Wild Pitches and Dog Paddles

The baseball landed in my glove with a satisfying thwack, but my heart wasn't in it anymore. Not since Jordan Miller had started dating Sarah, my lab partner since seventh grade. Now every time I stepped up to the plate, I could feel everyone watching—wondering why my batting average had tanked, why I kept striking out, why I'd suddenly become garbage at the only thing that made me visible at Ridgeview High.

"You're overthinking it, bro," Tyler said, tossing me a Gatorade from the dugout bench. "Just swing. You're gripping it like you're scared of it."

Easy for him to say. Tyler was a natural—the kind of guy who'd probably still be cool even if he accidentally wore his shirt inside out to homecoming. Meanwhile, I was barely holding onto my spot on varsity, and if Coach Miller (Jordan's dad, obviously) benched me one more time, I'd officially become a ghost.

After practice, I took the long way home, past Mrs. Gable's house. Buster, her massive Golden Retriever, bounded to the fence like he'd been waiting all day. The dog had more personality than half the people at our school. I scratched behind his ears, letting his enthusiastic licks distract me from the knot in my stomach.

Tomorrow was the first swim meet of the season, and nobody knew I'd joined the team. Not my parents, not Tyler, definitely not Jordan. Swimming was something I'd started on a whim back in June, hitting the community pool at dawn when nobody was around to watch me flail through the water like a panicked cat. But somewhere between the painful practices and the smell of chlorine that had permanently embedded itself in my skin, I'd found something baseball never gave me: peace.

The locker room was quiet when I slipped in the next morning, my heart hammering against my ribs. What was I doing? I was a baseball player. That's who I was supposed to be.

"You Marcus?" A girl with a swim cap pulled back her hair. She had braces and zeroed-in intensity. "You're in lane four. Good luck—you're gonna need it."

The water hit my skin like ice. My first lap was clumsy, my arms flailing, my breath coming in gasps. But then something clicked. The noise in my head—the Jordan stuff, the baseball pressure, the constant feeling that I was somehow failing at being myself—it all faded to nothing. There was just the rhythm, the stroke, the way my body cut through the water.

I didn't win. I barely didn't finish last. But as I pulled myself out of the pool, dripping and exhausted, I caught my reflection in the mirror and actually smiled. For the first time in months, I didn't feel like a fake version of someone I was supposed to be.

That afternoon at baseball practice, Jordan sauntered over, swinging his bat like he owned the field. "Heard you've been skipping morning workouts. Everything good, man?"

I looked at him—really looked at him—and realized I didn't care anymore what he thought. What anyone thought.

"Yeah," I said, gripping the bat properly for the first time all season. "Everything's good. Better than good."

The ball sailed over the fence. Home run.

But honestly? The best part was waking up at 5:30 the next morning for swim practice, knowing exactly who I was—and who I wasn't trying to be anymore.