“You think I’m joking?” He lifts his eyebrows. “Richard over there has been dubbed Nixon, because he’s a tricky motherfucker who gets himself out of situations no one else can. Shotgun is . . . he’s always sitting shotgun beside me, so yeah, that’s what his name is.”

“And you? Why are you Dickman?”

He snorts, his eyes glassy when they meet mine. “Because I’m a dick, man,” he says in a total stoner voice. It draws a chuckle from us, but we all meet each other’s eyes through the darkness. That nickname is like hitting a nail on the head. He’s great, but thank fuck he’s on our side.

“I’ll drink to that,” Shotgun says.

We fall silent as we hear a noise in the distance. It sounds like a gunshot, but we’re so used to the sound in our short time here, none of us even flinch.

“Look, we all gave up something—a lot of things to be here—but the question is: what did you give up that you’ll never get back?” Dickman continues on his depressing roll.

His words have me thinking, wondering, cringing at the decisions I made and how I ended up here.

“Isn’t hope a good thing?” I finally ask. “Why give it up when it’s something we can look forward to?”

“You’re not getting it, Gunner,” Dickman says and takes the bottle from my hand. “Everything has changed. No one there cares about you anymore like you thought they did. Or if they did, it’s now different.” Concern flickers through Shotgun’s eyes. “The easiest thing to do, for your own sanity, is to pick the one thing you loved the most and say goodbye to it. Make it official and let it go. Hell, you might as well write your last letter to whatever or whoever it is, and say goodbye as if you’ll die.”

“I’m not buying it,” I mutter, then get up and leave the pow-wow, a little less steady on my feet.

Regardless of how much I know his comment is, in fact, complete crap, it runs on repeat in my head.

Over and over.

I lie in my bunk, thinking of everything I gave up. The doubts, the what-ifs, the maybe I should’ve fought a little harders, eat away at me.

And then to think of what my mom found after I left for deployment. The voicemails from agents. The interest and belief in my talent.

All wasted now.

“Let it go, Ryan,” I mutter to the darkened ceiling. Tears burn in the back of my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut to force them away.

Maybe Dickman is right. Maybe holding on to hope is only going to cause me more pain. It’s not like the MLB will want me after my four years are up anyway.

Let it go, Ry.