Summer Swing (23 page)

“
Hm
, it’s probably not an option, either,” he barely smile
d back. “Although it has been
cheaper to live up here this summer.”

“What are you studying i
n school? If you were to get a
degree, what would it be in?”

“Uh,
I don’t know.”

“
Well
what are you shooting for? What would you like to do
with your education
?”

He didn’t answer at first, but while the waitress brought our lunch, I continued to wait for his reply.
Finally he said, “I’m not really sure if it would work out, so I’m not
even
gonna think about
it
.”

“Think about what? If there’s a goal you have in mind then you probably shouldn’t put off working towards it.
Thinking about
it is half the battle.”

He looked at me with a smile and then chuckled. “Maybe your morning show should guest you as an inspirational speaker.”

“Maybe so. Would you take my advice if I gave it?”

“Maybe.”

We spent a minute eating our lunch, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Tyse’s background and what it meant for his future. Despite his tough appearance, I felt a very peaceful feeling whenever I was with him. He seemed to put me at ease because there were no pretenses, no awkward vibes between us. He was just a guy with a different personal history than me, and I felt the need to help him out
because we had become friends
.

“So tell me about your career goal,” I said after a while. “What is it that Tyse Morgan would like to do with his life?”

He slightly shook his head with a smile, implying that he didn’t want to share.

“Is it
baseball
?” I asked. “Do you want to play in the majors? It kind of seems to be a goal for a lot of guys, so it’s not that surprising. And a business degree
or something would
probably
be
a
great thing to have for it.
”

“Uh, probably not an option for me.”

“How come?”

He shrugged. “I just don’t have the odds in my favor.”

“What kind of odds? Because I think you’re good enough to work your way there, Tyse.”

He took a drink of water and then sat back a little in
his
seat
. He crossed his arms
over
his chest and sighed, and at first I thought he was
annoyed
with me. But he turned his attention to the window again, maybe to avoid looking at me.

“I have a criminal background, Ellie. Scouts don’t seem to be too thrilled with the fact that I’ve served time.” He finally looked at me again and leaned onto the table. “I’ve spent fourteen months behind bars, which is why I’m kind of
behind
on
the whole college thing.”

I wasn’t surprised with the news because I already knew, but I was surprised that he’d actually shared it with me. I took a drink of water to gather my thoughts, but I didn’t really know what else to say except, “Why?”

“Why did I serve time? Well I guess I could pad the story for a while, but I’ll just get to the bottom line: I killed someone.”

Chapter Thirteen

My heart almost stopped, and just hearing him say that made me lose my appetite. I put down my fork and took a silent breath
of
air.

“I’m sure there’s more to
it than just, ‘I killed someone
,
’
” I said a bit haughtily. I guess it was just the fact that I couldn’t believe he was actually capable of such a thing.

He shrugged. “Of course there’s more to it. There’s the version that the courts came up with, and then there’s the truth. But the bottom line is that it really did happen, I got convicted of involuntary mansl
aughter, and got slapped with an eighteen-
month sentence.”

“Involuntary manslaughter is not the same as just going out and killing someone, Tyse.
It
means that someone got killed unintentionally because of something you did.”

“
Well it started out that way, but eventually it became
intentional
.”

I wasn’t sure how long he was going to be so vague, but I figured that since we were on the
subject
, and he had brought it
up, I wanted him to tell me more
.

“So tell me the story.”

He sighed. “Don’t you have to get back to work? See, this is why I didn’t want to bring up the whole ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ deal. My case is a little different, so I can’t just answer the simple questions. I suppose I could just lie, and that would probably be easier, but…” He sighed again and looked me in the eyes. “I can’t lie to you, Ellie. I just… I am who I am, and there’s no getting around that. I wouldn’t even know who else to be.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just sat there for almost a minute.
I glanced out the window when he did, and when he looked at me again
,
I returned the attention
.

“You know Nate, right?” he began. “The guy that brought me up here?”

I nodded.

“I’ll spare you the details of how I became friends with Nate because
that’s a story in and of itself
, but he took me in when I was really struggling, and he helped me out a lot. But Nate has a little sister. Lindsey. She’s pretty much the only family Nate has, so they’ve always been really close. Anyway, one night Nate and I and a couple of other guys are just hanging out at someone’s house, playing pool and stuff. N
ate gets a call from his sister
and she’s in near hysterics, crying about some guy. Nate finally gets her to calm down and
finds
out she’d been raped by
a
guy
at a party
. Of course that’s all it took to set Nate off, so he takes off to go get his little sister. But I decided that I should probably go with him, to keep him under control. It was just one bad choice after another, and my initial response of letting the
cops
handle it was shot down pretty quickly because Nate wanted to handle it himself. Lindsey didn’t want
the police involved, either.

