Spinach and Stealing Bases

The third time Marco threw the ball to first base instead of home, Coach Miller yelled something about water breaks and told everyone to hit the dugout.

"Bro, you're cooked," said Tyler, sliding onto the bench beside me. Tyler was the kind of friend who'd roast you but wouldn't actually help. That's what my mom called a "frenemy" but what's the cringe version of that? Enemy-lite? Whatever.

I grabbed my water bottle and chugged, the cold liquid hitting my throat like redemption. Baseball practice in ninety-degree heat was basically self-torture, but my dad had signed me up for summer travel team and now I was stuck with it.

"You got something in your teeth," Tyler added, like that's what I needed to hear.

I pulled out my phone to check. Sure enough—a massive piece of spinach from lunch was camping between my front teeth. How long? How many people had I smiled at today? My face burned hotter than the asphalt.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" I hissed.

Tyler shrugged. "Thought it was funny."

"Dude."

"What? It's just spinach."

Just spinach. Just like it was just Tyler "accidentally" posting that screenshot of my DMs last week. Just like it was Tyler "joking" about me striking out in front of the whole team.

I rinsed my mouth with water and spat it out, watching the spinach disappear down the drain. Maybe that should've been my sign—from now on, I needed to start checking who actually had my back.

Coach Miller yelled for us to line up for base-running drills. Marco grabbed his glove and jogged past us. "Hey, good job on that catch earlier," he said to me, then kept moving like it was nothing.

Marco. The quiet guy who sat behind me in math and never made fun of anyone.

"Thanks," I called back, watching Tyler scroll through Instagram without looking up.

Sometimes it's not the people who laugh with you. It's the ones who don't laugh at you.

I jogged onto the field, the dirt kicking up around my cleats, and for the first time all summer, I felt like I might actually belong here—spinach disasters and all.