A policeman arrives, telling me that the neighbors have complained about the noise and that I need to move along.
“Wait, you’re Jasper Reilly, aren’t you?” he asks me.
I nod my head and look to the window of Trinity’s bedroom. I see the shade moving and I know she’s right there, probably watching me through the window.
“Yeah, I’m Jasper,” I tell the policeman, hoping he’ll lay off and leave me be.
He starts asking me for an autograph and I give him one, hoping he’ll leave after that. But no such luck. He tells me I have to go.
I lean against her window. “Trinity, I’m leaving, but I promise you, I didn’t do anything with your sister. She came on to me and I told her no.” I plead my case one more time before I leave. I’m miserable.
I no sooner get to my car, and I’m dialing her number from my phone. The call goes straight to voicemail. Banging my hands on the steering wheel, I scream “Fuck” as loud as I can, hoping to relieve some of my stress. But it doesn’t.
My phone rings and I pick it up, hoping it’s her, but it’s not. It’s Shawn, our third baseman and my good friend.
“Yeah?” I say into the phone.
He doesn’t mince words. “Where you at, brother? Coach is losing it. Henry’s out today, and you’re going to start the game. You better get here.”
“Fuck. I’m on my way.”
I hang up the phone and look toward Trinity’s apartment one more time. I pull away, heading toward the field, hoping that I’m not leaving my future behind.
11
Trinity
I don’t know what I expected when I slammed the door in his face. The cops came and told him to leave. But I’m still upset that he left. I don’t know why. I should hate him right now, but the way he told me he didn’t sleep with my sister, well, even through the window, I could hear the sincerity in his voice. Almost an hour goes by before Sheena comes back and she’s carrying bags of food in from my favorite restaurant. This is not Sheena. She’s not ever nice to me, so I have to assume it’s a guilty conscience. But what exactly is she guilty of?
She’s pulling food out, and I wet a towel, wiping at my face. When I’m done, I turn to her. “We need to talk.”
“Sure.” She hands me a plate and the whole situation is weird to me. I mean, if she truly slept with my boyfriend, do I really want to sit down to a meal with her?
But I know anger is not the way to handle this. That’s what she wants. “I need to know exactly what happened.”
She shrugs. “There’s not a lot to tell really. We both had too much to drink and one thing led to another.”
Something’s not adding up. “Which night was it? 1st game in the series? 2nd?”
She looks up at the ceiling like she’s thinking about it. “Second. Definitely second.”
I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Really? Well, I remember that night. Do you know why?”
She puts a big bite of chicken lo mein in her mouth and looks at me with big eyes. “No, why?”
I sit down in the chair across from her and look at her through new eyes. “Why are you lying to me, Sheena? I talked to Jasper that night. He didn’t even go to the after party. He went to dinner with Shawn.” When she doesn’t answer me, I continue. “I remember because he was FaceTiming me and Shawn was making fun of him for being whipped. He got off the phone, but he called me when he got back to the hotel and stayed on the phone with me until I fell asleep talking to him.”
Still, she says nothing. I stand up from the table. I want to scream, I want to throw a fit, but I don’t. I’ve put up with Sheena for so long, and now I almost lost the one person that means everything to me because of her.
I turn away from her, but when I get to the door, I look at her again. “Just tell me why. Why would you do such a thing?”
She shrugs her shoulders and with no remorse in her voice, she says, “Because Carter broke up with me.”
My mouth drops. Does she think that explains her horrible behavior? Is she really that demented to think what she did was justified?
I open my mouth and then close it again. There’s no use talking to her about it. I have to go see if I can get my player back.
Jasper
For the most part, I’m fucking it up. I can tell that Neil, the catcher, is frustrated and my coach is about to lose his mind. I keep throwing, trying to adjust and get my mind right, but all I can think about is Trinity.