Chapter 20: Out in the World

Author's Note: Well, I'm back. I know it's been a really long time but I replayed the game recently and it still left me in an emotional puddle despite knowing everything that was going to happen. So I'm going to resume and we'll see how it goes from there. The story still takes place in 2018, cause these characters don't deserve to be put through 2020. I don't know if any of the folks who were following this are still reading, but I encourage any interested newcomers to start from the beginning. Thanks!

Monika was impressed at how much busier everything was during the warmer months. After being cooped up for a long winter, the family was suddenly doing all sorts of activities. The minivan pulled into a school parking lot that evening for an event called "Family Fun Night." As they walked onto the school fields, Andrew and Lucas sprinted ahead while Rob lagged behind with his cane.

She realized she hadn't yet seen a crowd this big since she arrived in a different field months ago.

The boys had found a portion of the field and were waiting, not particularly patiently, for their parents to catch up. Kate was carrying a small plastic baseball bat and a little bucket of whiffle balls. The actual baseball field at the school was already full of older kids, so the boys had wisely decided to find another spot.

"They are so excited for this," Kate said with a smile.

"I didn't realize they were so into baseball," Monica replied.

"It's mostly Andrew. Lucas plays along but Andrew waits all year for this."

Sure enough, Andrew had already grabbed his little bat and was standing at the particular spot he had decided was home plate, doing his best to adopt the stance of the players he liked to watch on TV this time of year. Rob stood several feet away with the whiffle balls in his hand, his bandaged knee peeking out from beneath his shorts. Still holding the cane in one hand, he threw a gentle underhanded pitch towards his son.

Andrew swung his bat in a wide arc and sent the ball flying into the air, a display of strength Monika never would have expected from the little boy who had an asthma attack on her second night at their home.

He followed that hit by doing his best impression of a sports announcer. "It is high! It is far! It is gone!"

Everyone took note of Monika's shocked expression. "How is he so good?!"

"He didn't get it from me, that's for sure," Rob said. "I don't have an athletic bone in my body. His grandfather's a huge baseball fan and they basically do drills at their house."

Lucas was playing the role of outfielder and dutifully retrieved the ball and returned it to his father. Andrew swung at every pitch thrown his way, regardless of whether it made sense to (and Rob was hardly the best pitcher). After about a dozen pitches, with more hits than misses, he hit one straight down the middle that struck Rob directly on the knee.

Monika gasped and covered her mouth with both hands as Kate ran over. Thankfully, it was the right knee and not the damaged left one.

"I'll pitch now," Kate said. "If we lose your other knee, we're really in trouble."

Rob was chuckling as he left their makeshift field and gently sat down on the grass. Monika had noticed something different about him in the last few weeks. You wouldn't think a traumatic near-death experience would put someone in a better mood, but that seemed to be what had happened. It was even more surprising given the news they had gotten earlier in the week.

Rob and Kate had gone to a doctor for the first time since the accident. While he had said Rob would be able to walk normally after a few more weeks, the left knee was likely permanently damaged. Because of the way the bones had been pressed up against each other, he was almost certainly going to begin showing symptoms of arthritis within a decade. Physical therapy could potentially mitigate that, but it was hard to say for sure.

Monika had to admit that for all her eagerness to leave her world and join this one, the sheer unpredictability of it was frightening .All of this because of one moment on the road where two cars were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The police had determined the other driver at fault. Despite the impact this person had on all their lives, Rob knew almost nothing about him. He had been delirious right after the collision and didn't even remember seeing the other driver. When all the insurance details were finally hashed out, the family had gotten a small amount of money that would go towards a new car…whenever they decided to get one. Rob seemed in no hurry to get back behind the wheel.

"Hi, Monika!" The voice startled her. She turned around to see Nicole, the babysitter who had rushed over on short notice the night of the accident.

"Oh, hi."

"You were pretty deep in thought, huh?"

"I guess I was," Monika said. "Sorry about that."

"I'm glad I found you," Nicole said. "I was supposed to meet a friend here, but she bailed so now I've been wandering around by myself. Do you want to go get some food?"

Monika glanced towards the rest of the family.

"Go ahead," Kate smiled. "It's fine."

