Catching Tatum (18 page)

“You said I ruined you,” he said, pulling me out of my own thoughts.

“You did.”

“But you didn’t kill yourself.”

“Most people wouldn’t, but I didn’t walk in on you with another girl.”

“Would you have if you did?”

“I don’t know. No, I don’t think so. You were right before: I would have thrown something and yelled and screamed and probably trashed you around school. But …” I thought about finding out he was with Stacy, how it made me make my game.

“What?”

“You really messed me up, but ...”

“But what?” He looked at me like I could explain why she did it. I couldn't. I didn't know how she could have gotten to the point she did. I shrugged. “Maybe she couldn't see how to live without you ... or with you lying to her.” I looked down. “And making her look like a fool.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, fighting to not cry again.

I didn't know if he meant he was sorry for what he did to her or me or both. I knew he needed words of comfort, but I didn't have them. Ordinarily the site of a man crying sickened me. My dad always said it was the wife beaters that cried too easily and I believed him, but Cole's crying was different. It was one of those times in life it seemed OK for a man to cry. He was wrong, so wrong, and what he did resulted in someone else's death. He felt her parents’ pain and carried the weight of knowing his actions were to blame. And he kept the secret of exactly what he had been doing to make her get that desperate. He had kept it for years.

I looked around. There were people in the park but none close enough to hear us. His crying embarrassed him as much as me but he couldn't stop the sobs from coming again. He tried, I could tell, to hold them back but they bubbled out. His head hung low and his shoulders heaved. He needed comfort, someone to reassure him. But reassure him of what? I couldn't tell him it would be OK because she was dead. I couldn't tell him it wasn't his fault; even though it wasn't, it kind of was. I could hug him. Me, Tatum Rodriguez, the one he cheated on first, would comfort the cheater. I couldn't hate him anymore.

I got up from the table and walked around to him. I had never been a mom, but I knew he needed love like only a mother could give. I straddled the bench and folded him right into my chest. He was bigger than me but he curled into my arms like I had days before into my mother's; like the comfort of an embrace could keep out the pain of the world. It could not. Pain was there, and it was real, but my arms could be a shelter for him, if even for the smallest moment in time.

That one, that memory, and others like it, have their own sacred shelf because grief is different than a bad memory but certainly doesn't belong nestled with the good either. It is a pain all its own. I couldn't feel his pain; I could only empathize and be a comfort to his grieving soul. It is one of my most treasured memories. I couldn't make it go away, but like my mother was for me, like he was for Stacy's parents, I could be a safe place for him to come to weather the pain.

He leaned into me and let me hold him; he wasn't playing it up to get to me. He was hurting, he was vulnerable and he trusted me in a moment of supreme weakness. I pulled his hat off so he could lay his head on my shoulder. The curls in his hair tickled my chin. That's when I saw Cole differently and knew he was changed and good. He was a broken man. He looked strong and sure of himself. He was a master at his game and at life, but he was desperate and guilty, in need of absolution. I couldn't make the guilt go away—that was between him and God—but I could forgive him. And just like that ... I let it go.

It changed everything. Every day of my life since Cole, every guy that came into it, all of it was a reaction to what he had done to me. I couldn't justify my actions anymore. I didn't know what that meant for me, but I knew it was different. I forgave Cole Jackson.

Like life always does, it interrupted us at the worst possible moment. I was in the middle of sorting out all my own feelings while he was in the middle of his most vulnerable ones and his phone rang. Or rather, the alarm on it went off.

“Are you serious?” he asked aloud, pushing off of me to grab it. The buttons beeped low and quietly as he silenced the alarm. “I have to go. We're leaving.”

I nodded, looking at him. Even in sorrow he was a sight to behold, but I looked away to give him his dignity while he wiped the tears off his face.

“Do you believe me now?” he asked, once I was back around the table, wrapping up my sandwich for later.

“I do now. I forgive you, Cole. We're good.”

Relief flooded over him. It didn't fix his world, but it repaired one part. We left it at that. I gave him a ride back to the field and ignored the inquisitive looks from the other guys. By then he was recovered and back on his game, smiling, proud, and strong as ever; his secret locked up safe inside my heart, too.

