Chapter 5

Returning to school was worse than the clinic.

At least doctors asked where it hurt.

Students guessed.

Some called me a hero.

Some called me trash can boy.

One kid made a throwing motion and laughed.

Mateo shoved him into a locker.

I told him not to.

He said, “I didn’t shove him. I relocated his attitude.”

That made me laugh.

I needed that.

Coach Martinez called a team meeting after practice.

He stood in front of us with the championship trophy on the table.

“Mason earned that win,” he said. “Every player here earned this season. No adult’s corruption changes that.”

Then he looked at me.

“And no one gets to make a teammate’s pain into a joke.”

The room went quiet.

After practice, the guys handed me the game ball.

They had all signed it.

Mateo wrote: Perfect means perfect.

I cried in the locker room.

Pretended sweat got in my eyes.

Nobody believed me.

At home, Mom started sleeping on the couch.

Not because she had to.

Because I was afraid Carl would come back.

One night, I found her awake at 2 a.m. holding a baseball bat.

“Mom?”

She smiled weakly.

“Security system.”

I almost laughed.

Then I sat beside her.

“I don’t want you to be scared forever.”

She looked at me.

“I was scared before. I just called it marriage.”

That sentence stayed with me.

The divorce started ugly.

Carl claimed Mom poisoned me against him.

He claimed I attacked first.

He claimed Brandon was the real victim.

Then more evidence came.

Emails to league officials.

Texts to Brandon.

A deleted voicemail to Mom.

If Mason keeps playing, Brandon never gets seen. Handle your kid.

Handle your kid.

Mom played that voicemail for her lawyer.

Then for me.

Her face was pale.

“I’m sorry I let him talk about you like a problem.”

I looked at the baseball in my hands.

“I don’t want sorry only.”

She nodded.

“I know.”

The next week, she showed me a lease.

A smaller apartment.

Closer to school.

No Carl memories.

No shared walls with fear.

“Do you want to move?” she asked.

For once, she asked before deciding.

I looked around the house.

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