I made it, Ma

vii

TW for deprecating thoughts/messages and self harm

To be one of the rookies who have dominated their years, it was still quite surprising when Skayler jumped from a rookie up to Double A. The one thing that she never knew that she would experience was grief. Or homesickness? She missed, missed, so many people from her older teams. The people she missed the most were those from her original high school team. 

It was nights like these, when she sat alone in her room the night before a game, where it hit her the most. She knew she could go to someone, find anyone who could help, but she didn't. Not once did she ever.

So here she was, having an anxiety attack from the thoughts of her previous teams. Her breath came in short rasps, her chest rising and falling faster than her breaths were coming, tears streaming down her face as the thoughts kept swirling around her mind.

Them eventually leaving her.

Forgetting her.

Having never actually liked her, but dealt with her for the team.

Anything bad, she was thinking of. And then she saw it.

He was the one writing them. All of the hate, anything cruel that had come to her over the internet was being written by him. She had never thought that he would have been the one to write them, but it was him.

James was doing it. Leaving all of the messages and comments and tweets and videos. Any way he could get the hate around he was doing it.

...

The next morning she woke up, face puffy and she could already tell that her eyes would be red. When she walked into the bathroom, that was exactly what she found. Washing her face with cold water seemed to have done a bit to help, though she ended up putting ice on her face to shrink the inflammation. 

She sat back down on her bed, hours and hours away from her game, and looked at her phone. Her feet were tucked under her as she wrapped herself tightly in the blanket on her bed before scrolling through Twitter.

A message came up.

She opened it.

'You really are a dumb bitch, aren't you?'

She ignored it.

'I can see you've read this, I'm not stupid'

'Answer me,'

'You pussy, why don't you answer me?'

'You took away my shot at getting to the big leagues, everything is your fault'

'Such a dumb bitch'

Her chest squeezed.

She continued this toxic thing for a good twenty minutes, seeing all of the things on Twitter and comments that she had originally ignored practically glaring at her, being quite obvious to her now.

It took her a while to fix herself properly so that she wouldn't be too noticably upset. It was the only way that she knew that she would be treated as an equal, not someone underneath everyone else. And it mostly worked.

Mostly.

The few times that it didn't work and people could tell she were upset had caused a massive uproar in the hate, forcing her into a hole that she had never known was there. That was the time where she had closed herself off from everyone. Nearly became a different person.

She felt terrible all the same, often finding herself feeling numb when no one was around. When she was on her own with nothing to focus on that would make all of the thoughts that she would shove away come rising back with twice its strength. 

So Skayler forced herself to get ready, even through the onslaught of pain that she felt. She tried to stop crying so her contacts wouldn't fall out, but it wasn't something she was good at. Nothing was ever good enough about her in her eyes, so she would often spend time thinking about it all.

And it always made her feel. Something. Anything, but she wanted to feel something.

And she found the razor. Her brown eyes glistened over with unshed tears as she stared at it, leaning against the sink in her bathroom as she had been trying to get her contacts in. She gripped it in a shaky hand, feeling the cold metal against her skin, rubbing it softly.

Skayler sniffled, hovering it over her left arm, nearest to her elbow. 

She slid it across the smooth skin, blemishing it with the thick blood that beaded down her arm. She felt a shoot of pain come from the cut, her hand shaking as she leaned over the sink and started sobbing.

She cried out, praying that someone, anyone, would hear her and come help. Her chest squeezed with agony, stomach sinking as she heaved and sobbed. She sobbed for the people she let down and cried for those who hadn't been there.

She cried for her father. She'd never known him, he had left when her mother had told him about her being pregnant. He'd never even given it a second thought. Another woman to take over for her mothers position, someone who was younger, richer, more beautiful.

And all he'd done was hurt them all. Something that they all could share together, but that she had somehow known was part of her fault. If it'd just had been James, he would have stayed, but she then her mother found she was pregnant with twins.

God damnit.

Skayler finally had the courage to look up, seeing the eyes of a woman who no longer was strong. Someone who had finally broken and she couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't take being strong and she was sick of trying to prove herself.

But she couldn't stop now. Not now, when she was so close to getting somewhere no woman had ever gone.

If she had to do this broken, she would. But for gods sake, she would not stop trying until she was finally part of one of the 30 Major League teams.

She was nearly there, everything would be fine. And she had to somehow convince herself that it would be.