Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 88

My Safe in the Dark

Victoria’s POV

The clinking of silverware against porcelain was the only sound in the dining room.

I stared down at my plate, shifting a piece of potato from one side to the other without actually picking it up.

Beside me, Elijah sat perfectly still, his posture straight as he occasionally ate, though his eyes stayed mostly on me.

Across the table, my parents weren’t doing much better.

My mom kept pouring more water into everyone’s glasses just to have something to do with her hands, while my dad stared out the window into the dark backyard, his brow furrowed in a quiet, grieving sort of stillness.

Ever since we came back from the hospital, the house had been buried in this suffocating quiet.

Caleb was stable, but knowing he was hooked up to machines in a cold room just a few miles away made the food taste like cardboard.

Nobody had the heart to start a conversation, and nobody had the energy to pretend everything was fine.

When my mom finally stood up to clear the table, her movements were slow and heavy. I started to rise to help her, but Elijah’s hand lightly touched my wrist, stopping me.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested, his voice cutting through the silence of the room.

I looked at him, surprised. “Elijah, it’s late.”

“It’s fine,” he said softly, his dark eyes holding mine with a steady insistence. “The fresh air will do you good. Just a quick stroll around the neighborhood.”

My dad looked up from the window, offering a faint, tired nod of approval.

“Go ahead, sweetheart. We’ll take care of the dishes. Get some air.”

I reluctantly grabbed my cardigan from the back of the chair and followed Elijah out the front door.

The moment we stepped onto the gravel driveway, the cool night breeze hit my face, clearing away some of the thick, sterile smell of the hospital that felt like it was still clinging to my skin.

We started walking down the asphalt road, our sneakers crunching quietly against the loose gravel.

It was already late, and the neighborhood was completely dark, the houses on either side sitting like silent shadows behind their front lawns.

15

We didn’t talk Elijah just kept his hands shoved into his pockets, walking at a slow. deliberate pace that matched mine perfectly

We walked for a very long time. We turned past the old oak tree at the corner, walked down the familiar lane where Caleb and I used to race our bicycles as kids, and kept

going until the clouds above finally parted.

The moon emerged, shining so brightly that it cast long, silvery shadows across the empty street ahead of us.

The moonlight illuminated the cracks in the pavement, turning the ordinary suburban road into something quiet and timeless.

By the time we finally circled back, my legs were tired, but my mind hadn’t stopped racing for a single second.

Instead of heading inside, Elijah guided me toward the front porch. We sat down together on the wooden steps, staring out at the empty driveway.

The silence stretched on for hours. It felt like the entire world had gone to sleep, leaving just the two of us sitting in the dark.

The cold air began to nip at my fingers, but I couldn’t bring myself to move.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Caleb lying in that hospital bed, the purple bruises. on his face, the clear tubes running into his hand.

Finally, the dam inside me broke, and the quiet became too much to bear.

“I’m going to really lose it if anything happens to him, Elijah,” I whispered, my voice. cracking on the final word.

The admission felt raw, ripping through my throat before I could stop it.

Before I could even draw another breath, hot tears spilled over my eyelashes, tracking rapidly down my face.

A ragged sob escaped me, and I pulled my knees up to my chest, burying my face in my arms as the misery completely took over.

Elijah didn’t hesitate. He immediately scooted closer across the wooden step, his large arm wrapping securely around my shoulders.

He pulled me firmly into his side, tucking my head directly against the solid warmth of his chest.

I gripped the fabric of his jacket, my fingers clenching into the material as I cried, my shoulders shaking violently against him.

He didn’t try to tell me to stop. He didn’t offer any empty platitudes. He just held me tightly against the dark, letting me fall apart against him.

sobbed for a long while, letting out all the terror, the guilt, and the grief that had been

Safe in the Dark

building up since the moment the phone call broke the peace of my evening

Gradually, my breathing began to slow, the heavy crying tapering off into quiet, uneven sniffling.

When I finally lifted my head, my face felt swollen and hot against the cool night breeze.

Elijah reached up, his thumb gently wiping the dampness from beneath my eyes, his touch incredibly soft against my skin.

We both turned our heads, staring up at the massive, glowing moon hanging high above the tree line.

“Despite everything,” I started, my voice small and raspy as I stared at the sky.

“Despite how much it hurt… how awful the unrequited love was for all those years… still love him so much. He’s my childhood friend, Elijah. We have so many memories together. Every summer, every scraped knee, every stupid mistake we made growing up–he was there for all of it.”

I swallowed hard, a fresh tear escaping and rolling down my cheek.

“Yes, he never looked at me the way I wanted him to. He broke my heart without even knowing it, but I still care about him so much. I never wanted anything bad to happen to him. Never. I just wanted him to be happy, and now… I’m just terrified he won’t make

it.”

I let out a shaky breath, the heavy weight of guilt settling directly into my chest.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it? He called me. He was trying to talk to me while he was driving down that highway. If I hadn’t answered, or if I hadn’t been the person he felt like he had to call when he was stressed, he would have been paying attention to the road. He wouldn’t be in that bed right now.”

“Victoria, stop.” Elijah’s tone turned firm as he slipped a hand beneath my jaw, gently lifting my face until our eyes met.

