by K. Bromberg
“Not now, Helen,” he says with a kindness he hasn’t afforded me since he walked through the doors. He glances over his shoulder at me—eyes wide with panic—and then back to her. “I can’t . . . just . . . not now.” His hands fist and he gently hits the side of the wall with one as if he’s not sure what else to say.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .” She says something else he responds to—quiet murmurs I can’t hear from where I stand—which give the appearance they know and are comfortable with each other. She steps back into the elevator, glancing quickly my way with concern in her eyes before averting her gaze as the doors shut.
I stand in silence, stunned and confused over how they know each other when I’ve basically lived here for the past three months and a “Helen” has not been mentioned once. But I sure as hell have passed her downstairs more times than I can count. In my scattered emotional state I jump to the worst conclusion and even though I know it can’t be true—that Easton is cheating on me with the sweet co-ed from the lobby—my stomach revolts.
“Who was that?” Accusation is loaded in those three words.
“Let it go, Scout.” He shakes his head and continues to stare at his fist still resting on the wall.
“No. I’m not going to just let it go. Who the hell was that?” I become more insistent as the seconds pass. My heart races and that bone-deep mixture of disbelief and fear start to reverberate within me. Am I right? Has he fooled me all along?
Is the player really a player?
“Scout.” It’s a warning I don’t heed at all.
“Don’t Scout me. I love you, Easton. I love you when I never thought I could love someone, but I don’t deserve to get the shit end of the stick from you just because I’m the one here. I’m so confused right now. You had a rough go yesterday. I get it. You want to be pissed and go have a drink or ten before you come home. Fine, but next time remember there’s someone here waiting for you. Worrying about you. And that means you have to think of them even when you’re at your goddamn worst. You have to pick up a phone and tell them you need time and space—be considerate—so they don’t work themselves into a frenzy worried sick you’re not lying in a ditch somewhere dead when you’re MIA for four hours. That’s what you do when you’re in a relationship, Easton. Unless this is your way of telling me we’re not in one.” I choke over the words, the thought suddenly sinking in. “If that’s the case, Helen’s visit makes a lot more sense to me.”
“You’re delusional,” he barks and just stands there, blinking his eyes a few times as if he’s struggling with what I said. Then for the first time since he’s walked in the door, he finally meets my eyes. I see defeat in them. I see sadness. But most of all right now I see fear and that exacerbates the panic I feel. “You actually think she is . . . that I am . . . fuck!”
“What?” I plead. “Just tell me.”
“Goddammit!” he says throwing his hands up as he paces back and forth, agitated and needing to move. “She was coming because of last night.”
“Last night?” My head spins to understand how she’s connected to his broadcast last night, and his inability to explain freaks me out. “What about last night? You won’t even talk to me about last night but you’ve talked to her? Who the hell is she?”
He emits a frustrated growl like nothing I’ve ever heard from him before. It sounds like a man on the verge of breaking, and I don’t understand it and I’m scared by it.
“The teleprompter wasn’t broken. They didn’t forget to teach me shit.”
“Okay.” I stretch the word out as I try to make the correlation between that and her and whatever is going on here. “Easton, I don’t understand what—”
“You want the truth?” he shouts as he turns to face me. I always have.
“I thought you were telling me the truth.”
The little laugh he emits does anything but reassure me. “Ah fuck it . . . I can’t do this anymore.”
My heart tumbles to my feet and I feel like I can’t breathe. “Do what anymore?” I whisper, afraid of the answer.
Us.
This.
What?
He paces again. I can see his agitation. Can sense his hesitancy. Every step he takes freaks me out further. Have I lost him? I silently wait for him to say it. To tell me he can’t do this with me anymore. That we’re over. I feel sick.
After a minute he stops a few feet in front of me, his face a picture of despair. “I fucked up last night.”
Tears well. My pulse pounds. My mind spins. “You slept with Helen?” I can barely get the words out and when I do I’m met with his laugh. Loud. Hysterical. Disbelieving. And every part of me revolts at being mocked. I’m in his face within two seconds, my anger getting the better of every single part of me. “You asshole!”
He catches my hand before my slap connects with his cheek. I struggle to get away from him as my emotions tumble out of control and into a vicious eddy whipping through me.
“No, Scout. You don’t get it,” he finally grits out as if it pains him. I swear to God he better start explaining, because his words are implying one thing and his actions are saying another. “I’m not cheating on you.”
“Then what is it? What is so damn secretive that you can’t talk to me about it?” I pace from one side of the room to the other, my adrenaline amped and emotions frayed on all edges. “You tried to be a sportscaster. It didn’t go well. Big fucking deal. You move on. You find something else. You let it go. How fucking hard is that?”
“It’s not that easy,” he says, expression softening and brows narrowing.
“Yes, actually it is.”
“Not when you’ve lived a lie, it isn’t.”
That feeling of dread returns but for completely different reasons. The man standing before me now looks completely defeated and that’s ten times more unnerving to me than his temper.
“Easton? What is it?”
“Helen’s my tutor.”
