The Art of Falling

Marcus hated baseball. Specifically, he hated the way his sweaty palm stuck to the leather glove while the entire sophomore class watched from the bleachers. Coach bellowed something about hustle, but Marcus was too busy calculating the exact angle needed to disappear into the dugout without anyone noticing.

"You're up," said Priya, the girl who sat behind him in bio and somehow made varsity softball look like a casual suggestion. She adjusted her batting helmet like a crown.

"I think I'm having an allergic reaction to athletic performance," Marcus muttered.

"Smooth." She grinned. "Want me to tell Coach you're having a medical emergency? I can make it sound convincing."

Marcus's palm started sweating again. That's when Leo—the guy who'd been running circles around the social hierarchy since middle school—shouted from home plate: "Hey! New kid! Think fast!"

The baseball arced through the air, seemingly in slow motion, directly at Marcus's face. His body decided on its own that running was the correct survival strategy. He bolted toward the outfield fence, glove flailing dramatically, and tripped over his own feet in what his brain immediately categorized as The Most Embarrassing Moment of Human Existence.

But he caught it.

The ball thunked solidly into his glove as he faceplanted into the grass. Silence for exactly three seconds. Then Priya whooped like she'd personally won the lottery. Leo jogged over, extended a hand, and hauled him up.

"Dude," Leo said, "that was simultaneously the worst and best thing I've ever seen."

Marcus lay in the grass, heart pounding, staring up at the brilliant blue sky. His palm still stung from the catch, his jeans were grass-stained, and somewhere between twelve and three hundred people had witnessed his dignity die spectacularly. But as he high-fived Leo and saw Priya filming the whole thing, he realized something important: falling down wasn't the end. Sometimes you just had to catch the ball on your way down, then get back up and pretend you'd planned it all along.

"Next time," Marcus told Priya, "I'm gonna stick the landing."

"There's gonna be a next time?" she asked.

Marcus grinned despite himself. "Yeah. I think there might be."