Curveballs and Goldfish

The goldfish bowl sat on the passenger seat of my older brother's beat-up Honda Civic, gurgling like a tiny, finned astronaut. Bubbles - named by my five-year-old sister, obviously - was my responsibility for the afternoon, which meant I was about to walk onto the baseball field with a fish in a glass prison while my crush watched from the bleachers.

I'm not a baseball guy. I'm a cross-country guy, the one who's been running from social situations since seventh grade when I accidentally wore my gym shirt on picture day. But Maya was there, sitting with the popular crowd at the top of the social pyramid, laughing at something Tyler Anderson had said. Tyler, who had been starting varsity since freshman year and looked like he walked out of an Abercrombie catalog.

Just my luck, my brother called. "Mom needs you to watch Bubbles. She's got that thing at work."

I stared at my phone like it had betrayed me. "You mean the fish?"

"The fish. And you can't leave it in the car, it's like eighty degrees out."

So there I was, walking toward the dugout with a goldfish bowl while the team warmed up, feeling like I was carrying my own social death sentence in my hands. Tyler noticed first. "What's with the fish, Running Man?"

That was my nickname, because somehow 'Marcus who runs' had evolved into 'Running Man' and now it was just stuck.

Maya turned around, and I almost dropped the bowl. "Is that a goldfish?"

"His name is Bubbles," I heard myself say, and then I wanted to dissolve into the ground.

But then Maya smiled. Not the polite smile she gave teachers, but a real one. "That's actually kind of iconic."

Next thing I knew, I was holding Bubbles while Tyler took batting practice, and Maya had moved down from the top of the pyramid to sit next to me on the bench. We talked about everything - how she secretly hated being popular, how my parents gave my sister a fish instead of a puppy because they're 'commitment-phobic,' how I'd been running from asking her out for two semesters.

"You know," she said, watching Bubbles swim in confused little circles, "he's kind of living his best life. Just doing his thing, not caring who's watching."

"Yeah," I said, our shoulders touching. "If only it were that easy."

Then Tyler hit a foul ball straight toward us, and I didn't even think. I just lunged - saved the fish, took a baseball to the thigh, and went down hard while everyone in the bleachers screamed.

Maya was there, helping me up, asking if I was okay, and suddenly I wasn't just the running guy anymore. I was the guy who took a foul ball for a goldfish.

Sometimes you have to stop running. Sometimes you have to hold your ground and take the hit. And sometimes, if you're lucky, the girl notices.

We're going out Friday. Bubbles is coming too.