That’s exactly what I feared.
“Yeah, I was right, this wasn’t a good idea.” I push off the wall and walk toward the door, gripping the edge. “You should go.”
“Milly, please, let me get this off my chest.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice growing strong with anger. “So you can feel better about how you treated me? So you don’t have to walk around with guilt any more about breaking my heart and stomping it on the ground? So you can move forward in life and leave me a mess of a girl once again?”
His face drops, and his shoulders slump as he takes a step forward. “Milly—”
I stop him with a hand to his thick, corded chest. “Don’t.”
He reaches up and grabs my hand, pushing our palms together.
Eyes wide, I try to pull away, but he holds me tight. “Let go. You don’t get to hold my hand anymore.”
But he doesn’t let go, instead, he cuts the distance between us in half.
“Please.” He pleads with his entire body. “Let me apologize.”
I shake my head. “It’s not going to change anything. I’ll still be mad at you, my heart will still be fragile and cracked, and my trust in you will still be gone.” And I’ll be broken again. I can’t do this. Not now. Not ever.
“But at least you’ll know why.”
“Do I really want to know?” I ask, daring a glance at him and chastising my heart for beating faster when I catch the sorrow in his features.
“I want you to know.” He takes in my apartment and then focuses back on me. “Please, Coach, let me explain.”
Using my nickname is my undoing. I bite my bottom lip and step aside, letting him into my apartment, a move I’m certain I’ll regret in the morning.
“Thank you,” he whispers, walking in and taking a seat in one of the wingback chairs in my living room.
With my back to him, I shut the door and silently tell myself to be strong, to not break down in front of him and to erect a wall around my heart, even if it has to be put together with tape and glue, anything to keep him away.
I take a seat across from him but sit cross-legged in the chair, gaining enough distance to put my anxiety at ease.
Once I’m comfortable and situated, I catch him staring at me, intently, with curiosity. I tug on a short strand of my hair and try not to make eye contact with him. His eyes were always my weakness.
“I like your hair like that,” he says, softly, the compliment making me feel good and angry.
“Just apologize, okay? Nothing else.”
“Sure.” He clears his throat and rubs his hands on his thighs. “I could tell you I was in a bad spot, that my father died and I didn’t know how to handle my emotions and selflessly pushed you away. And to a degree, that’s true, but it’s not really the reason why I was untouchable. It was stupid determination to fulfill a hole in my heart, a promise to a man who gave me everything he said he would. It was guilt, it was anger, it was hatred for myself.” He folds his hands together in front of him. “The day I was drafted . . . was the same day my dad passed away . . . probably within seconds of each other.”
Oh Jesus, there’s the first crack of my makeshift wall and even though my heart cries out for him, unable to personally process how difficult that must have been, he had a choice and he could have leaned on me, on the other guys. But he didn’t, and I need to keep reminding myself that.
“It was a combination of emotions, finding out about my dad’s debt, the debt he accrued for me and my mom, and his constant drive to make sure I had a good life even though he was still in the red. His death, losing him way too early, and no longer having a family to turn to. It was an emotionally raw moment for me, like someone peeled back all my skin and exposed me to the toxic air floating around me. I shut down. I focused on the one thing I could control: my career and making it to the big leagues so my dad’s hard work wasn’t for nothing.”
Everything he’s saying makes so much sense. It’s as if with each sentence he speaks, the clouds that have been fogging up my brain where Carson is concerned start to part. His drive, his constant battering of his body, his relentlessness to never leave the cages without hitting a certain amount of buckets. Through the almost year where he wasn’t talking to me, Jason kept me updated through Knox and as time went on, I heard more and more about his obsessiveness to be perfect, to hit every single ball right, to field everything that came his way, making sure he got leather on every ball hit in his direction. He was a constant presence in the weight room and it shows now with how much he’s grown in his chest and arms. Even his neck looks thicker.
“I did everything I could to isolate myself and make sure I was only focusing on one thing and one thing alone. Baseball. It was unhealthy and as Knox pointed out to me, slowly driving me to an early grave . . . just like my dad. It took some time to slow down, to redirect my focus on quality and not quantity, to repair those friendships I lost, and to get to where I am today, sitting in front of you, not looking for forgiveness, but for the opportunity to tell my story.”
Emotion tickles my throat as it grows tight. He’s so calm, almost like he’s surrendering to me, and I really don’t know how to handle it. I’d rather be fighting, yelling and screaming at each other, but this resolved Carson with determination in his features to get out his words, it’s making me think. It’s making me drop one shaky brick at a time, exposing myself ever so slightly. Just a peek.
“I treated you like you meant nothing to me and that wasn’t the case at all, Milly. You meant everything to me . . . you still do.” I flatten my lips tight, swearing to hold it together. Do not break down in front of him. “I ignored you when I should have leaned on you, when I should have remembered how with the smallest of smiles you could bring light into my life. And I pushed you out of my life when I should have been planning all the different ways to keep you.” He rubs his hands together and stares down at them. “If I could change how I did things, I would, but I’m afraid what’s done is done. I can’t remove the giant stake I drove between us, but I do want you to know that I am sorry. I’m really fucking sorry, Milly. I’m sorry for hurting you, for pushing you away, for breaking your heart, for breaking mine for that matter and denying it the greatest thing that ever happened to it.” He stands and walks over to me. Reaching out, he grips my chin and says, “I mean that, you were the greatest thing to ever happen to me.”
And fuck . . .
A tear slips down my cheek. He quickly sweeps it away, gives me a sad smile, and then takes off, shutting the door quietly behind him and leaving me in a wake of “what the hell just happened?”
Cory: What the fuck was that? Was that really Carson?
Milly: It was. I’m still stunned.
Cory: What did he want?
Milly: To apologize. Wasn’t looking for forgiveness, just looking for the chance to tell his story.
Cory: Was it worth it? His story, was it worth losing you?
Milly: Hard to say, but . . . he did make me cry and that right there only tells me one thing. I’m not over him.
Cory: I could have told you that. I’m not sure you’ll ever be over him, Mills.