I turned and walked toward the door, opening it to allow him to exit. He gawked as I stood there, waiting with the front door wide open and my eyebrows raised. I didn’t have anything else to say. I wasn’t going to change my mind about any of it, and I refused to continue arguing. Playing dirty wasn’t my forte, and I didn’t care to defend myself against someone who questioned my loyalty.
He closed the distance between us, but before he stepped over the threshold, he leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I love you, Ellie, but I’ll never play second-string for anyone…not even you. You need to figure out what it is you want out of this relationship, and how Coby may or may not fit into that. The last time I checked, he wasn’t making life plans around you.”
Ryan gave me a day to cool off before calling and apologizing. The sincerity in his words urged me to find a solution instead of breaking my promise about Christmas. I’d pacified him by agreeing to drive to Birmingham, where his parents lived, to have lunch with him and his family on Christmas day. We spent several hours actually talking about the things he asked of me, his perception of my relationship with Coby, and where we were headed.
Neither of us were foolish enough to believe the fight hadn’t done damage, but I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, and neither was he. I forced myself to acknowledge how difficult it must be for anyone in a relationship with either Coby or me to deal with the special connection we have. And I knew if I couldn’t—or didn’t want to—put Ryan first by the time the school year ended, the only fair thing would be to let him go. But that thought crushed me as much as putting someone before Coby.
I’d done nothing but think about those two men for days. Thankfully, I’d arranged to sit for my exams early, so school wasn’t taking a backseat to my relationship woes. Sitting in Coby’s private room while he was in surgery did nothing but make me further question being with Ryan. Maybe it was the thought of losing my best friend while he was under anesthesia, or the fact I knew I’d have to give him up to have a normal relationship, but when I pictured my life when I was old and grey, it always included Coby. The image of him in a rocking chair next to me on a huge front porch was one I’d had since I was young. But even then, in that daydream, he was my best friend—not my significant other.
Dr. Chen startled me when he opened the door and interrupted my thoughts. The smile I’d seen on his face when we’d first met with him was there now, and I prayed that was a good sign.
“Miss Teller.” He extended his hand. “He’s in recovery but won’t be there long before the nurses bring him back here.”
“How did it go?”
“I was surprised to find the amount of scar tissue that was present.” He took a seat next to me on the couch beside the bed. “I mentioned that brachial plexus injuries typically occurred in contact sports—football, wrestling—or some other type of trauma.”
I nodded, hoping he’d hurry up and get to the point.
“It can also happen during childbirth. And based on what I saw when he was on the operating table, I would bet this has been there since then.”
The details of Coby’s delivery hadn’t really been shared with either of us—at least not that I was aware of—but my mom had told me enough about her friend’s death that I knew Coby’s delivery had been traumatic. And if this happened at the same time, that meant it happened twenty-one years ago.
“But you said the surgery had to be done within a few months to be effective, so what does that mean for Coby?”
“For now, it means a lot of physical therapy and rest.”
His dark eyes were kind. He hadn’t brought me great news, but for some reason, I still wanted to hug him…but I refrained. I didn’t need Coby rolling in on a gurney to find me hugging the doctor with tears in my eyes. He’d swear it was all PMS motivated, and then offer to watch Titanic. I’d never live that night down.
But when he finally showed up, he was groggy and half-asleep. They’d given him pain medicine, and he slept the rest of the day while I watched Lifetime on the fifty-inch television mounted on the wall. I pushed the couch closer to his bed and held his hand before finally drifting off myself. If he woke in the middle of the night, he shouldn’t be alone.
Coby was a far better patient than I expected. He slept on the ride home, while I called his dad, the only other person who had any clue of what was going on, to update him. And for days after, we did nothing but lie around, eat pizza, and watch movies from the eighties. Ryan even came by a few times and hung out with both of us. I recognized his efforts to build a friendship with Coby—he even laughed at Coby’s pop culture references at Ryan’s expense.
I dreaded leaving him for Christmas, but his dad would be here before I left, and five hours away from him after three solid weeks of togetherness wouldn’t kill either one of us…and it meant the world to Ryan. I just hoped in the end, all the sacrifices paid off.
If Coby lost baseball, and I lost Coby, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it.
Chapter 8
Coby
I sat in the cold and sterile examination room, waiting for Dr. Chen to grace me with his presence so I could head back home before anyone noticed I was gone. I hadn’t told Ellie about this appointment. I knew she’d find a way to come with me, and as much as I appreciated her support, this was something I had to do alone.
Finally, the elderly doctor with silver hair softly knocked and came in. “How is everything going?” He glanced at the file he held open in his hand, and then lifted his gaze to mine. His smile always seemed genuine, yet I couldn’t help but think his expression wouldn’t change no matter what information he had to give.
“Really good, Doc.” I flexed my left hand in a show of proof.
He moved to stand by my side and gently held my arm to extend it. Then, he pulled it back in and rotated it in a half-circle to test the range of mobility. I’d done this three times a week at physical therapy, so it was nothing new.
