Summer Storm on the Mound

The papaya sat on the clubhouse bench like an alien artifact. Someone's mom had dropped off "exotic post-game snacks" but nobody was touching the thing except me.

"Dude, that's gross," Marcus said, wiping sweat from his forehead. We'd just finished three hours of baseball practice in ninety-degree heat, and the entire team smelled like stale Gatorade and desperation.

I took a bite anyway. Sweet, weird, mushy. Kind of like how I felt about Maya since she'd transferred here from Miami.

Coach Bennett's voice echoed across the field. "Hernandez! You're up first for tryouts tomorrow!"

My stomach did that thing where it forgets how to be a stomach. Starting pitcher spot was open, and Marcus—my best friend since kindergarten—was my competition. The air between us had been weird all week.

"I need water," I muttered, grabbing my bottle.

The sky was turning that weird greenish color. Summer storms in Florida came fast, violent, like they were personally offended by your existence.

First drop hit my arm just as I reached the dugout. Then the sky opened up. Water everywhere, drenching my uniform, plastering my hair to my forehead. The team scattered toward the locker room, laughing and shoving each other.

Marcus hung back. "You gonna eat the rest of that papaya?"

I laughed. "You want it?"

He took it, made a face, and ate it anyway. "It's not terrible."

Thunder rattled the metal bleachers. Then lightning cracked—a white-purple fork that split the sky and illuminated everything for one perfect second. In that flash, Marcus's expression was weirdly intense.

"You know you're better than me, right?"

"What?"

"At pitching. You've got that curve ball. I've been..." He kicked at the wet dirt. "I've been hoping you'd choke tomorrow so I could stop feeling like garbage about it."

The rain kept falling. Everything felt suddenly simple.

"Maybe we could both make the team," I said. "There's two rotation spots."

The vitamin supplements in my locker drawer—my mom insisted I take them for "growing boys"—flashed through my mind. Growing up wasn't about getting bigger. It was about this moment. Saying the thing that needed saying.

"Yeah," Marcus said, and for the first time all week, he didn't look away. "That'd be cool."

We ran through the downpour toward the locker room, baseball cleats slapping wet pavement. Maya was waiting under the overhang, laughing at us.

"You guys look like drowned rats," she said, but she was smiling at me.

Best storm ever.