Goldfish & Fastballs

Marcus's dad had been the Wildcats' star pitcher back in ninety-something, which meant Marcus was supposed to follow in his cleat-prints. The whole baseball team basically had his career path mapped out before he'd even picked up a mitt.

But Marcus had a secret.

Every Tuesday and Thursday after school, while the baseball team was doing batting practice, Marcus was three miles away at the community center, teaching himself how to breathe. Not the regular kind—the kind that didn't feel like drowning.

Coach Miller caught him once. "Running, son? That's not gonna fix your curveball."

Marcus didn't explain that running was the only time his brain stopped screaming about strikeouts and expectations and how he was letting everyone down just by being, you know, himself.

Then came the incident with Javi's goldfish.

Javi had won it at the homecoming carnival—this tiny, traumatized fish in a plastic bag that he'd named "Babe Ruth" because apparently that was hilarious. Marcus ended up with Babe Ruth in a mason jar on his dresser because Javi's mom was not about to host a fish.

"It's looking kinda betta-shredded," Javi had said, which was objectively terrible but still made Marcus snort.

One morning, Babe Ruth was floating sideways. Marcus's internal monologue went immediately to catastrophic: he couldn't keep a goldfish alive, how was he supposed to have a future, any future at all?

He grabbed the jar and started running.

Three miles to the pet store. Fast, then slow, then fast again, his lungs burning, his thoughts finally, finally quiet. The guy at the store taught him about tank cycling and ammonia levels and how fish were actually complicated, sensitive creatures that needed more than a mason jar and hope.

Marcus bought a proper tank with his baseball savings. He set it up in his room, watching Babe Ruth gradually recover, and realized something kind of huge: he didn't hate baseball itself, he just hated how everyone acted like it was his whole personality.

The next day at practice, Coach Miller asked what was up with him.

"Nothing," Marcus said, and for the first time, it was true. "Just... I'm thinking of joining track in the spring."

The silence stretched. Then: "You've got good stamina, kid. I've noticed."

Marcus walked home feeling light, like he could keep running forever. Like he didn't have to choose between being his dad's son and being himself. Like maybe he could be a baseball player who also ran and kept fish alive and didn't have everything figured out yet.

Babe Ruth was swimming properly when he got home. Tiny, but getting there. Kind of like him.