“Any discomfort in the neck and shoulder area?”
I started to shake my head, but when I realized this was my doctor, not my coach, I chose to go with honesty. “It’s sore in the mornings, but nothing I can’t manage.”
“What about your joints? Any stiffness?”
“No, sir.”
“And your fingers? Any tingles or feeling like the tips are cold?”
“Not normally.”
He nodded to himself like he’d done every time I’d seen him, and it made me wonder if he even listened to the answers before bobbing his head in silent response. “What about the burning sensation?”
“Only when I lay down at night on days I’ve had PT.”
“And what level would you say that pain is?”
I thought for a moment, my mouth twisted to the side. It was difficult to pinpoint the level of discomfort on a scale from one to ten. So many factors went into it. But I wasn’t about to go into that with him. “Around a two.”
Dr. Chen settled onto his stool and rolled himself closer. “Just a two? You were at a nine prior to surgery eight weeks ago.” He waited patiently while staring at me with his gentle, trustworthy eyes. If he thought I’d change my mind and give him another number, he’d be sitting here for a while. “Coby, it’s okay to admit to feeling pain. No one expects you to wake up from surgery and feel one hundred percent again.”
“I’m not saying I don’t have pain, Doc. It’s just easily manageable.”
“I just need to make sure you’re not hiding anything, trying to be some hero. You had a significant amount of damage to the nerves when we went in. I didn’t touch those. All I did was clean out the scar tissue so the nerves could heal, which means the damage was still there when you left the hospital. With that kind of surgery, it should naturally take time before you’re back to where you were.”
“I know. And I’m not hiding anything. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to, regular physical therapy, exercises at home—everything you’ve told me to, I’ve done. Season hasn’t started,
so it’s not like I’ve been overdoing it or anything, and my coaches are aware I’ve been taking it easy.”
He seemed pleased, but then again, it was hard to tell. Suddenly, in an uncharacteristic change of expression, he sighed and glanced down to his hands where he had his fingers laced together in a prayer gesture. My heart began to pound relentlessly, the anticipation of what came next too much to handle.
“We spoke about this the last time you were here,” he said and glanced at me again, “but I need to make sure you fully understand the severity of your condition.”
I huffed, my shoulders dropping. “I do. I get it, trust me.”
“I don’t think you do if you’re here now, eight weeks after surgery, talking about the beginning of your next season. If you’re telling the truth when you say the pain has dropped that much, I can only assume you’ll jump back into the sport as if nothing has happened. But that’s a real problem.”
“You told me I wouldn’t have to stop playing,” I argued.
“No. That’s not what I said. I told you that you’d have to take it easy for the next year. Playing isn’t out of the question, but it’s something you need to ease back into.”
“I’m the starting pitcher…I can’t just ease back into that. How would I explain that to my coaches?” If I had gone to practice and told them I wasn’t back in full swing after months of therapy and resting my arm, they’d know something was up. And even if I did somehow get by without them finding out about the surgery or the severity of my injury, they’d bench me for not being a team player. All it would take was a new pitcher to fill in for me, and I’d be bumped out of my position. With my inability to actually hit a ball, that would leave me without active playing time, and my career would be over.
“Honestly?” he asked and tilted his head. “It’s my professional opinion that you come clean to them. Pretending like you didn’t just have corrective surgery on your pitching arm two months ago could do far more harm than good. They can’t make sure you aren’t overdoing it if they aren’t informed of the consequences.”
I appreciated his concern, but at the end of the day, it was my career. My life. Therefore, it was my call. The way I saw it, Coach was aware there was a problem, and Steve had anticipated a lighter load as we got ready to gear up for Spring Training. Dr. Chen made it sound like no one on the team had any inclination of an issue with my shoulder. But that wasn’t the case. As long as I listened to my body and rested when I needed to, I’d be fine, and before I knew it, I would be back to normal. No one the wiser to my time under the knife.
“Thank you, Doc. I’ll take your advisement into consideration.”
The way he slowly licked his lips told me he didn’t believe a word I’d said—more than likely assuming it was nothing but bullshit. But rather than argue with me, he dropped his professional mask back into place and smiled.
“Well, I guess my job here is done. Your range of motion seems fluid, your joints and muscles all appear to have suffered no recourse from the years of damage caused to the nerves, and from what you tell me, your pain level is low and manageable. So, I guess all we have left is to deal with any questions you may have for me.”
Rather than immediately dismiss him and end this appointment, I decided to give it some real thought. I may have made poor choices in regard to my shoulder in the past—such as not speaking up when the pain first presented itself—but I figured it wouldn’t be in my best interest to do that now.
“Realistically speaking—now that you’ve been in there, found the problem, corrected it, and have evaluated me post-op—how long do you think it’ll take to be back to a hundred percent?”