Four days they would be gone. Four days to figure out what all of this meant. I got into my car and checked my phone before buckling up. There was a message from the unknown number that had called earlier. I checked it. It was Justin Parker.

THE IRONY
of that summer was how the two of them invaded my life simultaneously and symbiotically. Both haunted by the memories of girls who were lost to them, both looking to me as a source of consolation, and both wreaking sweet havoc on my game.

That day was a perfect example of how life went with the two of them. After all the days of waiting on Parker and resisting Cole, everything had to happen at once. There wasn't time to pick one over the other; they both got to my heart at the exact same time, every time. Parker's message was short and sweet: he got my number from my dad, which I already knew; he wanted to see me. I knew that, too. I had almost given up hope, but just when Cole's confession changed the game, Parker wanted to see me.
What did it all mean?
I didn't know but I texted him back later that night after I had a chance to recover as much as I ever would from Cole's news.

Wanna do something sometime?
he texted back.

What does that mean?

I pick u up. I take u out. We talk, hang out, have fun ...

He didn't put anything in there about sex. That's where a lot of guys failed because they started sexting right off the bat.

You want to go out with me?

Yep, yep :)

I have rules. You have to play by them or I say no.

Your game I remember! I'm down

Lol my game, you're the player

meh, not really much of one ... too scrawny

Lol. Call me.

He was a little on the skinny side, muscular, but thin. I learned later that he was self-conscious about it. He said his dad was the same way; when he talked about his dad his demeanor always changed. Something told me his dad wasn't good like mine was.

Two seconds after the text, he called. “I can't get you out of my head. You're stuck in there. I keep seeing you around the fire, dancing. You put a spell on me.”

“Yeah, right!”

“Seriously, you did. So what's next? Your game, remember? I passed level one.”

“Oh, please. My game is sooooo not a video game. I hate video games.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they suck the life out of normally functioning human beings and turn them into zombies ... I hate the undead.”

“You're awesome,” he said. “Wanna know a secret?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I'm going to say I hate them, too?”

“I don't know. Are you?” I asked.

“No, I love them. I'm playing one right now while we're talking. I'm addicted. I can't get enough!”

“You're joking.”

“Yeah ... but I do play them. Does that disqualify me?”

“No ... unless you can't have a conversation without bringing them up. Don't even bore me with the titles.” I yawned.

“So I still have a chance to level up then ...?”

“Nope, it's baseball, silly. You just stepped up to bat. My dad was the practice swing.”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah, he approves all my dates.”

“And you like it that way?” he asked. “How old are you?”

“How old do you think?”

“I thought like twenty something. You're graduated, right?”

“Way graduated; I'm twenty-two.”

“Does he have to approve forever?”

“No, only until I find The One.”

“Ahhh, ‘the one’ ... I can tell you right now, I'm not him.”

“Calm down, Turbo, I'm not looking for ‘the one’ right now. Well, I am but I'm not. There's no harm in having a good time with a good guy, is there?”

“You're saying I'm a good guy?”

“I have a feeling about you.”

“Good. I have to see you, Tatum. I'm telling you, there's something about you.”

“I don't get it.”

“I don't either. I can't explain it… except that you're safe. Can I see you again soon?”

He said it like he couldn't go much longer. There was something about him, too. I felt it that night at the fire. I was losing, and it was my game. I had to keep my head in the game.
Follow the rules, Tatum; follow the rules!
I reminded myself.

“Here's the thing: you passed my dad; now you gotta get past me. I'm bored of lame dates. Dinner and a movie will so not cut it. I mean maybe, when I'm seventy, dinner and a movie will be a wild night out, but I've got spunk. I need to be wowed. If you want to impress me you better do something we'll both remember forever.”

“Like what?”

“Well ... if I have to tell you, where's the fun in that?”

“What kind of dates have you been on? … So I don't repeat and get thrown in the boring bag because it's already been done.”

“Boring bag?”

“It's alliteration ...”

“A what?”

“Literary term,” he answered. “It's when you string words together that all start with the same letter. I like them.”

