"High above the lights of the batting cages, the stars gleamed. My tears caused them to streak in my vision, making it seem as though they were all falling at once. Something I could relate to." Perfectly Ernest, E.J. Wesley
From a distance, Ernie’s life seems perfect—he’s a star college baseball player adored by the student body and coveted by professional teams. Up close, he is a disaster. Since the death of his mother, he’s been trapped by a promise he made and forced to live her dream instead of his own. He reaches his breaking point in the biggest game of his young career and sets off a chain of events that will either define or destroy the rest of his life.
Ernie grudgingly joins a quirky campus counseling group that empowers him to heal himself and right his wrongs. By testing old friendships, forging unlikely new ones, and exploring an exciting romance, he begins to unravel the jumbled knot his tangled inner-psyche has become. But old rivals, mental illness, and the risk of a forbidden relationship soon threaten his progress. Will Ernie's new direction and friends be his salvation, or confirmation that he is forever doomed by his imperfections?
Perfectly Ernest is an adult contemporary novel with romantic elements by author E.J. Wesley. Ernest offers a smart, funny, uplifting, and poignant perspective of one person's difficult transition into adulthood. It is a story about overcoming the demons of mental illness and struggling with the profound burden of expectations—both real and imagined.
A tale of friendship, hope, and love. READ THE FIRST CHAPTER BELOW.
Ernie grudgingly joins a quirky campus counseling group that empowers him to heal himself and right his wrongs. By testing old friendships, forging unlikely new ones, and exploring an exciting romance, he begins to unravel the jumbled knot his tangled inner-psyche has become. But old rivals, mental illness, and the risk of a forbidden relationship soon threaten his progress. Will Ernie's new direction and friends be his salvation, or confirmation that he is forever doomed by his imperfections?
Perfectly Ernest is an adult contemporary novel with romantic elements by author E.J. Wesley. Ernest offers a smart, funny, uplifting, and poignant perspective of one person's difficult transition into adulthood. It is a story about overcoming the demons of mental illness and struggling with the profound burden of expectations—both real and imagined.
A tale of friendship, hope, and love. READ THE FIRST CHAPTER BELOW.
*The author will donate 10% of the annual proceeds of this book to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading awareness and support for those who suffer from mental illness.
Praise
“EJ Wesley has written a modern day Breakfast Club.”
"E.J. tells a college love story with a real life feel. He has created a flawed and pitiful character who quickly becomes a rallying point for all the other characters of the story. Ernie is the sort of boy I could easily imagine myself being friends with in college and cheered on through life in general, but certainly the story."
"EJ's tale of a college baseball star and the demons he fights is powerful and captivating. Once you're involved in Ernest's world, you are invested for the ride. Fans of this genre will say EJ hit it out of the park!"
"Great cast of characters. Lots of fun humor. Romance. Win! Definitely recommend!"
"This is not so much a "coming of age" story, as it is a "coming of self." I loved reading it"
"It is an inspirational, heartwarming story in which any reader is likely to get lost."
"This story made me laugh and cry and it was so great to read something sweet and awesome from a guy."
“Perfectly Ernest offers an emotionally genuine tour through depression, friendship, and love.”
“It's wonderful when a story's voice is so strong as to drag you into someone's head so it feels natural. I devoured Perfectly Ernest.”
“…captured my heart from page one.”
"...heart & soul woven throughout the pages."
Chapter One
I stepped off the pitching rubber and ground my cleats into the dirt mound like it was the face of my worst enemy. But all I needed was a good mirror to find the real bad guy.
The tangy smell of fresh-cut grass mingled with the rich odors of hot, buttered popcorn and moist, tilled earth drifted on a subtle breeze. Sunlight, just strong enough to warm my face but not make me sweat, filtered down between a few lonely clouds. The first insects of spring buzzed around my ears. Although I’d blocked most of the distractions to a distant part of my mind, the chant of my name coming from the crowd in increasingly insistent, pulsing waves of sound created a different kind of buzzing in my stomach.
