For the Love of the Game

I started to come back down to Earth after a night of some much needed hard sleep. School had just let out for the summer and I was exhausted. All of the honor classes and classes that counted for college credit too as long as I made the right grade combined with year round softball practice had worn me out. I felt Tommy shuffling around on the couch nearby, sniffling a lot as if he were sick. That would be my luck that he had woken up sick after I had slept right next to him all night. I heard the tv on as well, but there was no telling what Tommy was watching. Probably morning cartoons or something.

I stirred a little bit and knew immediately that it was going to be a long day with this shoulder. It was pretty stiff and protested if I tried to move it. It did that frequently these days and it was very annoying. I managed to push myself up into a sitting position and unwrapped the ace bandage from around me.

“Morning, Olli.” Tommy said

Something was up with his voice. He normally woke me up by some evil means like pouring water on me or tickling me. His voice wasn’t cheery like it normally was, it was deep, hoarse, and shaky. I looked at him, concerned and found him looking down, his face red and eyes watery. My heart dropped and I was about to ask him if he was okay when the tv caught my attention.

“If you’re just joining us this morning we are following a story out of Boston this morning where the plane carrying the Texas Rangers major league baseball team has crashed just about five miles from the airport where it was about to land. Emergency crews are on the scene at this time…”

I couldn’t comprehend what I had just heard, but I had heard it loud and clear. My dad played for the Texas Rangers and he was supposed to leave out of Dallas this morning on a plane with the rest of the team flying to Boston to play a series against the Red Sox. Which meant…no, surely not.

“Tommy, have you talked to Dad?” I asked frantically searching around for my phone. Surely he was okay and had been taken to the hospital. Someone had probably called by this point to let me know.

Tommy just shook his head and stood up, walking out of the living room and away from me. My heartbeat started to speed up as I finally found my phone and saw that I had 87 missed calls from various people and 115 text messages. I stared at my phone, trying to get up the courage to read a message or listen to one of the many voicemails.

“At this time emergency officials are saying that the plane is a complete loss and that there are no survivors…”

A lump quickly formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow. I opened the messages on my phone and what I read just confirmed everything else that I was hearing and trying to comprehend. Messages of ‘Collins, I’m really sorry about your dad’ and ‘are you okay?’ and ‘call me if you need anything’ littered my messaging inbox. So I guess it really was true then, my dad was dead. No. No. That wasn’t it. He had made it and someone had found him and taken him to the hospital before the emergency people had arrived and saw him being taken away. My heartbeat slowed up a little bit at that thought.

“Well, I’m guessing by the look on your face that you know.” Nikki said as he sat down beside me. I could see Vince and Mick talking to Tommy in the kitchen, Tommy still had his head down and Vince and Mick had tear filled eyes as well.

“Yeah, but it’s okay. They said there were no survivors, but I’m sure someone just found Dad and took him to the hospital before the emergency people got there and they just didn’t know. Do you know how many hospitals there are in Boston? We need to google it and start calling them. Wait, maybe Dad’s manager will –“

“Collins.” Nikki interrupted.

“What?”

He looked away and then back at me as if this was the last conversation he wanted to be having with me right now. “He didn’t make it, Olli. No one did.”

I was starting to get pissed. “How do you fucking know he didn’t make it?! Have you talked to anyone?”

“Yes. Jake had me listed as an emergency contact in all of his paperwork. He was one of the first ones identified. I talked to his manager and I’ve talked to the coroner in Boston. He’s gone, baby.”

I felt nothing and everything all in that moment. It was a moment I would forever long to forget, but never would. The lump in my throat was as big as ever and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t, all I could do was gasp for air which didn’t help either. My legs gave out from beneath me and I collapsed to my knees on Nikki’s cold, hard floor. He was by my side the second I hit the floor saying something along the lines of ‘just breathe’ and ‘it will be okay’ but I really couldn’t make out anything that he was saying. My life as I had always known it was gone forever and there was no telling where my future was headed. I had no family but the guys I was with now and they all had their own lives and no time to take care of me full time. I would probably end up in a foster home somewhere and have to give up softball and put up with my shoulder hurting me until I could get a job to pay for the surgery myself. My dad couldn’t leave me like this. It wasn’t fair. I still needed him like crazy. The lump in my throat finally gave away and I caught my breath as the tears flooded down my face.

Nikki held me tight in the middle of his living room floor for I don’t know how long. It felt like a century and two seconds at the same time, and I didn’t know which one was right. Vince and Mick approached cautiously to comfort me and cry with me, but when Tommy came around, I didn’t want him anywhere near me. He knew my dad was dead when I asked him if he had talked to Dad and he just walked away from me.