His explanation is so unexpected I can’t help the laugh that falls from my lips, but it dies a short death when his face remains deadly serious. “Tutor?”
“I can’t read, Scout. Is that what you want to know? That my brain can’t read any better than an eight-year-old? That the words on the page shift and change when I stare at them and so I’ve skated by my whole goddamn life keeping this secret from everyone?” His voice escalates as his fear manifests with each word he speaks. My heart shatters into little pieces for him as he stands here in the middle of his foyer with the tears welling in his eyes. “So that’s my secret. Are you happy now?”
“No.” It’s a whispered answer reflecting how stunned I am while he stares at me, a man broken by the cloak of shame he’s wrapped himself in his whole life.
And it’s only a split second of time, but I see the minute he feels the weight of what he’s just confessed. He gasps and staggers backward a few steps before turning, pushing the button for the elevator, and getting on it.
I call to him as the doors begin to move but he doesn’t stop them from closing. He just lowers his head and lets them shut.
And I’m left staring at them in shock, with whiplash so violent my brain hasn’t quite caught up to grasp the magnitude of what he’s clearly struggled with for years.
I should run after him.
I should prevent him from leaving by telling him it’s going to be all right.
But I think we both need a bit of time to wrap our heads around what he just bared.
I am stunned.
Completely, utterly stunned.
“He’s not here,” Manny calls out and startles me as I jog through the clubhouse. “He was here about two hours ago but then he was headed home.” He steps into view, concern written all over his face. He must know how upset Easton was about the broadcast.
“He did come home, but then he left again. I just really need to find him.”
“He finally told you, didn’t he?”
My feet falter at his words an
d I stare at him wondering if he’s talking about the same thing I’m worried about. And yet he can’t be. But the look on his face, the concern and empathy he’s emitting, tells me he does.
“Don’t worry,” he says after we stare at each other for a few minutes. “You don’t have to say anything to me and betray his confidence. I liked you before, but I like you better now because of that . . . but know that I know. Easton doesn’t know I do, but I do. When he was little, I was the one who sat and helped Easton with his homework. His dad’s rule was it had to be finished before he was allowed to go sit in the dugout and watch the game. I was the only one around to help him when he struggled to complete it.”
My eyes well with tears as I think of the frustrated little boy hiding his trouble from the world. “Manny, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Scout. I knew he couldn’t keep it a secret forever, and yet it was never my place to say anything to him. It’s his business. But he’s like a son to me, and my heart broke for him last night when I watched the broadcast. He was so incredible, and then he wasn’t. I knew why, and I hated myself for not reaching out to him and trying to help him somehow.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, but his expression says he doesn’t believe that’s true. I think he’s as upset over watching Easton’s humiliation as I am.
“Just know that I don’t think he’s ever told anyone. For a man to have to admit his shortcomings to the woman he loves and think she’ll look at him as less once he does is a damn hard pill to swallow.”
“I’d never think less of him. In fact I think more of him for finally admitting it.”
He sniffs back the moisture pooling in the corner of his eyes despite his muted smile. “I knew you would. And for the record, I don’t know nothing about nothing.” He nods. “I’ve got to get back to work, and you need to get out of here since it’s your day off.” But I don’t move, I remain in place as I contemplate my next move. “Try the Little League field,” he advises before turning and walking down the hall.
Of course. The place he goes to clear his head.
With each step I take on my way to the park, I replay the facts and figures I’d researched once Easton left. The ones that kept me from chasing him down and denying him the time he most likely needed to come to terms with knowing that someone else knows his secret.
After a lifetime of protecting it, it’s probably hard to process.
Every part of me sighs in relief and sags with despair when I reach the park and see the figure dressed in black sitting alone on the outfield slope.
Easton.
I make my way over to where he’s sitting and take a seat beside him without saying a word. Our silence stretches as I pull out pieces of grass and split them apart.
I wait patiently, knowing Easton needs to take the first step in this conversation. I sought him out to show him I wasn’t running away, but I can’t force what happens next. Letting him lead wherever this conversation goes might help him feel in control of something when everything else in his world seems so out of control.
While I wait for him to figure out how much he does or doesn’t want to talk about this, I think about my Google search after he left. Article after article about blue-chip college athletes who couldn’t read or write with more than a fourth grade ability and yet they were given degrees because they were the cornerstone of whatever team they played for. I looked up dyslexia, trying to figure out if that’s what Easton meant about how the words shift and change. I gorged on the information, reading as quickly as possible to try and understand more, and to occupy my time to prevent me from chasing after him.
And I looked for signs I’ve missed in our time together, but there really aren’t many. He’s become a master at disguise.
He has a literacy charity. I thought he was trying to help kids out—be a good guy. To draw the conclusion that he, himself, suffered from it would have been asinine. I think of the papers he was looking over and threw on the table. He told me they were lessons for the kids. Looking back, I wonder if they were Helen’s lessons for him.
He loved audiobooks. Big deal. A lot of people love audiobooks. That doesn’t mean they can’t read.
