Blind Ambition | ✓

37 | Boston, Where Everyone Knows My Name

By Friday, my mental and physical status had reached Defcon 1. I left school early after nearly vomiting on my Lit Reading quiz and being told by the school nurse that I was spiking a fever. Something wasn't right, and I knew it, but I thought barricading myself up in my bedroom for the rest of the day, disgusting and shivering under my blankets, would just make it disappear.

We always opened our baseball season with a tournament in Boston the first weekend in April - the infamous Diamond Duel. We'd never actually won it, since all the surrounding Massachusetts private schools put far more stock into their baseball programs than we did, but I had enough trophies and enough accolades. Baseball had always only been an extra tool to keep me in shape, but the more my senior year dragged me along by my hair, the less interested I was in staying in shape. I was only interested in staying sane, at least long enough to get me to Clemson and my future far, far away from New England. 

I knew I had no business taking the trip to Boston. There was something prickling inside me - something painful and tense that seemed to make its home in my blood and my skin.

"I don't really know if I should be going," I said as I poked at my uneaten eggs that Saturday morning. "If I'm not at 100%, I'm not helping anyone by just being a body out there."

"Dallas," he stated in his ever cordial tone, casually flipping through The Economist. "You know you have a commitment to your team. I'm sure whatever you're feeling will pass. You're healthy and you should be playing, and I think once you are with your teammates and on that field, it'll help."

"Okay, I know but Dad-"

"Dallas." His tone became firm as he set his magazine down. "I don't know what's been going on with you lately, but you need to grow up and accept your responsibilities."

Past all the prickling and all the dizzying nausea, I knew he was right. So I swallowed down all I could of my eggs, two Tylenol, about 36 ounces of water, and my fucking pride before managing to get myself on the team bus Saturday morning.

I sequestered myself to the back, with my forehead pressed against the cold glass of the window and a Third Eye Blind mix playing on my Spotify. I might have been one of the named captains of the team, but these guys weren't mine. Not the way the football team was. It was a two and a half hour drive to Boston, and I spent it alone with my headphones in, trying to trick myself into thinking I was fine. And it worked...mostly.

It was easy enough to avoid Chris during games. We were on opposite ends of the field - quite literally - with me at first base and him at third. We sat on opposite ends of the bench and nobody batted an eye. It was easy to lose myself in the game - the smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of the bat on the ball, and a reminder that I was, in fact, still me.

By the time we stormed through the first few rounds of the tournament, I'd hit 3 home runs and drove in 5 RBIs. I was so focused on taking each game at a time and keeping myself out of my own head, it wasn't until we'd reached the final that I realized I'd have to face some demons of my own creation - namely, Tony D'Marco and the Cannondale School Blue Wave.

Underneath the heat of the stadium lights that clicked on as the sun began to set behind left field, anticipation sizzled in the air as we took the field to warm up before the game. My adrenaline peaked, which was one of the few things that kept me going all day. I quickly glanced around the stands, where my parents were settling back into the seats they'd been staked out in all tournament, a few rows up above our dugout, and my heart sank when Dr. John England came into view. Suddenly it all clicked.

Cannondale was a local Boston school - local enough that it was easy for parents of students not even playing in the tournament to attend, including my father's best friend...whose daughter was one of those students.