The Summer Everything Changed

The cable bill was overdue again, which meant no Netflix, which meant sitting on the front porch with Marcus while he practiced his baseball pitch against the garage wall. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

"You're gonna dent it," I said, not really caring. The garage already had plenty of dents from summers past.

"Coach says I need more follow-through," Marcus muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. His normally-neat hair was plastered to his skull, dark with sweat. "Tryouts are in two weeks."

Two weeks. That's when Marcus's family was moving to Chicago. Two weeks until my best friend since fourth grade would be three states away, leaving me alone to navigate sophomore year without the person who made everything less terrifying.

A stray cat — orange, scrappy, with one ear that refused to stand up straight — slinked around the corner of the house. It looked at us like *we* were the ones intruding.

"That's the third time this week," I said. "Someone's feeding it."

Marcus dropped his glove and sat next to me on the steps. "My dad says Chicago has actual baseball teams. Not just school teams. Like, actual scouts come to games."

"Cool," I said, even though it wasn't cool. It was terrible.

The cat approached cautiously, tail twitching. Marcus pulled a granola bar from his pocket — he was *always* hungry — and broke off a piece. The cat sniffed his hand, then ate it.

"You're making a friend," I said, trying to make it sound like a joke instead of the heavy thing it was.

"He's just a cat." But Marcus's voice cracked, just a little. We both pretended not to notice.

"Hey," I said, picking up the baseball. "Show me that pitch again. The one Coach hates."

Marcus laughed, actually laughed. "The submarine pitch?"

"Yeah. The one where you practically scrape the ground." I tossed him the ball. "Show me."

He threw it sidearm, almost underhand, ridiculous and weird and absolutely perfect. The ball missed the garage entirely and hit the fence with a CLANG that echoed through the neighborhood.

"You're gonna be terrible in Chicago," I told him.

"Probably."

"Good."

"Yeah." Marcus sat back down. "Good."

The cat curled up near his feet, purring loud enough that we could feel it in the porch steps. Cable bill overdue, best friend moving away, summer ending like they always do — but for right now, we were just two kids on a porch, watching a stray cat sleep while the world kept spinning, whether we were ready or not.