The Bullpen Truth

Kyle stood in the bullpen, his arm already dead from five innings of middle school baseball glory. The coach, Coach Miller, kept preaching about staying locked in, but honestly? Kyle felt like a straight-up zombie. Between AP History homework that dragged past midnight and weekend travel tournaments, his brain was mush.

"You good, man?" Marcus asked, tossing him a Gatorade. Marcus was the kind of kid who could show up hungover on three hours of sleep and still crush it at the plate. Natural talent plus whatever weird vitamin supplements his mom was always pushing on him—some green powder that smelled like lawn clippings.

"Yeah, just tired," Kyle lied, wiping sweat from his forehead. The truth was, he'd been stress-vitamin-popping for weeks, trying to compensate for his garbage sleep schedule. Vitamin D for energy, B-complex for focus, C to ward off the germs circulating through the locker room like a plague.

But Marcus wasn't buying it. He sat down next to Kyle on the bench. "Dude, you're playing like crap today. And I know why."

Kyle's stomach dropped. Was this it? The moment Marcus called him out for being a fake? For trying too hard to be someone he wasn't—some elite baseball prodigy when really he was just a tired freshman trying to survive?

"You're overthinking it," Marcus continued, actually decent about it. "You're so worried about making varsity next year that you're playing scared. I saw you staring down the bull in left field during practice."

The bull. This mechanical bull thing they'd set up for some spirit week nonsense, still hanging out past the outfield fence. Kyle had made some joke about riding it, and suddenly it was this whole thing—like he was some brave cowboy type when really he'd just been being sarcastic.

"I wasn't gonna ride it," Kyle muttered. "That's actual bull."

"Yeah, well," Marcus shrugged, "maybe stop trying to be so tough all the time. Nobody's watching that closely. We're all just zombies out here trying to make it through the season."

Something shifted in Kyle's chest. Marcus—natural-talent, doesn't-even-try Marcus—felt like a zombie too?

"Your vitamins are working though," Marcus added, gesturing at Kyle's emergency supplement stash in his bag. "You've got that whole health-nut thing going. Pretty sure that's why you made the travel team. Coach Miller's all about that 'discipline' aesthetic."

Kyle cracked up. Maybe Marcus was right. Maybe this whole time, he'd been so worried about being exposed as a fraud that he'd forgotten everyone else was just winging it too. Even the seemingly effortless kids like Marcus.

"Whatever," Kyle said, standing up and grabbing his glove. "You pitching or what?"

Marcus grinned. "Nah, you're up. And hey—maybe actually sleep tonight instead of popping vitamins like they're candy."

Kyle took the mound, feeling strangely lighter. The zombie feeling hadn't completely vanished, but for the first time all season, he didn't feel like he was failing at being someone he wasn't supposed to be. Just a tired kid who loved baseball, terrible at it sometimes, but still showing up.