Cannonball Confessions

The baseball cap sat backwards on my head like a lie I kept telling myself. Everyone expected me to love baseball — my dad's varsity jacket still hung in the hall, a ghost of glory days I never asked for. But Friday nights? I'd rather be anywhere but right field, missing catches on purpose just to escape.

That's where the pool came in.

Not the community one where Coach Miller's daughter did laps with scary intensity. I'm talking about the old above-ground pool in Maya's backyard, the one her dad refused to fill after the divorce. Empty, it was a rusted disappointment. But last summer?

We filled it with hose water and stargazed from the bottom, mosquito bites on our shoulders like tiny receipts for a night we couldn't afford.

Maya, who'd been running track since seventh grade and could literally outrun her problems. Me, still figuring out why baseball felt like wearing someone else's shoes.

"You ever think about quitting?" she asked once, floating in a deflated raft as our dog, Barnaby — my parents' anniversary surprise that became my emotional support creature — snored between us.

I didn't answer. But the question stuck like the smell of chlorine on my skin long after I'd gone home.

Then came the pool party. The one everyone would be at. The one where I finally had to choose between the version of me everyone knew and the one I was actually becoming.

Maya showed up in a tie-dye bikini that screamed she didn't care what people thought. Meanwhile, I stood by the snack table in swim trunks that were technically basketball shorts, clutching a soda like it might save me.

"Quit the team," she said, sliding up beside me. Water dripped from her hair onto my shoulder. "I dare you."

Barnaby chose that moment to escape from the side gate, tearing through the party like the furry chaos machine he was.

I took off running.

Through groups of upperclassmen, past the stereo bumping something I didn't recognize, around the diving board where someone was definitely going to hurt themselves. Maya running beside me, laughing like this was exactly where we were supposed to be.

We caught him three lawns down, panting, covered in grass stains and SPF 30.

"Baseball tryouts are Monday," I said, still catching my breath.

"Yeah?" Maya scratched Barnaby behind the ears. "What about it?"

The words came out before I could stop them. "I'm not going."

She didn't say anything, just grinned like she'd been waiting to hear those exact words since the day we met.

"Good," she said. "Now let's go back. I want to show you this thing on the high dive."

And that's how I found myself, fifteen years old, standing at the edge of a pool with everyone watching, holding hands with the girl who'd been running circles around my heart since she moved here, finally ready to jump in.

No baseball cap required.