I try to think of any one time that stands out where he was more than obvious and I can’t. He’s so practiced in hiding it that even the woman he lives with didn’t realize it.
And then it hits me. The contract. The signatures agreeing to being traded or demoted to Triple-A.
And as if he’s reading my mind, he finally speaks. “It wasn’t Finn’s fault, you know?”
“I realize that now,” I say softly.
“He wasn’t even there. I signed the papers. It all happened so quickly. Tillman shoved the papers in front of me, and I didn’t have the time to work out what they said. I couldn’t make them make sense.”
“You were in pain.”
“That’s no excuse.” His laugh is self-deprecating. “I let you assume it was Finn, blame him, and that’s pretty shitty of me to allow you to think ill of a guy who has done nothing but protect me my whole career. I’m the reason I was traded to the Wranglers. Fuck, that’s hard to say out loud.” He pauses and lies back on the grass, looking at the sky that’s turning orange from the approaching sunset. “I’m the one who caused all this. I’m the one who put myself in the position no one would have ever agreed to and all because I can’t read.”
The words clog in his throat, almost as if they are physically hard for him to say aloud, and I get it. They must be. I nod, uncertain what to say. I want to keep him talking like I did the last time I sat next to him on the grassy slope in the outfield. This time though, there is no game going on to run distraction. It’s just him. And me. And everything left unspoken.
The field before us is empty. The bases have been removed. The chalk lines erased by little feet that have run over them. Proof that everything can be made to look perfect if need be.
Just like Easton has had to do.
“I’ve always been able to outrun it. Slide by. High school was easy—I became the master at cheating. Notes written on my palm. Papers scooted to the edge of the table of the girl sitting beside me. A little flirting goes a long way at that age. College was tougher, but when I found out I could pay people to write my papers or I was conveniently sick for exams, I was given more leeway—take-home tests others did for me . . . you name it, and blue-chip athletes like me get it. The administration doesn’t care if you can’t pass a class—they’ll fix it for you—so long as you win the college World Series and bring more money into their school. Advertising dollars and team memorabilia can fund an awful lot of salaries. And when I couldn’t get around reading a book, I’d get the e-textbooks. They were particularly helpful when I could listen to them on the voice app thing a Kindle has.”
“Like Whispersync?”
“At times, yeah.” I glance back to him and hate that he won’t look me in the eyes. He shouldn’t fear what I’m thinking of him. “Then when I was drafted my sophomore year, it was the biggest relief to not have to be constantly stressed over managing it all. I figured I’d beaten the system and came out no worse for wear. I was a major league baseball player. Why did I need to fix the problem now? I had Finn, who I trusted, and if I really needed to read something, I’d make an excuse so I could take it home and take the time to figure it out.”
“Your parents didn’t know? Finn doesn’t know?” I ask, thinking back to how easy Manny picked up on it, but know that’s not my secret to tell.
He shoves up off the grass and walks back and forth a few feet, the nervous energy eating him up. “I always thought they knew—I mean, how could they not? But with my dad traveling all the time and me pulling in passing grades, they thought I had somehow gotten a handle on the reading that had troubled me in first and second grade . . .”
“That must have been so hard for you though.”
“Hard?” He laughs. “That’s an understatement. I’ve become the
master at distraction when I have to read something. I mean, give me enough time, and I can figure the words out. I can make out which ones are faced the wrong way and then sound the word out—my God, I feel like such a loser saying this to you. I’m an adult and I have to study a paragraph for an hour like a third grader so I can understand it.”
He stops moving, closes his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose as he attempts to control the anger and shame before turning his back to me. His shoulders are strong and proud and I can’t imagine what this is doing to him having to explain something that most would find fault with him over.
But not me.
“Easton . . . you don’t have to explain anything,” I murmur softly.
He laughs in response and draws in a deep breath but remains facing away. “I know I don’t . . . but at the same time I do. You probably already think less of me for it, so I need to get it all out now.”
“No. I don’t. I think you’re brave, East—”
“Brave?” He turns back around, arms out at his sides and face a mask of confusion. “How can you think someone who’s basically spent their whole life tricking people into thinking he’s smart, is brave?”
“Is that what you think you were doing? Tricking people? I call it surviving, Easton. Sure it wasn’t life or death, but it was your battle. Your struggle.” I rise to my feet so I can match him word for word. “And no one is allowed to tell you it isn’t important or you’re any less of a man because of it. So I don’t want to hear you say it again. I don’t think it. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. So you need to figure out how to handle the fact that I know and don’t think any less of you at all. You got that?”
He just stares at me as if he wants to believe me but is afraid to. I hate every bit of self-doubt I see plaguing him.
There’s a shout on the field at his back and he turns to see what it is. A man and two middle school-aged boys jog onto the field. We watch as they begin to set up what appears to be batting practice: a bucket of balls on the mound with the dad, one kid putting on a helmet at the plate, the other grabbing his glove and running to left field. The dad eyes us for a moment, strangers on the hill, before tipping his hat to let us know he sees us and then turning to instruct his son at the plate.