“Collins.” He tried to reason with me, but I was having none of it.

“Get out of my fucking face, Tommy. You knew he was dead and you just walked away from me. So just walk away now.”

“Collins, he didn’t mean anything by it.” Nikki said.

“No, it’s okay. I deserve that.” Tommy said, his voice thick with tears as he walked away from us.

I don’t know how or at what point I managed to get up off of Nikki’s floor, but I did and eventually found myself laying out by the pool, sunglasses on to hide my tears, and my phone in my hands as I scrolled through the hundreds of pictures I had of me and Dad. We took pictures all of the time, especially if we were bored. We were always coming up with something to get into, just like best friends. Dad was my best friend. And now he was gone.

The uneasy silence was broken by the door opening and closing and someone coming outside. I saw Tommy out of the corner of my eye as he sat down in a chair beside the one I was laying in. I had calmed down a little bit since this morning and realized how rude I had been to him earlier and that he had done nothing wrong at all. I just hadn’t felt like seeking him out to apologize for how I had acted. He had been doing a pretty good job of avoiding me since my outburst.

“Well, you didn’t tell me to fuck off so that’s a plus I guess.” He mumbled.

“Come sit.”

“Why, so you can deck me?”

“Well, stay over there then. That works too.”

He walked over and sat down beside me on the edge of the chair. He did keep a little distance between us though as if he really thought that I was going to hit him or something. If that was going to happen at all, it would have been this morning when I was at my worst. His face was still red from crying and his eyes rimmed with water which made me feel even worse about how I had treated him. These guys had lost a best friend just like I had, a brother, and here I was acting like it was all about me.

“Look, I’m sorry about this morning. I shouldn’t have said what I said.” I apologized.

“I couldn’t, Collins. I couldn’t look you in the eye and tell you that your dad was dead. I have done a lot of fucked up shit in my time but my heart wasn’t quite black enough for that one yet. I could not do that to someone I love so much. Thank God Nikki is as strong as he is, because I couldn’t. What was I going to say? I had no choice but to walk away.”

That made me cry all over again and realize that we had all lost a person that we loved very much and that we all had to support each other through this and be strong for one another. It couldn’t all be on Nikki.

“I’m sorry, Tommy.”

I held my arms out for him and he collapsed against me, his tears flowing freely now too. Nikki, Vince, and Mick were all like fathers to me which was a good thing. They all kept me in line and gave me a lot of great advice. I could talk to them about absolutely anything, even stuff that a girl my age would never think about talking to a father figure about. But Tommy, Tommy was my big brother, my partner in crime. Mine and his relationship was just a little bit different than the rest of the guys, but it was a relationship that I greatly needed in my life, being an only child. I would never intentionally hurt any of these guys but if I didn’t nut up and stop being a little girl, that’s what I was going to end up doing.

“It could have happened to any of us. We never know when our time to go is, but there isn’t anything we can do about it now except pick up the pieces and move on. He would never want to see any of us looking like this. It’s going to be hard as fuck, but we will get through this. We have each other.”

“I will always be here for you, little fucker. No matter what you may ever need me for. I’m always just a phone call and a flight away.”

I smiled at the fact that he called me by his nickname for me, little fucker. My dad hated that nickname for the longest time, but until I got old enough and started doing my fair share of cussing as well, I knew that it was a bad word that I was not allowed to say and that Uncle Tommy was only picking at me. When he called me that just then, a small sense of relief washed over me and I felt like we were taking a step in the right direction.

“I need to go apologize to the rest of the guys and check on them. And find food. I’m starving and feel sick at the same time.” I said as my stomach growled loudly. Tommy had his head laying on my stomach but he jumped up quickly as my stomach growled.

“Yeah, I would say you need some food.”

He pulled me up from the lounge chair and we went back into the house and found Nikki, Vince, Mick, and a couple of their band people sitting around the kitchen bar. The band guys excused themselves and left the room upon seeing me which I was thankful for. This was between me and the guys only, really.

“Guys, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about this morning. I wasn’t the only one that lost someone this morning and I’m sorry it took me all day to realize that. We are all here for each other and we will all get through this one way or another. We really have no choice. Dad would be kicking us all in the ass right now if he could.”

“That’s true.” Mick said

We stood around talking for a few minutes and then decided that none of us had really thought about food all day and that by this point we were all pretty much starving. We decided to go grab some food and try to get away from reality for a little bit. There were still a lot of things that needed to be taken care of, so we knew the break wouldn’t last for long, but anything was better than nothing. I knew I was facing a lot of change in my life and that scared the ever living hell out of me, but with these four guys by my side, I knew that somehow, everything would be alright.