Stealing Home

Jordan's cleats dug into the dirt, third base looming ahead like a judgmental teacher. The baseball field was supposed to be his domain—Varsity sophomore, already being scouted—but his heart wasn't in the playbook anymore. It was somewhere else entirely.

"Yo, J! You good?" Marcus called from the pitcher's mound, sweat dripping down his temple. "You're zoning out, fam."

Jordan waved him off, even though his palms were sweating. The truth was, he'd been spending his evenings doing something his teammates would roast him for: running. Not drills, not conditioning—just running through the neighborhood past midnight, past the curfew his parents gave up enforcing years ago. It was the only time the static in his brain quieted down.

"I'm chill," Jordan lied, adjusting his cap. But his mind was already two miles away, at the old quarry behind the abandoned factory. That's where he went when he couldn't sleep, where the air smelled like rain even when it wasn't falling.

After practice, most of the team hit the locker room to talk about girls and grades. Jordan grabbed his bag and dipped, ignoring Marcus's confused "Bro, where you going?"

The quarry was his secret—half-filled with water from an underground spring, surrounded by graffiti-covered walls that felt more honest than anything at school. That's where Jordan met Luna, a senior who painted murals on the concrete and talked about art school like it was a foreign planet she was finally visiting.

Tonight, though, the water looked different. Luna was there, but she wasn't painting. She was standing at the edge, her silhouette sharp against the twilight.

"They found out," she said without turning. "My parents. About the applications."

Jordan's stomach dropped. Luna had been hiding portfolio pieces for months, terrified her traditional immigrant parents would discover she was pursuing art instead of medicine.

"What are you gonna—"

"I don't know." Luna turned, and Jordan saw it—the redness around her eyes, the way her shoulders collapsed inward. "I think I'm gonna do it anyway. Even if they freak. Even if—" She stopped, voice cracking. "Even if I have to...you know."

Jordan knew. Leaving. Starting over. The thing he'd been thinking about every time he laced up running shoes and bolted into the night.

"You're not alone," he said, and the words came out easier than he expected. "I've been...I hate baseball. I hate the expectations and the team and the way everyone looks at me like I'm supposed to be this perfect dude. But I'm scared to quit."

Luna's eyes softened. "So what do we do?"

Jordan looked at the water, dark and mysterious, and then back at Luna, who was already starting to smile like they'd just uncovered a secret weapon.

"We practice," he said. "For the real thing."

"You mean—"

"Yeah. Tonight. I'll show you my routes, you show me that portfolio. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we stop running."

The water rippled in the breeze, and for the first time in months, Jordan's cleats didn't feel like a trap. They felt like exactly what they were: just shoes. He could take them off anytime.