, this is Daisy Hawtho—”

  I hang up and call back, feeling my heart pound against my ribs.

  “Hey, this is Da—”

  “Dammit.” I call back again. “Daisy, come on—”

  “Hunter?”

  I exhale a hard breath, relieved to hear her sweet voice again. “Daisy, thank god. Are you—”

  “No,” she interrupts me. “Hunter, it’s Rose.”

  I lean against the wall. “Rose, what happened?”

  “How did you know—”

  “Just tell me.”

  There’s a long pause. Busy sounds shuffle behind her; quick feet and rumbling voices. She takes a breath, stalling even longer and I brace myself for the worst.

  “She almost lost the baby.”

  I close my eyes, clinging onto the one hopeful word in that sentence. “Almost?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “They aren’t out of the woods yet, but the doctor thinks they’ll be fine.”

  “So, she… they’re okay?”

  “Yeah, they’re both all right.”

  “Which hospital are you at?”

  “Uh…” she hesitates, “I’m not sure. I can find out.”

  “Text me the name. I’m on my way.”

  I hang up and bolt down the stairs, waiting impatiently for the text as I make my way back to my car.

  I knew it. I knew there was something wrong. There was too much coincidence, too many signs pointing me back here for a reason.

  Daisy needs me. She won’t say it, but she won’t need to.