Strikeout at Summer's Edge

The baseball field stretched out before me like a punishment, Coach Miller's voice droning on about commitment and sacrifice. I stood there, glove practically weightless in my hand, wondering when I'd started living everyone else's dream instead of mine.

'You okay, Mendoza?' Marcus asked, tossing me a papaya from his backpack. 'My mom's obsessed with farmer's markets now.'

I caught it awkwardly. 'Since when do you even eat fruit that isn't in a smoothie?'

'Since I realized I can't keep running from the fact that I might actually like this stuff.' He shrugged. 'What about you? You've been weird all week.'

I stared at the weird tropical fruit in my hand, thinking about how much easier everything was supposed to be this summer. Practice, hang out, repeat. Instead, I'd been spending my free time watching YouTube videos aboutMayan architecture and teaching myself to draw. The social pyramid at South High had always been clear: jocks at the top, everyone else falling into place below. But what happened when you stopped caring about climbing?

A crack of lightning split the sky, purple veins branching through the clouds like God's own highlighter pen. The storm had been threatening all afternoon.

'Practice is canceled!' Coach Miller shouted over the rumble of thunder.

Everyone scattered toward the parking lot, but I stayed there for a second, the papaya sitting heavy in my palm. I took a bite—sweet, weird, nothing like the processed stuff I usually ate. Something about it felt like the first real thing I'd tasted in months.

'Hey Mendoza!' Marcus called from his car. 'You coming?'

'Nah,' I yelled back, and I wasn't just talking about the ride. 'I think I'm done with baseball.'

The words hung there as I started running toward home, cleats clicking against the pavement. Lightning flashed again, illuminating everything in stark whites and deep shadows, and for the first time in forever, I didn't feel like I was pretending. I was just Maya, fifteen years old and totally clueless about what came next, but finally ready to figure it out. The papaya was actually kind of good.