As the two of them walked off, she took another lingering look at Rob. He was just sitting on the grass looking content. Monika felt a flush of embarrassment as she realized she had been obsessing more about the accident than he had. Despite the depression and everything else, Rob seemed to have accepted the reality of his injury and moved on. Why was she still so anxious?

"Nicole, I…I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

She looked confused. "For what?"

"For how I acted on the night of the accident. That was the first time we met and I was hysterical."

"You don't have to apologize," Nicole said. "It was scary. I'm just glad I could help a little bit."

"You helped a lot," Monika replied quickly. "If I had to stay in the house and try to keep the boys under control all night, I would have lost my mind. It's just…"

Her voice trailed off. She wasn't sure how to articulate these feelings.

Nicole tried to reassure her. "He seems okay, aside from the cane."

As her gaze lingered, Monika noticed someone she didn't recognize approach Rob and Kate. Two small children rushed over to the twins to join their baseball game. Their father was a man about Rob's age with long hair and a right arm with so many tattoos she briefly thought it was a long-sleeved shirt. The two men shook hands and began to chat, though Monika couldn't hear what exactly they were saying. Kate's expression was hard to read. It seemed like this might not be her favorite person.

Rob held up his cane and made a strange gesture towards it. The other man held the cane for a few moments, looked it over from all sides and then gave it back.

"So can we get some food?" Nicole asked, breaking her concentration. "I'm really hungry."

"Yeah," Monika said. "Sorry for spacing out."

The two of them made their way to the food trucks and Monika didn't know what to make of what people were eating. There was something that looked like a floppy pizza with nothing on it but the tomato sauce. Too embarrassed to ask Nicole what it was, she looked around and saw the words "fried dough" on a banner above the truck. Nice and direct, she thought.

Nicole got herself something called a "pulled pork" sandwich. Monika didn't know how it differed from regular pork, but was still pretty sure it was meat. She kept her disapproval to herself since she still didn't know Nicole that well. After browsing all the different food offerings, she opted for the mozzarella sticks.

"Oh my god, this is so good!"

Nicole laughed. "I know, right?"

After eating, the pair wandered to something that looked like an obstacle course but was made out of some kind of unstable terrain. Children and teens were bouncing up and down as they traversed it. There was a shrill noise emanating from somewhere and eventually Monika deduced that this large toy was being inflated with air.

"Can we go on this?" she asked. "Or are we too big?"

"We'll be fine!" Nicole answered cheerfully. "Come on!"

They kicked off their sandals and began to climb the inflated mountain thing. Monika wasn't used to the sensation and fell forward, landing flat on her face. It was a soft surface so it didn't hurt and eventually she had an idea of how to move. By the time she made it to the other side of the float, she found herself laughing.

The girls ran around to several different inflatables and spent the next hour bouncing, laughing and generally having a great time until Nicole's phone rang. She looked at it to see who was calling and grimaced. After hesitating for a moment, she answered.

Monika heard the angry voice right through the phone. "Why are you ignoring my texts?!"

"I wasn't looking at my phone!" Nicole yelled back. She took a few steps away and Monika could no longer hear both sides of the conversation.

"Why?"

"But it's not even dark out!"

"I just wanted to have fun!"

"Fine, fine." She hung up.

All of the happiness and excitement she felt had clearly drained away. "I'm sorry. I have to go home now."

"Are…are you okay?"

"I guess," Nicole said. "My dad wants me home. I…I really had a good time. Thanks."

Before Monika could say any more, Nicole was walking swiftly toward the parking lot. What had just happened? She found herself reflecting briefly on Rob's accident, in the sense that it was another reminder of how fleeting everything seemed to be in this world. When she was inside the game, she had lamented the reality that nothing would ever really change there. Now she wondered if she had been foolish for wanting to leave that behind.

As she walked slowly back to the boys' improvised baseball field, they seemed to cleaning up and getting ready to go. Rob turned to her and smiled."

"Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah," she said quietly. "Rob, have you met Nicole's parents?"

He thought that over for a moment. "I don't believe I have. Are they here?"

She shook her head. "Just curious."

Monika followed the family (her family, she tried reminding herself to lift her mood), but was surprised when another person stopped them in the parking lot. A tall blonde who looked about ten years older than Rob and Kate threw her arms around him while he stood looking uneasy.