“You're a writer?”

“Yeah, songs.”

I remembered the guitar, the music. “Sing me something you wrote.”

“Not so fast, girl. What am I up against? Give me the best date and worst.”

“Oh, well, worst is easy: it was supposed to be a romantic backwoods drive to a city lookout one night. I was thinking soft music, sitting out on the hood of his car, looking at the lights and stars, but no ... it was an invitation to his back seat and he tried to score. Totally ruined the whole thing!” I said. “That could have been a best date ever and then ... no.”

“Strike?”

“Ha! Try pop-fly straight into a glove. Dude was out!”

“I'm starting to think your dad was the easy one. Sounds like a good place to score to me.”

“On a first date? That's for hookers.” That made me a hooker with Cole, right? I didn't know why I even said that.

“Only if you get paid. If it's for fun ...”

“Having sex on a first date is stupid, not fun.”

“Are you a virgin, then?” he asked. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“It's none of your business. I am what I am. What I'm not is the kind of girl you're going to score with on a first date.” I refused to tell him that was exactly the kind of girl I had been.

“So you are a virgin!”

“You're pissing me off.”

“Fine, fine, I'll stop. I can't ruin my chance now that I just got permission. I gotta see you. Anyone make it to first base?” he asked. “That's like a kiss right? I mean we're talking the same baseball everyone knows, yeah?”

“Yes and yes; plenty have made it to first. I like kissing ... a lot.”

“Mmm ... I might wanna kiss you this time.” It was so sweet how he said it, but he sounded sad, too. I knew it was because of the girl that stopped him before.

“Hmmm, I might wanna let you this time.”

“Might?”

“Well, you have to impress me.”

“Oh, yeah. You distracted me; we were talking about dates. Got worst covered; how about best?”

“Best is easy, but there are three; it's hard to pick which was the best-best.” I lie down on my bed and let my left leg hang over the side and swing. I felt like a school girl. “OK, so best dates ever ... one boy had a song dedicated to me on the radio the night of our first date. He found a drive-in that was still showing movies, and as we drove there the song came on.”

“What was the song?”

“Meet Virginia,” I answered with a smile, remembering the night. The boy was Tyson and he owned the sweetest set of brown eyes I had ever beheld. I fell in love with him ... I fell in love with them all; that's why I had to play the game and follow the rules.

“Aha! You messed with his mind, too.”

“I mess with everyone's mind. I'm an enigma ...”

“Yes, you are,” Parker whispered, then continued in a normal voice, “but that was a movie.”

“But it was a cool way to watch a movie. He was creative, not boring and standard.”

“OK, noted: you love long rides and novelty. I'll take it into consideration. Next one?”

“Well, the next one was this guy named Mark. He took me to a driving range and we hit like five buckets of balls and then he took me out to a golf course and we ate lunch there and played nine holes, which was good because I suck at hitting little balls.”

“That's probably a good thing for me.” He laughed.

“Is it? I thought you had big ones.” I laughed back.

“Nope, I'm a wuss.”

“Whatever. I think you're pretty cool.” I laughed.

“Time will tell ... carry on,” he invited.

I slipped my flip-flop off and balanced it on my big toe, dangled it up in the air and tried to spin it around. “Well, then after that, he took me to putt-putt golf where I actually had a chance. I still lost, but it was fun. And then the other one was kind of a summer run of dates with the same guy. The summer I graduated, there was a guy from school—Juan. He had a list of things he wanted to do that summer and we did one each month. Zoo in June. It was the Woodland Park Zoo, a long drive ... so you're right, I like long drives.” I never realized it about myself until Parker pointed it out. I chalked it up to my wander lusting soul. “We stopped at some old Podunk dive of a restaurant on the way ... there's your novelty.” I laughed, but wondered how Parker already knew me. “He said they had killer pancakes—they were delicious! Then we spent the whole day going around the zoo. Water park in July ... he bought me a bikini with matching sarong, and flip-flops, and had them delivered to me at work with a bouquet of balloons. August we were supposed to follow the Patriots on all their away games within two hours of home ... but then things sort of fizzled.”