The Summer Everything Changed

My palms were sweating so much I could barely grip the bat. Like, actual puddles forming in my hands. Coach Miller kept yelling something about "keeping your eye on the ball," but honestly? My eyes were too busy darting toward the bleachers where Chloe sat pretending to be absolutely absorbed in her phone.

This was supposed to be the summer of everything being different. New me. Fresh start. And instead, here I was, looking like I'd never held a baseball bat in my life while half the school watched.

"You good, Marcus?" Tyler shouted from the dugout, because apparently my incompetence needed an audience.

I wiped my palms on my uniform pants for the third time. The pitcher wound up. I swung at air. A literal breeze.

The laughter started before I even dropped the bat. And that's when I did it — just started running. Not toward first base, just *running*, past the field, past the parking lot, down the street until my chest burned.

I ended up behind the old radio station where my brother worked, leaning against the brick wall trying to look like I hadn't just fled my own baseball game like my shoes were on fire. That's when I saw it: the thick black cable snaking from the building to a telephone pole, my brother's makeshift "borrowed" internet connection that he swore was totally legal.

And there was Chloe, standing there like she'd been waiting.

"Running from your strikeout or running toward something?" she asked, like she saw everything.

"Both," I said, and the weird part was — it was true.

She sat beside me, our shoulders touching, and something in my chest did that fluttery thing that feels exactly like running without moving. I wiped my palms on my jeans one more time, but this time I didn't look away.

"Worst baseball player ever," I said.

"Nah," she said, pulling a cable from her pocket — a charging cable, and handing it to me. "Just maybe baseball's not your thing."

I looked at the cable, then at her, then at my stupid sweaty palms, and for the first time all summer, I didn't want to run anywhere.