“So we get to this house— And you’ve seen Nate, right? Imagine that barreling into your house full of fury. Most of the people scattered, but Nate only had one person on his mind to find, so when he does, all hell breaks loose. Lindsey had been sitting on the curb when we got there, so I just sat there with her at first. But after hearing this massive brawl going on inside the house—yelling and things breaking—I was afraid it was gonna get out of control so I wanted to get Nate out of there. I didn’t know what had happened to
Nate
at the time, but this guy that he went there for, Dallas Flynn, comes busting out the front door, yelling and swearing at Lindsey, and calling her all kinds of names. I had to stop him from even getting close to her, so we ended up fighting out on the front lawn. He pulled a knife on me and…” He slightly shrugged. “I
ended up killing
him. And that’s when the police showed up.”

I was speechless
at first
, trying to take in the information and make sense of it. “You got arrested for killing someone out of self-defense? –With a knife that
he
came at
you
with? While you were trying to keep someone else safe?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well
according to the courts
,
we went there looking to kill the guy. Nate ha
d been beaten unconscious
by four guys that were inside the house, but my fight with Flynn was the only
thing that the police focused on that night because he died. And I didn’t kill him with the knife; he died when his head hit the sidewalk after the last time I hit him.”

I scoffed. “What about Lindsey? Didn’t what happened to her matter?”

He shook his head. “
What happened to Lindsey wasn’t even a part of the investigation because they claimed she was Dallas Flynn’s girlfriend—which
I’m
pretty sure was
true. She’d known him for a few weeks, and I’d go as far as to say they were even sleeping together.
I think they had an argument and she just…I don’t know, tried to get back at him.
But the bottom line is that someone died that nig
ht, and someone else had to be responsible
for it.

“Anyways,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t really want to talk about this anymore. I can’t pursue a baseball career because no one will even look at me twice after seeing that I’ve served time.
Nobody wants to deal with that.
”

“Oh, like you’re the only one, Tyse,” I said with a sarcastic chuckle. “I wonder what the percentage of athletes that have been convicted of crimes really is.”

“Uh, killing someone isn’t exactly the same as drug charges or
assault.”

I looked at him sternly. “Don’t even c
ompare yourself to other people
. For you, a
nything is possible.”

“Well…thanks for the confidence. And I’m working on it. I’m not playing at a big university where the scouts hang out, but I’m doing what I can right now to get good grades and make it there somehow. We’ll see.”

I considered that for a moment and I was impressed that he was trying so hard to make something of himself. It made me care about his future even more, and I wished only good things for him. Finally I said, “
I’m going to give you some advice
right
now.
Will you
take it?”

He
smiled
. “If you tell me what it is first, then I’ll consider it.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way this time. You either agree to it first or you don’t
hear
it.”

“How is that fair?”

“Well that depends on how badly you want to hear my advice.”

“Ooh, nice play. If I don’t agree to it
,
then I don’t care enough to listen to you.”

I smiled my satisfaction. “Yep, so it’s your choice.”

He sighed. “Yes, Ellie, please make me keep a promise that I might regret for the rest of my life.”

I laughed
, but I was thoroughly relieved that he had actually agreed to it. “Okay, so my advice is this: just keep playing baseball, Tyse. Find a way to stay in college
if you can
, and keep playing. If it’s something you really enjoy, just keep playing. If there’s a way to try out for a team, then just do it. When it comes to a point where playing isn’t fun anymore, and working your way onto a team isn’t making you happy, then you’ll know it’s time to stop. But as long as you’re able to play and you enjoy it, just keep playing.”

He’d been focused on me as I was speaking, but then his eyes drifted to the window again. “You might need to write that down for me,” he eventually said, returning his eyes to mine. “If you expect me take your advice
,
I’ll need a written reminder. And maybe
a phone call
every so often. Or a personal visit when you need to kick my
ass
for real instead of threaten
to
.”

That made me smile.

“And
if
I make the big paycheck in the
majors
, I’ll buy you your own broadcasting station.”

“Awesome.
I was gonna ask, but you know…
”

It was his turn to smile. “You’re full of soul, aren’t you Ellie Abbot
t
.”

Hearing that made me remember something from that morning. “Yeah, I like your Billy Joel music, by the way. And that’s a pretty killer tape player you got going on in that truck.”

“You like that? Pretty vintage, huh. And yeah, Billy makes me feel good. And that song is about you, by the way.
I’m dubbing that
my theme song for you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You’re a pretty soulful lady, you know.
He must have known someone just like you.
”

I shrugged casually. “What can I
say.
We must be a dime a dozen.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he chuckled.

“Actually I just follow these tips online of how to be a soulful person. It must be working wonders. There’s a checklist, and I think I’m almost to the end of it. I might have to move on to something else, like how to be
outrageously funny, or ten steps to better self-esteem. No, actually I need, like, a dummy’s guide to baseball or something.
”