My closest friends—both eager and nervous—cheered for me, and I recalled a line from a Robert Frost poem I’d read before the game:
Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all.
This was a perfect moment, on a perfect day. Yet, I knew the dark cloud that had followed me most of my life was still there, waiting to unleash one hell of a storm.
I slapped my mitt against my thigh. Fuck me.
My concentration slipped. The excited hum of the stadium turned into a calamity of voices.
I crammed the baseball back into my mitt, glared at the sky, and waited for the pointless intervention. My mind was made up. This would be my moment of inglorious failure, my final act of defiance. I felt relieved.
“Time!” The umpire’s bellow cut through the racket.
Junkyard would be the first one out to see what the hell was going on inside my head. Every good catcher was Freud to his pitcher’s crazy, and Junk was a damn good catcher.
When I finally lowered my gaze, Junk trotted toward me in that awkward badger-like gait only catchers could master. Oddly enough, Junkyard kind of looked like a badger, too. He had compact, bowed limbs and a constant, fierce sneer plastered on his face. With his gear on, I wagered he was as wide as he was tall. He also sported a bleached yellow faux-hawk—a terrible look for a man as consumed with courting the opposite sex as Junk was. But Junk didn’t give a shit, and that was why we got along.
Junk stopped at what I was sure he deemed a safe, manly distance away from me. He spat a few sunflower seeds onto the mound. I could feel his earthy, brown eyes searching my face for clues.
“Hawk,” he said at last.
My nickname sounded as familiar to my ears as my own name. I touched the bill of my cap in reply. He smiled, revealing the gap between his two front teeth I’d gotten so accustomed to seeing over the years.
“You’re thinking about all the tang we’re going to get back at school when they hear we’re going to the championship, right?”
I took off my hat and brushed away some imaginary sweat on my forehead with the back of my glove. The leather was velvety smooth from constant use. The hide was a thicker version of my own skin, something I’d always envied.
“Not exactly,” I said.
He nodded as if he could read my mind. I doubted he’d be so hopeful if he could. The pages in my head were filled with dark deeds and wicked thoughts. I’d once called my dying mother a bitch because she didn’t let me get a letter jacket like the rest of the guys on the team had. Granted, sixteen year-old me hadn’t known how expensive chemo was, but I wasn’t expecting a get out of bad luck free pass from the karma police to show in my inbox anytime soon.
“You’re nervous, I get that. You’re running a perfect game—that’d make any pitcher sack-up. We’re up one to nothing, and all you need to do is throw two strikes to get us to the show.” He slapped me on the shoulder and shifted his weight from foot to foot in a near-prance. “The fucking show, Ernie.”
I offered him a sly smile. “Guess it’s a pretty big deal, huh?”
He laughed and punched me on the arm. The entire stadium would’ve died to know what we were talking about. Truthfully, that was one of the best-kept secrets in all of baseball. A catcher-pitcher conference rarely had a damn thing to do with the game. The act was more of a mental ballet instigated by the catcher. The two personalities would move in a highly choreographed routine to elicit a desired look or feeling from the pitcher.
Confidence. Calm. Determination. That was what a catcher wanted to see from his pitcher before he went back behind the plate. If he didn’t, the coach usually came out to yank the pitcher. Most catchers thought pitchers weren’t aware of this game of calm-you-down, but Junk knew that I knew better. He’d always said that was why I was such a great pitcher. I had insight. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if Junk even knew what the word meant.
“A pretty big deal? A big deal was you convincing Police Chief Janski to let us take his twin daughters to senior prom. A big deal is what I did with Molly Janski in the bed of my pickup truck after prom. No my friend, this is nut-busting, change-your-life epic-balls. Two dudes from Rat’s Ass Farming Town, Illinois, are about to go to Nebraska for the championship series. And you’re doing it with a perfect game. Holy shit, Ernie. The national sports reporters are going to be so far up your ass, you’ll need surgery and a comfy pillow
to get rid of ‘em.”
