My dad can be stubborn.

I suppose I deserve it.

For the last week, I’ve come home from school to find him doing something he’s not supposed to yet. Usually, it’s something I can just snap at him for and get over, like showering without the walker or thinking he can climb the ladder to change the batteries on the smoke detector. Today, though, he’s taken it up a notch.

“Deeper!” my dad shouts, waving his arm, bat in his hand, ball in the other.

There are houses lined up on either side of him, and our street is narrow, but my dad refuses to worry. It’s been a while, but back when I was just learning to read fly balls, he would hit them to me in the street. I’m a little worried about his record of no broken windows now.

“You are the worst patient ever!” I shout as I pick up my step, my bag slung over my shoulder.

My dad turns to look at me over his shoulder, and even though he’s too far away to read his expression, I know it’s a cocky smile, and I know he’s about to turn back to Kyle and wave him even deeper.

“Shit,” I say to myself, striding into a slow jog as my dad tosses the ball to himself and swings hard with his right arm, sending it deep, but straight as an arrow toward Kyle’s open glove at the end of our street.

Kyle shouts, “Woo!” as he jogs in a circle with his glove over his head, but closer to me, my dad stumbles to his side, putting his weight on the bat and clutching his side, where his injury is still nowhere close to healed.

“Stubborn idiot,” I say, rushing to grab his elbow.

He just chuckles.

“Still got it,” he says.

“Yeah, you also got yourself a trip back to the ER if you keep this up,” I lecture, taking the bat from his hand. Kyle boos me and calls me a fun killer as he jogs back to us from his spot about eight houses away.

“You’re not helping!” I point the bat at him.

I get my dad inside, but once our feet hit the kitchen, he shirks my hold away, waving me to head on to my room.

“I know my limits, Joss. I just got tired of sitting on my damn ass,” he says as I rifle through Jungle Gym shirts on my floor, not finding a single one that’s clean. Sighing heavily, I open my closet and push my clothes to one side so I can get to the shirts with my name spelled JOSE. I wasn’t going to keep these, but Wes told me they were special.

I re-tie the band in my hair as I walk back into the living room, stopping to kiss my dad’s cheek and warn him not to start a street hockey league while I’m at work.

“You ready?” Kyle asks, his keys dangling from his thumb.

I nod and follow him to his truck so he can drop me off at work. We get to the end of the street and turn the corner before he stops and puts it in park.

“I swear to God, Joss, if you ever tell your dad I let you do this, I will kill you,” he says, hopping out of the truck and rounding the front as I slide into the driver’s seat.

“You won’t kill me,” I say, buckling up and shifting, my left foot lined up to do the work the right is supposed to. I look to Kyle and smirk. “You’ll already be dead.”

“Ha, ha,” my friend says.

Checking all of my mirrors, I shift the gear and get a feel for the truck with my left foot, starting out slowly before we hit the big streets. Kyle’s been letting me drive for about a month. He said no the first two times I asked, but when I asked on the third day, he knew how relentless I would be and gave in. Other than a few scary turns where my left foot laid heavily on the gas, and one small issue with a parking lot block, I’ve had a pretty clean run.

“You hear anything from them yet?”

I shake my head no.

Kyle doesn’t ask every day. He knows I’ll tell him as soon as I hear, but he’s also anxious on his own. Wes has been in Texas with his family for six weeks. TK told us that it was bullet fragments that actually struck Wes, and thanks to the freak luck that only exists in this world that Wes and I live in, it damaged the same part of his brain that my father’s car did the day he saved me in my driveway.

They had him in a medical coma for about a week, and the next few were spent slowly regaining his coordination and speech. But as fractured as his memory was the first time he went through this, it seems it was completely erased this time around. I can tell it hurts his brothers. I’ve been talking to them every few days, hearing about the exercises the therapists are putting them all through to slowly reintroduce Wes to key memories and familiar faces.

Wes’s mom is determined. She came back to Bakersfield to collect photo albums, music, pieces of clothing. She asked me for a few things, so I helped her pick songs for the playlist she made, and I gave her the picture I had, with the note written on the back, and the ticket he sent me in the mail. Our ticket. I didn’t give her the full story, instead just telling her it was part of a sweet love note he’d left me once. She tucked my things in one of the album pockets and carried them back to Texas.

It’s getting harder to hold onto hope. Routine helps, though. On days I don’t train, I work at the Gym. I’ve started helping with the books, balancing out the night’s deposits and prioritizing the inventory. It’s really only working with gallons of cheese and bleach wipes to clean up gross things from the slides, but it feels a little more like a grown-up job. There’s a Jungle Gym’s near Chico, and I’ve thought about asking for a transfer if I manage to somehow pull off a miracle and get in.

I pull right up to the front door and put Kyle’s truck in park, tucking my phone in my pocket and giving my friend knuckles as we exchange positions.

“I’ll be here at ten, sound right?” he asks.

“Maybe a little earlier. And bring burgers,” I say.

“Got it, nacho cheese with a side of screaming birthday boy,” he chuckles.

I shake my head and narrow my eyes at him as he drives off.

The next few hours of work pass quickly, and before long, Kyle is texting me for my order on his way back. I drag a stool over near the register and begin cashing out, counting deposits. My phone buzzes again, and I expect more questions from Kyle, but I lay it on the counter and see it’s a video call—from Texas.

My palms sweat, and my heart races. It’s the same every time they call. It’s never been video though. I pile the money back in the drawer, pushing it closed to lock it and I hold the phone in front of my face as I answer. Within seconds, I’m staring at Levi, TK standing behind him.

“Cherry!” TK shouts.

“Tiny!” I shout back.

“Tiny? What’s that…oh…” TK turns his head, one eye closed more than the other and Levi laughs.

