Three Strikes at Midnight

The goldfish hovered in its bowl on Maya's nightstand, orange scales shimmering in the glow of her phone screen. She'd named it Fitzgerald—fitting, since it seemed to be having its own Great Gatsby moment, swimming in endless circles toward nothing.

"You're actually nervous about baseball tryouts tomorrow?" her best friend Chen's voice crackled through the speaker. "You've been playing since we were literally twelve."

Maya flopped onto her bed, black hair fanning across her comforter. "It's different now. JV last year was whatever. Varsity is—it's the whole deal, you know? Jake's gonna be there."

"Jake the baseball god?" Chen snorted. "So you're gonna let some senior with a jawline sabotage your pitching? That's cap."

"It's not about Jake." Maya sat up, catching her reflection in the mirror—fresh faced, fifteen, and feeling like she was waiting for permission to exist. "It's like... what if I get up there, and I throw, and it's nothing? What if I'm just another goldfish in a bowl, pretending I'm going somewhere?"

Something scratched at her window.

Maya froze. The scratching came again, sharper this time. She crept across her room and lifted the blinds—

A cat. A mangy orange tabby with one ear that refused to stand up, clinging to her trellis like it had nowhere else to be.

"Maya? You still there?"

"There's a cat outside my window."

"A what?"

"A cat. It's looking at me like I'm supposed to know what to do."

Maya opened the window, and the cat tumbled inside, landing with surprising dignity. It trotted straight to the fish bowl and sat, tail curled around its paws, watching Fitzgerald swim.

"That cat is literally judging your fish."

"Fitzgerald has more going for him than I do." Maya sank beside the cat, who allowed itself to be petted. "At least he doesn't have to prove anything."

The cat turned, yellow eyes locking with hers. Something about it—this creature that had found its way to her second-story window, that had decided she was worth sitting with—made something unknot in her chest.

"You know what?" Maya said suddenly. "Tomorrow at tryouts, I'm gonna throw whatever feels right. Curveball, fastball, whatever. Jake can watch or not watch. The coaches can write whatever on their clipboards."

"Because a cat broke into your room?"

"Because this cat didn't ask permission to show up." Maya scratched behind its ears, and it purred like a tiny motor. "It just... knew where it belonged."

The next day, Maya stood on the mound, dirt kicking up around her cleats. Jake was watching from the dugout—so were the coaches, clipboard-ready, so was Chen from behind the backstop, grinning like she knew something nobody else did.

Maya wound up and threw.

The ball arced, dirt and dreams spinning together somewhere between her hand and home plate. A strike. Then another. Then one more.

Three hours later, she walked home with Varsity jersey #23 in her backpack and no idea what she'd tell Fitzgerald about the fact that sometimes, circles lead somewhere after all.

The orange cat was waiting on her porch. Of course it was.