The Summer Everything Changed

Marcus stared at his iPhone, thumb hovering over Bryce's Instagram story. Another party he hadn't been invited to. Again.

"You good?" Maya asked, flopping onto the bench beside him.

"Fine." Marcus locked his phone. "Just... thinking about baseball tryouts next week."

"You've been stressing about that vitamin stuff again, haven't you?" Maya raised an eyebrow. "The performance boosters your cousin swears by?"

Marcus shrugged. His dad had dropped sixty bucks on "elite athletic vitamins" that promised focus, energy, and "competitive edge." The bottle sat on his nightstand like a judgment—another thing to fail at.

"You know what's messed up?" Maya said. "Last year, you were the one Bryce couldn't stop talking about. 'Marcus's arm,' 'Marcus's swing.' Now you're not even on his radar."

"People change."

"No," she said. "They curate." She gestured to his phone. "This isn't real life. Neither is Bryce's lineup of who's cool this week."

That evening, Marcus's baseball glove sat in the corner of his room. He hadn't touched it since the elbow injury that cost him JV season. The vitamins sat beside it—tiny promises in a brown bottle.

His phone buzzed. Another notification. Another FOMO spike.

Marcus grabbed the vitamin bottle and hurled it into the trash. Then his phone—face down on the nightstand. Finally, the glove.

The next morning, he showed up at the empty field behind the middle school. No tryouts. No audience. Just him, a ball, and a fence that had seen everything.

First pitch: wild.

Second: caught the edge.

Third: perfect.

By the time Maya found him an hour later, sweat-drenched and breathless, Marcus had found something better than Bryce's approval. Something real.

"You're smiling," she said.

"Yeah." Marcus wiped his forehead. "I think I'm done trying to be the person everyone expects."

"About time." She tossed him his glove. "Now show me that curveball again."

His phone stayed silent in his pocket all afternoon. For once, he didn't even notice.