This time I laughed. There wasn’t any heart in the sound, though. Heart took courage. Nothing courageous about going back on the one promise I’d ever made to the only person I was sure loved me. But I needed out of this … this endless cycle of expectations I could never live up to. I’d never been able to find a clear path out of my personal fog. Until today.
“You better get back to home plate before the Walrus comes out,” I said.
I glanced at the dugout. The Walrus, or Coach Bo to his face, was definitely glaring at us. The bushy eyebrow and mustache duo were in full scowl mode. I could almost see his thick neck bulging from here. Although I was counting on his hatred for me to usher my exit from the team, and school, I didn’t need it right this second.
Junk slid his catcher’s mask down. He turned to leave, but paused to look over his shoulder at me. “You good, Ernie?”
“I’m perfect,” I said, my throat so tight the words barely slid out at all.
Leaning over to pick up the rosin bag, I glanced up in enough time to see Junk give the dugout the thumbs up on his way back to home plate.
I’m so sorry, buddy. Mom might have understood that college had been her dream, not mine. She might’ve even convinced me the scuttling of my college baseball career wasn’t my fault. Would Junk understand why I couldn’t simply quit instead of taking his dreams, and the dreams of the entire team, down with me like the goddamn Titanic? Somehow, I doubted it.
I took my spot back on the pitching rubber. The crowd roared as the ump waved the batter over. “Play ball.”
The other team hadn’t gotten within the same zip code of my split-finger fastball all day. I could sympathize with them. It couldn’t be easy hitting something the size of a fist with a bat when it was flying ninety miles-per-hour from sixty feet away. The task became all that much more difficult when trying to hit a splitter that could drop from chest-height to hitting the ground in the span of a second.
The right call finally came, and I nodded. I brought my arms around in front of me again, covering my ball hand with the mitt. I found the right ball seams with my forefingers and thumb—an almost unconscious act. I focused on the spot where I wanted the ball to end up, which was just behind the plate in the dirt and into Junk’s waiting, oversized catcher’s glove.
The ambient sound in the stadium went away, replaced by my pulse thundering in my ears. I brought my arms high above my head in an arch, contorting my legs in a visually awkward but physically comfortable pretzel. My jaw locked, making my teeth creak as I drew all of the strength my abdomen and legs would offer. I lunged, unleashing the pitch.
The crowd erupted. My stomach tightened. I’d gotten two strikes, so I’d at least put up the front of doing this thing for real. Wouldn’t do to get pulled from the game before I completed my mission.
Arms laced behind my back, I rolled the baseball in my non-gloved hand. There were one hundred and eight red double stitches on the ball, and I touched them all before every pitch. Almost all baseball players have their superstitions, and that was mine. If I missed one, I started over, but I rarely ever missed anything unless I wanted to.
I watched Junk for my pitch. He flashed his fingers in between his legs, giving me a couple of bullshit calls to start, in case the other team was stealing signs. I was pretty sure one of them was meant to be something vulgar. In the end, I shrugged them both off. The splitter. That was the only pitch to call in this scenario, and we both knew it.
“Strike two!”
I held up my glove to receive Junk’s return pitch. With the ball securely in my mitt, I scanned the small-but-full stadium. Nameless faces cheered and jeered at me. All they could see was a guy who was damned good at baseball. I’m sure they imagined someone who never screwed anything up, someone with the talent to do things they’d only dreamed about. They probably all wanted to be perfect me, in this perfect moment, and experience the perfect ecstasy of the inevitable triumph.
No, life wasn’t perfect, and I’d be damned if I’d ever get tricked into believing that lie again. Face it Ernie, you just can’t have nice things.
I waved off Junk’s splitter sign. He paused, and I knew he was suspicious. Another moment, and he gave the sign for a high fastball. I nodded. My control had been flawless all afternoon. I think I could have thrown a fastball into a coffee can at a hundred feet. I was that locked in. But this one wasn’t going into a coffee can…
I went through my windup, and flung the ball with all the anger and venom I could muster. I closed my eyes and waited for what felt like an eternity. A split-second later there was a soft-thud followed by the sound of the batter screaming in agony. The crowd gasped.
I’d found my mark.
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