Secrets on the Mound

Marcus stood on the pitcher's mound, heart hammering like crazy. The baseball felt slick in his sweaty palms. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, and the hottest girl in sophomore year was watching from the bleachers.

But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was the spinach.

Earlier at lunch, Maya—his crush since seventh grade—had sat across from him in the cafeteria, smiling. Marcus had smiled back, feeling like he was absolutely killing it. Later, in the bathroom mirror, he'd seen the bright green wedge stuck in his teeth. Three hours of smiling like an idiot with spinach in his teeth.

"You good, Marcus?" his catcher Jaheim called from home plate.

"Yeah," Marcus lied, though his stomach was doing somersaults. He was terrible at lying—his friends called him the human sphinx because he'd go completely silent instead of fessing up about stuff. The sphinx who couldn't solve his own riddles.

But that wasn't true either. Because yesterday, while waiting for his mom outside the grocery store, he'd done something totally creepy. He'd spotted Maya through the window, scrolling on her phone. And Marcus had—God, it was embarrassing even to think about—he'd crept closer to spy, trying to see what she was looking at. What if she was texting someone? What if—

"Marcus!"

He snapped back to reality. The batter was waiting. The crowd was loud. But Maya's eyes caught his from the bleachers, and he remembered everything: the spinach, the spying, the fact that he'd been holding onto this crush for basically forever without doing anything about it.

Something in him just... broke.

Marcus started running. Not toward home plate—away from it. Off the field, past the confused crowd, toward the parking lot.

"Marcus, what the heck?" his best friend Leo shouted, chasing after him. "It's your game!"

"I know!" Marcus kept running, breathless, not sure where he was going. "I just—I can't do it, Leo. I can't pitch with her watching and act like everything's fine when I've been doing weird stuff like spying on her at the store—"

"Wait, you what?" Leo cracked up. "That's actually kind of—"

"Stalker-ish? I know!"

"No," Leo grinned, "I was gonna say cute. But yeah, a little stalker-ish." He clapped Marcus's shoulder. "Just tell her, dude. Or actually don't, maybe keep that part to yourself."

From the field, someone yelled, "Marcus! Come back! We need you!"

He turned around. Maya wasn't in the bleachers anymore. She was running toward them.

"Hey!" she called, breathless. "You forgot your glove!" She held it out, smiling. "Also, you were kinda killing it out there before you... ran away for some reason?"

Marcus's face burned. "Right. Thanks."

"Your fly's been down since the second inning," she added, then winked. "Just thought you'd want to know."

Maya jogged back to the game. Marcus stared, then started laughing. Like, actually laughing.

"You coming back or what?" Leo asked.

"Yeah," Marcus said, grabbing his glove. "Yeah, I'm coming."