Curveballs and Comfort Cats

The baseball sat heavy in my hands, regulation weight and expectation pressing against my palms. Tryouts tomorrow. First base, which I'd been dreaming about since seventh grade, when Jordan Miller told me "girls don't play."

I was sixteen now, and still proving him wrong.

My cat, Barnaby, wound around my legs, sensing the anxiety radiating off me like heat waves. He was my confidant, the only one who knew about the panic attacks that hit before big games. The way I threw up in the bathroom during freshman year tryouts. The three nights of sleeplessness before every important match.

"You got this, kid," my dad said, dropping a smoothie on the kitchen table. The color of something that died in a swamp. "Spinach, kale, mango. Your mom's new recipe."

I stared at it. "Dad, this looks like actual pond water."

"It's got extra vitamin D, B12, something about helping with stress." He checked his phone. "Coach says you've got a real shot at varsity this year."

Varsity. The word hung in the air like that weird orange glow from the streetlamp outside my window – the one that made everything look like we were living on Mars.

"I know," I said, taking a gulp of swamp-water smoothie and nearly gagging. "I'm just..."

"Nervous?"

"Terrified."

That night, I lay in bed counting ceiling tiles while Barnaby purred against my chest. My phone buzzed. Group chat: the team talking about tryouts like it was nothing. Like they didn't understand how much it meant to be the first girl starting for varsity. Like baseball wasn't everything.

Barnaby head-butted my chin. Purring so hard it rattled my ribs.

Some things don't need words. Some things just need you to show up, even when your hands shake and your stomach flips and you're pretty sure everyone's waiting for you to fail.

I chugged the rest of the spinach smoothie, vitamins and all. Whatever. If this was what it took, I'd drink pond water every day. I'd catch every ground ball, tag every runner, prove every doubt wrong.

Tomorrow, I'd show them. Tomorrow, I'd be exactly who I was always meant to be.