“Damn we miss you,” Levi says.

“Same,” I smile, pushing close to the counter and propping my phone up against the register.

“I see you’re Jose tonight,” Levi says, pointing close to his screen, probably touching my incorrect name where it shows on his phone.

“It’s throwback Thursday,” I shrug.

He laughs quietly and lifts his chin just a little. TK slides into the space next to him, their faces sharing the screen.

“We have someone who wants to talk to you,” Levi grins.

My throat closes, and the only sound I can make is a frail, “Oh,” as I swallow and press my palms against the beating in my belly.

“Don’t expect much. He’s been making a lot of progress this week…with places, and a few dates. But people are still hard,” Levi says, leaning his head to one side and pursing his lips. “It’s like he knows that I had a birthday party when I turned eleven, but he doesn’t remember that I was there. Doctors say it’ll come, or at least the basics will come.”

“What about the rest?” I ask, trying to keep myself from expecting Wes to see my face and return to the familiar.

“I guess he learns those parts all over again,” Levi says, his lip raised in an apologetic smile. “TK sees it as a positive—figures maybe he’ll find a way not to let Wes know about his fear of the dark this time around.”

I lean back with a slight laugh, gripping the front of my stool.

“Of course…now I know,” I say.

“Shit,” TK punches Levi’s shoulder.

The phone moves, the picture buffering for a few seconds, picking up when Levi is mid-sentence and walking down a hallway. They’ve been staying at a nearby hotel, but this place looks more clinical, like a rehabilitation center.

“Are you ready?” he whispers.

I breathe in deep and nod, a quiet, “Yeah,” coming from my throat.

I catch glimpses of Wes’s form as Levi carries the phone close to a setting that looks like a comfortable apartment living room. His legs look the same, and he’s wearing my favorite pair of jeans he owns, the ones with tattered bottoms and a tear in one knee. I was with him when he ripped that part, sliding while helping me practice.

This is going to be hard, and my finger hovers over the END CALL button while the picture jostles, Wes still not in the frame. My hand falls flat the instant his eyes hit mine. It’s like something is missing behind them. The blue just as beautiful as it always is, but the boy I love lost underneath. My lip starts to quiver so I bite down hard on my tongue.

“Hey,” he says.

My hands form tight fists, because that small word sounds the way it has over the phone for dozens of late-night calls.

“Hey,” I say back, smiling tentatively.

“I’m sorry if this…if this gets weird.” He scrunches his face as he talks, just one more small gesture that’s so familiar I ache to touch the face that’s making it.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Weird’s kinda your thing.”

He laughs, and I hear the right timber in his chest.

“TK and Levi have been telling me about your dad…about…Coach,” he says, the word rehearsed, like he’s reading it off a flash card.

It hurts.

“He’s doing a lot better,” I say. “I…I don’t know what things you remember, but my dad is sorta stubborn. I’m sorta stubborn,” I pause, drawing my brow in and letting a sad laugh escape. “You always called me stubborn…sorry.”

“No, that’s good. Things like that…they help,” he says. He leans forward, adjusting the angle of his phone, and I wonder if everyone’s watching us talk on the other side. I don’t like the audience. I feel like there are things I want to remind him of, and I don’t know if I should or not, if someone would stop me. Maybe they should stop me.

“Anyhow,” I continue. “My dad’s been doing things he’s not supposed to. Today, I caught him hitting a fly ball to Kyle in the street.”

Wes tilts his head back and smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He doesn’t know who Kyle is.

“Kyle’s one of our friends. One of my best friends, and you and he…” I stop, knowing in my gut it’s too much. “You guys were friends too, is all.”

A silence sets in, and we stare at the small images of each other, our eyes darting to other places then coming back. I don’t know how to talk to him, what the rules are and where they start and end. He doesn’t know what to ask. All of the triggers that lead back to us…they’re just…gone.

“I should probably finish up at work, actually,” I say, sniffling to mask the cracking in my voice. “I’m working the night shift, and Kyle’s going to be here to pick me up soon.”

Wes nods.

“Yeah, totally,” he says, looking up at someone on the other side of the phone, probably his brothers. His eyes settle back down on the screen. “You work a lot of night shifts?”

“A few times a week. It’s peaceful, and it lets me train. I play ball.” I stop there, not knowing how deep to go.

“Yeah, TK and Levi told me about that. You’re…you’re good,” he smiles.

“She’s better than you,” I hear TK say in the distance.

We all laugh.

“Apparently, you can hit my fastball or whatever,” he says.

“Change-up,” I correct, the weight of this conversation sitting heavy in my chest. It sinks to my gut when he doesn’t react.

He shifts again, this time picking the phone up in his palm, and I get my finger ready to end the call again, perhaps even more anxious to close this window so I can hide how much this just feels. Goddamn does it feel.

“Hey, Joss?” My heart kicks and I focus on the screen.

“Yeah?” I say.

“Maybe we can do this again, like…a few times a week? Maybe during your night shifts or…”

“I’d like that,” I answer fast. I answer before I’m sure if I really will like that. It’s torture, but maybe I like that, too. I think I need this. Even if nothing comes of it beyond whatever it is now.

“Good,” he smiles, his mouth straightening just a little. “And be careful. I don’t think I like you working alone at night.”

My right hand trembles, so I move my phone to my left.

“Okay,” I smile, holding on for as long as I can, saying goodbye to him, to his brothers, and ending the call just as Kyle taps on the front door. I pretend for about six seconds when I let him in the door, and my friend reads right through it, setting the greasy bag of food down and pulling me into his embrace. I have a feeling he’s going to be doing this a few times every week, after my night shift.

After Wes calls.