Page 16 of Rain Delay

It’s a picture of us. From Draft Night. I scroll and see that all of our pictures are still up. Was this some kind of way to try and make people believe that he was still in a relationship?

I was reading too much into it. I exited the app and went back to scrolling on TikTok.

I had my work cut out for me in more ways than one. I needed to tackle the top priority first – revamping his socials – then I could focus on the other: our feelings.

Chapter 6

Wyatt

FUCK. Definitely not the first impression I wanted to make. I was living my personal nightmare.

Eliana was here.

Five years since I stood in front of her like that. Except back then, I had a duffel bag in my hand, and I was preparing to move out of state. I was preparing to take my career to the professional level, leaving behind a life I thought I had crafted to perfection.

She was here to do a job, and that’s all it was going to be.

I swear I did a quadruple take to make sure I was really looking at her. I think I rubbed my eyes a good fifty times before I realized my eyes weren’t fucking with me and she was actually standing in front of me.

The girl I let walk away because I chose baseball over a picture-perfect life with her.

I was the idiot that let her go because I was under this impression that baseball would just end up ruining our relationship. The sport ended up ruining everything that we had built together.

All because I was scared.

I’ve had time to think about something intelligent to say to her. Maybe an apology or an explanation.

Instead, I acted like an asshole.

She looked like every god damn mistake I’d spent five years trying to forget about. It knocked the wind out of me.

I swear when I first saw her, my body went numb. My pulse started racing, and my toes felt tingly. I hated that I reacted in such a harsh way — hated how when she looked at me with those beautiful eyes, all the memories came flooding back that I worked so hard to compartmentalize in the back of my head.

Her body had curved out a little, and she looked even more beautiful than when I last saw her, if that was even possible.

How does one even begin to process everything when it’s thrown at you like a curveball that switches up and hits you like a slider?

Nothing ever prepares you for a moment like that. No one can warn you for what’s to come. When I wasn’t told who I was working with, I had a gut feeling it was someone I didn’t like.

How would MLB know about my past like that? I never indulged in talking about my personal life like that. Plus, this relationship happened before going pro.

After the entire confrontation, I lay in my bed for a good hour, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how I handled everything. My mind was spinning in circles, trying to think how I could’ve handled the situation better.

It wasn’t good, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s why I thought of all the different ways I could’ve talked to her. It was one of those moments when I let my mouth run, not thinking about the words coming out of it.

I always thought about what I would say to her if I ever saw her again. When I was finally face-to-face with her, all those thoughts flew right out the window.

I shut my eyes, digging my palms into my eye sockets. I couldn’t let my mind wander; that was the problem. That’s what was going to get me in trouble.

She was the same Eliana. Same eyes, same way she held her shoulders when she was bracing for something. However, she looked more self-assured, like she had her life carved out and was figuring everything out. It hit me harder than I expected.

This was going to be a complicated situation to get through. Years of pent-up anger between the two of us that is surely bound to explode at some point.

I don’t know if I’m ready for that.

I needed to distract myself. I rarely scroll on social media, but tonight I was led to Eliana’s Instagram page.

Typically, I’m not a guy that’ll scroll on social media. I’ll watch some film from previous games, either studying myself or studying the infield, thinking of different strategies and techniques to apply in future games. Tonight felt like a great night to doom scroll, I guess.