Could I Be? (BxB)

Chapter 18

When I get back to my dorm room later, I don't sleep very much. The looks on my teammates faces when they were in the hospital with me, the way they sounded when they talked to me, it's all that's been knocking on my mind. It felt as if they hated me and were actually afraid to be around me.

It's later the same day and I'm heading over to Klein Field for the last game against University of Arizona. With Jack still in the hospital, I feel like a part of me is missing. He and I have been working together ever since I first joined the team and we formed a perfect battery together. I have this underlying feeling that something's going to go wrong tonight.

I walk into the locker room to find it completely empty. I did show up a bit earlier than I needed to, so I decide to take a seat on the bench and text Zane a little. As soon as I send the first text, I hear the door to the locker room open and see Ty walking into the room. "Hey, Ty," I say.

He sees me and I see a similar look from early this morning on his face. He doesn't respond and walks to his locker and turns his back to me. "Ty, what the hell is going on?" I ask.

I don't get a response, so I try to be a bit more forceful. I rise from the bench and grab Ty's shoulder and spin him toward me. "Ty!"

The look on his face takes me by surprise. It's a look of fear. His eyes are wide and I can feel he's shaking a little. "Ty, please tell me what's wrong," I beg.

"P-Please...stay away from me," he quietly replies.

I feel my chest tighten and my throat clenches up out of reflex. "Ty, please just talk to me..."

"I-I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to be around you if that happens again..."

I put two and two together and finally understand what's going on. "Ty, I know what happened last night was scary, but that was a one time thing. It won't happen again..."

"How do you know?!" Ty yells at me. "There could be hundreds of people like that fucking psycho out in the world, and they may do even more damage than the one last night! Jack could've fucking died last night, and you know it was your fault! You just had to be a...a faggot and put his fucking life in danger! And I don't want to be around you if it means I might die!"

I feel my skin break out in goose bumps at the word and the temperature in the room seems to drop below zero. My arms fall to my sides and I turn back to my locker, feeling a sickening pain in my chest. I open my locker and start to dress into my uniform, tossing my clothes in the locker as I slip my uniform on.

With my uniform on, I stuff my bag into my locker and grab my bat and mit and shut the metal door. I look back behind me and see Ty hasn't moved an inch. "I'll spare you the trouble of doing it yourself," I quietly say.

I grab my key and touch the metal tip to the locker door. The room fills with a high-pitched metal screech of my key running over the metal, but I don't hear it. It takes me a minute, but I finish writing what I first saw when I came into this locker room: 'FAG.'

I stuff my key back into my pocket and grab my bat and mit again and silently make my way out of the locker room, giving Ty the space he wants away from the fag. I make my way out into the dugout and set my bat down on the bench and grab a bucket of balls and walk out onto the field.

Stepping off to the side of the field, I walk to the pitcher's practice area and set the bucket by my side. I grab a ball and set myself up for a pitch, placing my left foot on the pitcher's mound and letting the ball fall into my grip. Taking aim at the small square on the wall, I pick up my left foot and bring it down hard, letting my arm circle forward.