Three Strikes at Home Plate

Maya hadn't even noticed me until the spinach incident. That should've been my first warning.

I'd been crushing on her since September—since she'd worn that vintage Red Sox hat to homeroom and I'd spent forty-five minutes trying to calculate the perfect moment to ask if she actually watched baseball or just liked the aesthetic. Spoiler: I never did ask.

So when my little sister's cat, Pancake, decided my fresh haircut looked like a personal challenge, chaos was inevitable. I walked into the school baseball game looking like I'd lost a fight with a lawnmower. My solution? Stealing my dad's trucker cap from 2003. The one that said " grill sergeant " on the front. Peak tragedy.

The universe wasn't done yet.

I finally worked up the courage to sit by Maya in the bleachers. She was wearing her hat backwards, laughing at something her friend said, and I thought—this is it. This is my shot. I sat down, flashed my best grin, and said, "So, you actually like baseball, or?"

She turned. Stared at my face. Then she started laughing.

Not the good kind.

"You have—" She gestured at her own teeth. "There's—spinach. Like, a lot."

I scrubbed my mouth with my sleeve. "I had a smoothie this morning."

"Clearly," she said. But she wasn't being mean about it. She was grinning now, something warm in her eyes. "That cat did a number on you too, huh?"

"Pancake has opinions about my hair."

"Pancake?"

"My sister's cat. She's a menace."

Maya's laugh was different this time—realer. "My cat's named Waffle. We're basically living in a breakfast restaurant."

We spent the rest of the game talking about our cats' criminal records, her hat (she actually did watch baseball, and now I felt like an idiot for assuming), and whether " grill sergeant " was ironic or just sad.

I still had spinach in my teeth probably. I was definitely wearing a tragedy of a hat. My hair looked like a disaster zone. But Maya kept smiling like she actually wanted to hear what I had to say.

Sometimes the game doesn't go how you planned. Sometimes you show up looking ridiculous with food in your teeth and somehow that's exactly when you finally get to first base.