Shortly after that, it had all come to a head at a party he had thrown in one of his mom’s vacant house listings. One of the girls at the party had been drugged. Combined with the alcohol she’d consumed, she’d passed out and almost died.
David’s mom was so mad that when the police finally released him, she wouldn’t allow him to come home. He was sent to his uncle’s farm and became his slave labor for the summer, digging fence-post holes by hand. It wasn’t until the end of the summer that David learned his uncle had a post-hole digger attachment for his tractor.
Uncle John had a degree in child psychology. Long story short, he recreated David over the summer. He went from a chubby middle schooler to a taller, physically fit high school freshman as his growth spurt and hard work did their magic. The transformation hadn’t ended there. Uncle John gave David the tools he needed to help him make better decisions and begin to grow up. Part of that was writing down his life goals.
What that did was help David focus on what was important to him and on the long-term, not just what was fun at the moment. Over the last few years, those goals had changed because of circumstances. Having kids would do that.
His current life goals were:
1. Financial Stability
a. Comfortable Life
b. Good Education
2. Physically Fit
3. Solid Moral Foundation
a. Religion / Faith
b. Man of Integrity (Man of my word)
c. No Gossip
d. Think before saying ‘yes.’
e. Learn to say ‘no.’
4. Healthy Sex Life
5. No Regrets (meaning, he did not want to look back on his life and not have done something he could have—within reason)
6. Make a Difference
7. Be a Great Dad
8. Be True to Who I Am
The primary reason he thought his life goals were helping him survive his first round of tests was the Good Education goal. When David made it a priority, he did stuff like being prepared for class by reading ahead. When David didn’t understand something, he utilized his tutor. And most importantly, when the baseball team had wanted to get together Wednesday nights, David had been a good boy and cracked his books instead.
David realized the work ethic he’d developed was a second major reason he was doing okay. That work ethic had been with him from the time he started high school. But it had been further reinforced by David’s experience filming three movies back-to-back-to-back, all on compressed shoot schedules. His average workday had lasted 16 to 18 hours. Even then, one of the critical elements of good acting was the ability to bring the same energy and presence to each scene, be it eight in the morning or three at night.
Developing and then utilizing that ability to focus, regardless of how tired he was and what time of day it was, served him well now. In short, he thought, he’d honed the critical skills to accomplish what he needed to by learning time management and by refining his ability to focus on the task at hand. That was also one of the reasons why he was considered an elite athlete.
Once he’d handed in his last test of the day, in Applied Business Statistics, David had gone home and taken a two-hour power nap. That was so he’d be ready to play baseball that evening.
Before heading to the ball field, David grabbed some food in the cafeteria. He’d sent a text to his crew to let them know his plans. Alex was off doing some soccer activity, but David was happy to see Kirk and Jamie already downstairs.
The fallout from the previous weekend’s excitement had finally settled down. It had been tense at first because Kirk and Jamie were hurt that Lindsey would share information with Veronica. Veronica was equally mad at Lauren, which made her an outcast as far as her group was concerned.
David made it a point to be seen eating with both Lindsey and Lauren. Jamie was the first to get over it and, by mid-week, joined David and the girls for breakfast. Kirk was still mad at Lauren because it was due to their breakup that the whole prank war had begun. Seeing that Jamie had brought him tonight made David happy.
“‘Sup?” David said as he sat down.
“You’re too white to pull that off,” Kirk said.
“How would you know?” David asked.
“Because I’m too white to be cool enough to pull off the head nod and ‘‘Sup?’ as a greeting,” Kirk admitted.
Lindsey and Lauren came to the table tentatively. Kirk glared at both of them for a moment.
“Have a seat. Jamie made me promise to be nice,” he said.
There was a lot of awkward silence, but part of that was due to David. He was still feeling the effects of taking all his tests over the last two days, so he wasn’t his usual talkative self. Once they were done eating, David counted it as a win that they got through it. It was a positive step toward getting everyone back together.
“You look like Mason after a three-night bender,” Andres said when David came in.
“Just sleep-deprived. My professors decided to have exams the last couple of days.”
“You all done?”
“Yep. Took my last one this afternoon,” David shared.
“Catch me after the game, and let me show you the proper way to relax after a bout of tests.”
“Drinking is probably not a good idea,” David said to push back.
He honestly just wanted to play the game and then sleep for twelve hours.
Andres laughed.
“While my prescription usually involves copious amounts of alcohol, I think we can come up with something that will make all that hard work worthwhile. Trust me. I remember my first round of exams in college, and they kicked my butt. Let my years of experience ease your path.”
David decided to not reject Andres out of hand. He would at least wait to hear him out, and then he would go home to bed. First, though, they had a game against Arizona State.
The USC fans had come out in force tonight, and the stadium was nearly full. Andres shared with David that they hadn’t seen that many people for a home game since UCLA, their hated rival, had come to town last year.
By the time the game started, David was ready.
Arizona State jumped ahead with four runs in the second, getting a couple of early walks and then scoring on an error and a three-run double.
USC managed to bat around in the sixth inning, scoring five runs on four hits and taking advantage of a pair of Sun Devil errors. Bill Woodall hit a sacrifice fly to get the Trojans on the scoreboard, and then Scott Martino singled home a second run. Micah Briggs followed with an RBI groundout. David put the Trojans ahead with a two-run single to right field. From there, USC never looked back.
Tucker Frost hit a solo home run in the eighth, and Andres Barrera sacrificed home the game’s final run to make the final score 7–4.
An interesting tidbit was that USC used six different pitchers in the game. Coach Deneau somehow knew when to pull each one before things got out of hand. The win moved the Trojans to 5–3 on the year, while the Sun Devils fell to 2–6.
As soon as they made it into the locker room, David sat down on the seat before his locker. He’d decided to pass on whatever Andres was offering. Andres found him before he had to go talk to the press.
“I was wondering if...” was all David got out before he was interrupted.
“No. You don’t want to hurt yourself by having any kind of complicated thoughts after studying so hard. Plus, you have an obligation to the team. I’m warning you, if you don’t come through for them, they are going to be upset,” Andres said seriously.