Last night was a blur, but I couldn’t get Walker’s words out of my head.
I can’t come help you. My family needs me.
They stung, even if they shouldn’t have. Even if he didn’t mean them that way.
The thing is, we’ve become a unit. I kind of thought we were moving in the direction of being … family? That sounds silly, since we haven’t had a true conversation about what our future is, but I naively thought that I could call and he’d drop everything for me. Even if he was state’s away, which he wasn’t. He was right here, sitting in his car outside my house, debating if he could even come see me?
An ominous feeling fills my chest. That one you get before you know something is about to go terribly wrong. But I’ve already walked through about four circles of hell, so what’s another one?
Walker looks up, those blue eyes landing on me the minute I walk out my front door. Slowly, he opens his truck door, and we meet in the middle of my front sidewalk.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, like my world isn’t also falling apart.
He looks more tired and haggard than I’ve ever seen him, his cheeks sunken in and pale.
“My brother got out of surgery about four hours ago to stop some bleeding in his brain. He’s awake now, but groggy. I couldn’t leave until he was awake.”
“Of course,” I say, and notice that neither of us has reached out to take hold of the other.
“What happened?” Walker asks, his eyes weary, but I know he sincerely wants to know.
“Shane showed up yesterday, with the girls in tow. At first he said he wanted to get back together, and I told him to leave. He got angry, said a bunch of things in front of the girls. Noelle tried to call nine-one-one because she was scared. Shane ripped the phone out of her hands, threw it across the room. It hit Breanna, she needed stitches and a CT. Both of the girls are shaken and scared. I don’t … it’s been awful.”
Walker’s hands flex into fists. “Jesus Christ.”
“He was taken into police custody, and I filed an emergency petition to get the girls under my restraining order. They are now, so he won’t have access to them.” The words feel hollow coming out of my mouth.
The man I’ve fallen in love with, the usually charming, enigmatic, caring good guy just looks defeated.
“You get why I couldn’t leave, right? Why I couldn’t be here, even if I wanted to?” he asks, but it sounds more like an accusation.
I gulp, my throat burning with some emotion I can’t put my finger on. “Uh-huh.”
I can’t even elaborate, because part of me doesn’t understand. Even more than the night in the stadium parking lot, I needed him last night. When the girls are hurt, or involved, it feels like my world is falling apart. He said I could count on him, and then he didn’t show up. I finally opened myself up to trusting him, another man, after years of being a victim. That’s a big deal. And now Walker is pulling that support back, withholding it.
“I care about you, I do. But I’ve been neglecting my family. I haven’t spoken to my brother in a month, and that led to him getting behind the wheel drunk. He could have died, and I wasn’t even there. I haven’t been there.”
“Your brother’s decisions are not your fault, Walker. He’s a grown man. I know you feel responsible, like you’re going to be head of the Callahans someday, but—”
The look Walker gives me is so sharp that I cease talking. He’s pissed off, upset, and apparently has decided he’ll take it out on me. Tiny cracks begin to splinter in my chest, and I feel the inevitable break coming.
“I just … this is my family, Hannah. They need me, and I wasn’t there for them. How am I supposed to commit to being there for you and your daughters if I can’t even be that for my own flesh and blood? I think we should just spend some time apart right now. I have the season, and I need to be there for my brother.”
He can’t even look at me, and I feel like every piece of my heart is shattering. “You want to end this?”
My mind spins, and out of everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, this is the most shocking blow. It’s the one I never saw coming. As horrific as what Shane did was, and how awful seeing my daughter in the hospital was, I could almost feel something with my soon-to-be ex-husband coming to a head. I expected my relationship with Walker to continue growing, to blossom immensely after all the darkness with the trial was out of the way.
I am in love with him, and he’s walking away.
Walker shrugs, almost nonchalantly, and he still can’t look at me. “We both have a lot on our plates right now. This only complicates things. I think it’s better for both of us if—”
“Don’t act like you know what’s best for me. Two weeks ago you swore that what was best for me was you.” I hear my tone, its icy nature.
“I have to take care of the people most important to me.” His eyes finally connect with mine, and they’re shuttered.
He’s not letting me in. Not anymore. I feel like I could double over and heave on the pavement.
Instead, my voice comes out small. “And clearly, we’re not important to you. I’m not important to you.”
Walker’s expression is full of desperation and confusion. But all he says is, “I can’t.”
So I turn and let my leaden feet take me back into the condo. I don’t want to hear any more about how he can’t love me, or why he won’t be my rock any longer. Maybe he stands there and watches me go. Maybe there is a sense of relief on his face. I’ll never know, because I don’t look back.
I should have learned my lesson by now, that no one is going to help me stand on my own two feet. No one is going to let me lean on them, and no man is going to come to my rescue.
My broken heart has been mangled for the last time. After this, it’s closing up shop.
I swear right then to never let another man in again.
30
Walker
My eyes go directly to the batter, to his stance, and I feel the tingle in the air.
Everyone on the field crouches into position, practically tasting the last out of the game. We’re in the bottom of the ninth in New York, an inner-division game that has playoff implications, even this early in the season. It’s only June, but as the reigning World Series champs, there is a target on our backs.
The first couple months of the season have gone by in a flash, probably because my head feels like it’s in outer space most days. But our record is good, and the team if gelling nicely, if not for missing some of the players who retired or were traded after we won the championship.
New York is predicted to be one of the best teams in the league this year, but we won the first two of this three-game series, and we’re one out away from sweeping it. My body is running on pure adrenaline at this point, as it usually is after back-to-back-to-back road games.
The batter bears down, after our closing pitcher confirms his pitch to our catcher with a head shake, and I feel the fastball coming before I see it leave our pitcher’s glove. That’s what baseball has become for me over the years, instinct over tangible evidence.