The Stray Slider

Marcus stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection like it had personally betrayed him. His mom had finally let him dye the tips of his hair blue—well, "ocean-inspired," as the box had promised, but it came out more like bruised sky. Still, it was something. A statement. Maybe even an identity, assuming he could figure out what that was supposed to be.

"MARCUS! You're gonna be late for warmups!" his dad yelled from downstairs, which was hilarious because baseball practice didn't start for forty-five minutes and Marcus had literally been ready since forever.

"Coming!"

He grabbed his glove off the bed, where Barnaby—their orange tabby cat who somehow possessed the resting energy face of a disappointed grandparent—blinked slowly from his pillow.

"Don't wait up," Marcus told him.

Barnaby yawned, exposing tiny needle teeth, and went back to sleep.

The walk to the field took ten minutes normally, but Marcus started running without really deciding to. Just—running, past Mrs. Henderson's prize-winning roses (which she definitely called her "plant children" at block parties), past the elementary school where he'd fallen off the slide in third grade and cried so hard they had to call his mom, past the corner store that sold slushies for exactly the amount of loose change he could scavenge from the couch cushions.

His hair whipped against his forehead. He felt, stupidly, like he was running away from something, but also toward something else, which made zero sense because he was just going to baseball practice where they'd probably run bases until Coach Mercer blew that whistle that sounded like a dying duck.

"YO MARCUS!"

Jeni Lin was already at the field, sitting on the bleachers with her legs pulled up to her chest, painting something in a spiral notebook while she waited for her brother to finish pitching practice. She was wearing the same Misfits shirt she'd worn every Tuesday since September, which either meant she had seventeen identical shirts or she just didn't care about social norms.

"Your hair," she said, barely looking up. "It's... not terrible."

Marcus felt himself flushing, which was ridiculous because Jeni had seen him through chicken pox in seventh grade and the time he got hit in the face with a dodgeball in gym and cried a little.

"Thanks?"

"It looks like you finally figured something out," she said, finally closing her notebook. "Even if you're not sure what that thing is yet."

The air felt suddenly thick, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks or someone says something they can't take back.

"Yeah," Marcus managed. "I think that's the point."

Barnaby would be proud. Probably. If cats could feel pride, which they definitely couldn't, because cats were just tiny furry sociopaths who tolerated humans for food and warmth and occasional belly rubs, and Marcus had spent way too much time thinking about this.

"Hey," Jeni said, hopping off the bleachers. "Want to see this weird cat I found behind the dumpster?"

Marcus grinned. "Weirdly, that's exactly what I wanted to do with my afternoon."

Coach Mercer's whistle echoed across the field—three sharp bursts that meant whoever wasn't on the field in thirty seconds was doing laps until they regretted every life choice that had led to this moment.

"After practice?" Marcus offered.

"After," Jeni agreed, and Marcus ran toward the infield feeling, for the first time in weeks, like he knew exactly where he was going.