The Slide Into Home

Marcus checked his iPhone for the third time in two minutes. Nothing from Skylar. The text had been on delivered for forty-five minutes, which basically meant she was ignoring him or dead, and honestly, he couldn't decide which was worse.

"You're overthinking it again," he muttered to his goldfish, Bubbles, who swam to the surface of his bowl like he actually understood. Bubbles had been Marcus's only confidant since seventh grade, back when Marcus's social anxiety had been so bad he'd eaten lunch in the bathroom every day. Now a sophomore, he'd leveled up to eating at a table with actual humans, but the panic attacks still hit sometimes, usually in 3D surround sound whenever Skylar so much as looked at him.

His phone buzzed. Skylar. Baseball field. 15 minutes. Don't overthink it.

Marcus's stomach did that thing where it forgot how to stomach. The baseball field. Behind the school. Where the popular kids hung out during games, where he'd somehow agreed to meet Skylar—the girl who'd sat next to him in bio and laughed at his terrible puns for three weeks straight before finally agreeing to this.

He grabbed his backpack, checking himself in the mirror. Hair: acceptable. Outfit: basic but in a way that said he wasn't trying. Deodorant: deployed. He was ready.

His neighbor's golden retriever, Buster, chose that exact moment to escape through an unlatched gate and barrel into Marcus, knocking him sideways into his own front porch. Marcus's iPhone flew from his hand and skidded across the concrete.

"Buster, no!" Marcus scrambled for his phone, checking for cracks. None. Small mercies.

By the time he made it to the baseball field, his heart was doing something that definitely wasn't medically recommended. The field was empty, except for Skylar sitting on the bleachers, her denim jacket bright against the weathered wood. The sunset behind the baseball diamond made everything look golden and perfect, like a movie scene he'd somehow wandered into.

"Hey," she called, waving like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like she didn't realize she had the power to end his entire emotional existence with a single sentence.

"Hey," Marcus managed, sitting beside her but leaving careful distance. Not too close. Not too far. The calibrated geometry of teen attraction.

They talked for an hour. About everything, about nothing. Skylar complained about her AP chem teacher. Marcus described how Bubbles had once jumped out of his bowl and Marcus had found him flopping on the carpet, performed emergency CPR, and somehow revived him. Skylar laughed so hard she snorted, and Marcus felt something in his chest shift, like a door opening he hadn't known was closed.

"So," Skylar said, turning to face him. The proximity made his brain short-circuit. "You busy Friday?"

"I have baseball practice," he heard himself say, and immediately wanted to die. Since when did he care about baseball? He was garbage at it. The coach had literally told him, 'You have great spirit, Marcus.' The sports equivalent of 'it's not you, it's me.'

"Skip it," Skylar said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Come to my house. My parents are gone. We can order pizza and actually watch that Marvel movie you won't stop talking about."

"Yeah," Marcus said, and something in his voice sounded different than usual. More solid. "Yeah, I'm skipping."

Walking home, he pulled out his iPhone and stared at Bubbles's photo in his camera roll. Maybe it was time to stop overthinking everything. Maybe it was time to take the swing.

He texted Skylar back: Friday. 7. Don't keep me waiting.

Then he deleted it and sent: Friday's perfect. Can't wait.

Better. Some mysteries were worth keeping.