He checked the file again, flipping between a few pages, and scratched his chin in thought. “It’s so hard to give you an answer to that. You want realistic, to which I would tell you one to two years based on the average patient with the amount of extensive damage you had. But if I’m being honest, the average patient experiences pain at a higher level this soon after surgery than you say you are. So, it’s really a guessing game. I think the best thing to remember here is that you didn’t sustain this injury a few months ago in an accident. It wasn’t just one thing that brought you here. It began…” He glanced at the chart again. “Almost twenty-two years ago. That’s a lifetime of damage. The amount of scar tissue you had was damning.”
“I get that. But I was able to live without realizing anything was wrong until about a year ago. So what I’m asking is, if this went undetected for that long, and now that I’ve had surgery to remove the scar tissue—which as you explained will allow the nerves to heal—what are the chances I’ll have continued problems with it?”
“Again, Coby, it’s not an easy answer to give. You more than likely never recognized the problem when you were younger because you weren’t pushing your arm as hard as you do now. That’s the reason for the excess buildup of scarring. That was your body’s way of healing itself. Now that you’re older and use your arm every day in a way most people don’t, everything changes. Our bodies weren’t designed to handle the rigorous actions that come with professional sports. There’s a reason most athletes have a retiring age much lower than that of any other career, and it’s not because the pay is higher.”
This was all common knowledge to most players. After a doubleheader, I wanted nothing more than an ice pack and sleep. I could feel every minute of those games in every part of my body, and with my inspirational-level batting average, I hardly had to run. I couldn’t imagine how players of contact sports felt. Pitching didn’t come close to being tackled. Yet somehow, even with everything going on with my arm, I’d never given it much thought until now.
“From what I’ve gathered based on the information you’ve provided, as well as basic research on your career,” he continued, “you didn’t start playing competitively until you were fifteen years old. So even though you had been pitching for…roughly ten years, throwing a ball in your backyard when you felt like it doesn’t compare to the level of strain your arm, shoulder, and neck have sustained in the last few years since you’ve been in the League. To me, that would explain how you could’ve gone so long before the issue presented itself.”
“But if it were injured multiple times, why did I not experience any pain?”
“Well, if I’m right and the brachial plexus had been injured initially when you were born, it had weeks to repair itself while you were wrapped in a blanket, spending all day sleeping like most babies. I can’t tell you how many times since then it’s healed, or at what ages, but if I were to take a guess based on the lack of pain when you were younger, I would say they were minor instances. Nothing like what you experienced this last time. Possibly slight stretches of the nerves here and there that healed quickly due to the lack of constant irritation. But when you went from the casual play of a high school pitcher to the extreme training regimen of a professional athlete, it didn’t have the opportunity to heal the way it always had before. Which would explain the absence of pain then, and the presence of it now. When did you say the onset of the burning sensation started?”
It had gone on for so long, I had to stop and think about when I’d first recognized it. “Near the end of my first contract…so a year and a half ago, I guess.”
His brow knitted together in thought, more than likely doing the math in his head. “Which would mean we’re looking at roughly eighteen months—give or take—of active play before it consistently became a problem. So to answer your question…providing you take all the necessary steps to ensure the brachial plexus heals completely and you don’t reinjure it before then, with caution, you may never deal with future complications. But again, that would all depend on how well you take care of yourself now and for the rest of your career. However,” he added with a pointed stare, “I don’t foresee that being a realistic outcome if you keep your coaches in the dark.”
I nodded, aware I had a lot to think about. Either way, it wouldn’t be an easy decision. Telling them cou
ld cause grave risks to my contract, as well as my future in the League. No one would want a pitcher with a bum arm on top of a visual impairment. I’d be labeled a liability—no team would be willing to put money on a player with a sketchy expiration date. But if I didn’t say anything and kept going along with my story of it simply being a strained muscle, I ran the risk of pushing too hard too soon.
We shook hands on the way out of the room, and within minutes, I was in my car, heading back home. I spent the entire three-hour drive with the radio off, nothing to keep me company other than my thoughts. Naturally, I wanted to discuss this with Ellie, but I knew exactly what she’d say after hearing Dr. Chen’s opinion. She wouldn’t think twice before advising me to confide in one of the coaches. The only problem was, the logical person to inform about it would’ve been Steve, and there’s no way he wouldn’t have taken it higher. And if I didn’t listen to her and kept my mouth shut, I wouldn’t have put it past her to take matters into her own hands.
Now that Ellie was a student teacher at a local high school until her graduation in May, she finally had a regular schedule. And with it being off-season, that meant I got to see her more often—providing she wasn’t with her Beastie Boy. She usually got home around four thirty, so I’d made my appointment in Atlanta for eleven that morning. That would guarantee her gone before I had to leave, and home after I returned. Yet somehow, when I pulled into the driveway and lifted the garage door, I found her car inside.
“Where’d you go?” She was in the kitchen when I walked through the door, her purse on the counter indicating she hadn’t been home long.
I checked the time over the stove, having no idea how long I’d been in the car, and noticed it was just past four. I’d waited a while at Dr. Chen’s office, and then spent however long talking to him, but I hadn’t guessed it’d taken two hours. Either that, or I’d been so lost in my thoughts on the way home that I drove well below the speed limit.
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