“Look at me. You are not the reason a truck crossed the line into his lane. It’s not your fault he decided to call you right then, or that things went sideways on that road. You were just the person he reached for when he needed an escape. Don’t turn your love for him into a way to punish yourself.”

I looked into his dark eyes, wanting desperately to believe him, but the darkness in my mind felt too heavy to clear away.

I turned my gaze back up to the vast, black sky, watching the tiny, scattered pinpricks of light surrounding the moon.

Neither of us spoke for what felt like five minutes. The wind sighed through the trees, leaves whispered overhead, and my own thoughts filled the silence.

35

My Sate the Dark

“Look at the sky,” I whispered, breaking the silence. “The darkness is like the earth right now–just this massive, empty void of negativity and sadness. And the moon is up there, trying so hard to be bright, but it’s completely trapped in the blackness. It feels like no matter how much light you try to find, the dark is always bigger. It always swallows everything up in the end. That’s what my life feels like right now. Just a tiny bit of light surrounded by an endless amount of bad things.”

Elijah stayed silent for a beat, his eyes tracking the line of my profile before he looked up at the stars himself.

“You’re looking at it the wrong way, Zhen,” he said, his voice dropping into a soft, quiet tone that made me pause.

I turned my head slightly, looking at him in the dim light.

“The darkness isn’t swallowing the moon,” he continued, his eyes steady as he looked back down at me, a calm, intelligent warmth in his expression.

“The darkness is the only reason we can actually see how bright the moon is. Without the blackness behind it, the light would just fade into nothing. The dark doesn’t win, Victoria. It just gives the light a place to exist. And you aren’t trapped. You’re the one holding the light for everyone else.”

His words hung in the quiet night air, so sweet and certain that my breath hitched in my throat.

I stared at him, the tears blurring my vision once again, but this time, it wasn’t just from grief.

It was from the overwhelming realization of how completely he understood me, how effortlessly he knew exactly how to patch up the broken pieces of my thoughts.

Elijah leaned in closer, his thumb sliding up to trace my cheekbone one more time.

I didn’t move away. I couldn’t. I reached out, my fingers gripping the lapel of his jacket as he tilted my chin upward.

When his lips met mine under the bright moonlight, it felt like the only real thing left in the world.

He kissed me slowly, and the noise in my head gradually disappeared. There was something reassuring in the way he held me, as though he was answering every fear I‘ d been too afraid to voice.

I closed my eyes, a few final, lingering tears slipping down my cheeks and dampening the space between our lips, but I didn’t care.

I held onto him tightly, letting the quiet warmth of his presence pull me completely out

of the dark.

Planing His Funeral

M

Planning His Funeral

Victoria’s POV

Five days after the crash, the awful, heavy quiet that had been stuck in the hospital room finally cleared out.

Caleb was awake.

His eyes were open, clear and sharp again, instantly dissolving the terrible stillness that had kept all of us frozen for nearly a week.

I stood by the right side of the hospital bed, holding a small plastic cup of water with a flexible straw while Genevieve gently adjusted the thin pillow beneath his neck.

For the first time in five days, she wasn’t weeping. Her face looked pale and exhausted, lines of deep fatigue etched around her eyes, but she was smiling.

“Take it easy, sweetheart,” she murmured, brushing a stray lock of dark hair from Caleb s forehead.

She turned her gaze to me, her expression softening with immense gratitude.

“Victoria, I have to step out for a bit to meet with our family attorney down the street- it’s an important meeting that I couldn’t push back. Will you be alright here alone with him for a little while?”

“Of course, Gen,” I said, offering her a small, reassuring nod. “Take your time.”

She squeezed my shoulder as she passed, the heavy wooden door clicking softly into place behind her.

The moment the room fell into a solemn silence, I set the water cup down on the rolling bedside table and turned to Caleb, folding my arms across my chest as I glared down at him.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” I scolded, my voice a mix of raw relief and lingering anger. “Do you have any idea what you put us through? I thought you were dead, Caleb. I sat on that phone and listened to your car crumble into a ditch.”

Caleb shifted slightly beneath the sheets, a small, weak smile tugging at the corner of his chapped lips.

He looked incredibly pale, but the familiar, coy spark was back in his eyes.

“Hey, look at the bright side, Toria. If I had kicked the bucket, you wouldn’t have to listen to me complain about my dad ever again. You’d be completely off the hook.”

“That is not funny!” I barked, moving forward and lightly slapping his bare forearm where it rested on the mattress.

He let out a raspy chuckle, though he winced a fraction as the movement rattled his

173

Planning His Funeral

cracked ribs.

“Ow. Careful, Tori. I’m a fragile patient here.” He extended his uninjured arm toward me. his palm facing upward. “Come here.”

The anger instantly evaporated from my chest. I leaned down, carefully wrapping my arms around his shoulders, mindful of the stiff white brace securing his neck.

I buried my face against his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of him mixed with the sharp hospital antiseptic.

I held onto him tightly, just needing to feel the steady, undeniable rise and fall of his chest to prove to myself that he was truly here, alive and breathing.

“Toria-”

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