"Hi Rob!" she said cheerfully. She greeted Kate with far less enthusiasm and the feeling seemed to be mutual. The look on her face now was worse than anything Monika had seen in her early days at their house. Whoever this person was, she had caused trouble in the past.

"Hi Colleen," Rob said. After some awkward small talk, they finally got in the car and drove home. Once they were back and everyone went about their business, Monika rushed to find Kate.

"Who was that lady in the parking lot?" she asked. "I thought you were going to murder her!"

"If only," Kate said. "Well, I guess I shouldn't say that since I'm a pastor. Colleen is a major reason why I was hard on you when you first got here."

Monika hadn't expected that. "Really? But I was pretty out of line sometimes."

"Maybe, but it pushed my buttons because of what happened before. She was a friend Rob made back when he was at the newspaper. They had a lot in common and got close really quickly."

Monika gasped. "He didn't…"

"No," Kate said. "It wasn't like that. I realized later that he probably saw her as a sort of mother figure, since she's a good deal older than him and he has a bit of a strained relationship with his real mother. One day she told him that she loved him and Rob said he loved her back. And he did! But not in way she was thinking of. His self-esteem is so low that he never even considered the possibility."

Monika nodded. That definitely sounded like him.

"Things got ugly after that," Kate continued. "She was calling him all the time, showing up here looking for him. When he told me the whole story, I didn't react well. I was afraid of losing him and I was angry that he had been so careless. Eventually, he had to have a difficult talk with her about the misunderstanding and it was hard for everyone involved. Needless to say, it was hard for them to still be friends after that whole thing.

Today was the first time we had seen her in years."

A lot of what she had observed in the time she had been living there suddenly made more sense. She wished Rob had told her this story earlier but it probably wasn't something he wanted to reminisce about.

"Rob definitely learned to be more careful with his affection," Kate said. "It's kind of sad that he took that away from the whole thing, but I can understand why."

"He's never said that he loves me," Monika said. "In case you were worried."

Kate laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's not the same…and he does love you. You know that, right?"

Monika hesitated. "I…I think so."

She heard footsteps nearby. Had Rob been listening?

"Oh! Who was the other person? The guy with the tattoos?"

"That was Jamie," Kate said. "A lot less troublesome than Colleen, although he does skeeve me out just a bit. I don't say anything to Rob, because Jamie is really the only friend Rob has made in the school community. He has kids only a year older than Andrew and Lucas."

Satisfied, Monika went downstairs to her room for a while. Once the boys had been put to bed, she came upstairs with a book and read on the couch as the sky darkened outside. The quiet was interrupted by another phone call. Kate answered it, listened for a moment and then went out the front door.

"What was that about?" Monika asked.

"Someone from her church is probably having some sort of crisis," Rob said. "She takes those calls outside for the sake of their privacy."

"Even when it's cold?"

Rob chuckled. "Nah, when it's cold she tries to go downstairs. She could be gone for a while. I'm going to get ready for bed."

He began to get up off the couch but when the cane hit the floor, it slid unexpectedly. Monika rushed and caught Rob before he could fall too far.

"Good reflexes," he said as she helped him to his feet.

"What happened there?"

"That cane is cheap," he answered while they made their way to the bedroom. "I guess that's what happens when you get it at a grocery store. I could tell it was getting worn, so I just asked a friend of mine to make a new one."

"That guy at the park?" Monika asked. "He's going to make you a cane?"

"Yeah," Rob said. "He's got this whole old-fashioned forge out in his garage. He makes all sorts of medieval-style weapons that people pay big bucks for. A cane should be no problem."

"So he's a blacksmith?" she laughed. "That's so weird, it's like some fantasy game."

"I've been there a few times, it's really cool."

Eventually, they got to the bed. It seemed like the near miss had taken a lot out of Rob as he made himself comfortable. Monika went to get her book and sat down next to him, leaning against the bed frame and reading as he drifted off to sleep. Before he dozed off, he briefly spoke to her.

"I love you, Monika."

"Wait, what?" But it was too late for him to say anything more. He was fast asleep. Monika shook her head in disbelief. How long had she waited to hear him say that? And now he had just let it slip while falling asleep? He must have overheard the conversation with Kate, but Monika wasn't complaining. He wouldn't have said that if he didn't mean it.

She chuckled a bit before kissing his cheek. "I love you too." With that, she made her way back downstairs to the basement.