Page 9 of The Way We Swing Back

Next came the pitching. I didn’t want to throw—I was a better position player—but Coach had convinced me to say I was a pitcher as well. His reasoning was it could never hurt for a coach to want you for more than one position.

I chomped on a piece of gum, trying to focus on the taste of the Green Apple Big League Chew as I stood in line with the rest of the pitchers, the pulse of my shoulder bouncing throughout my body, begging me to rub it and ease the pain.

Instead, I stood in near silence, not talking to the kid behind me who had tried to start a conversation three separate times about where I lived. Sweat dripped beneath my hat as we neared the front; I wiped it off with my left forearm, unsure I could lift my right arm high enough.

Tanner would tell me to walk away. To live to fight another day.

But Tanner had a fallback plan. A family that supported him. A ticket to college, even though he wasn’t good enough to play baseball for a Division 1 school. He always said he’d make a better coach than player, anyway.

Finally, it was my turn to step onto the mound. The rubber felt the same as every other one I’d thrown on this year, the red clay of the dirt leaving marks on my cleats. The sun was bringing more heat than I thought I could muster.

On top of the maybe dozen pitchers still ready to throw behind me, there were three dozen coaches behind home plate. They all looked robotic to me, wearing the same styled team jackets with a radar gun in one hand and a pen and notebook in the other, scribbling notes after every pitch. Freaking clones, the lot of them, with radar guns instead of eyes.

I still had to impress them. Or, at least, one of them. That was all it’d take.

I yanked on the string of my glove with my teeth as I stepped onto the mound, the mix of dirt and leather hitting my tongue. I signaled a fastball to the catcher, going through my windup and grunting as I let go of the pitch. That was the first time I’d ever grunted throwing a ball, but nobody here knew that.

The ball came out of my hand quickly, and my arm stung even more before it was tossed back to me. Seven more pitches, and I was done.

The next two pitches—both fastballs—weren’t much better, but the coaches watched their radar guns instead of pitch location, which may have been the only thing saving me. I managed to land the next three pitches (one fastball, one slider, and a changeup) in the strike zone where I wanted them, but I did not know how hard the pitches were being released. I threw strikes, though, and a couple of coaches seemed at least mildly interested.

The last pitch of the day was always a fastball. I flicked up my glove, letting the catcher know what was coming, and released the ball as hard as I could, keeping nothing left in the tank.

This time, I didn’t just grunt; I yelled a way-too-loud “Fuck” as the ball soared toward the catcher, the wedge of metal between my shoulder and bicep wrenching as if the throw had finally ripped it loose. Somehow, the pitch ended up a strike, but I got multiple looks from the guys behind the plate.

I threw up my glove hand and smiled at them, acting like that was a normal thing to do, and said, “Sorry!” before walking off the mound. My hand shook, my shoulder tingled, my bicep stung, my mind raced. Had I faked it well enough?

When everything had ended, I made my way over to Coach, letting him tell me I’d done well today and he wouldn’t be shocked when a couple of the schools contacted him. I barely listened to what he said; instead, I focused on keeping the pain off my face in front of a guy who knew me well enough to never believe I’d swear while delivering a pitch.

Mercifully, we got home, and I escaped to my room after covering my bicep and shoulder with every piece of ice we had left in our freezer.

The pain started to subside, but the mental torment of knowing this would not end soon made me want to puke almost as much as the pain. I wouldn’t be allowed to be hurt until I got to college, after I’d already locked in a scholarship. There was a Plan B, but in reality, it felt more like a Plan F.

No matter how well I pretended, I knew the truth. I was breaking. And nobody could afford to know.

Chapter 5

The pain came and went over the next couple weeks. On days when I pitched and the days right after, I couldn’t lift my arm; on days we just had practice, I could manage to put on a shirt without feeling like death was hunting me. Today was a good day, though, as we’d had the last two days off from practice with it being Labor Day weekend.

I had offered to cut the Quinns’ grass yesterday, so when I lay on the ground, clippings brushed against my chin. Gavin huddled next to me, his face covered in eye black. He called it his war paint.

I made sure my gun was loaded and pumped. We brushed up against the pool, using it as cover, hoping to catch Zach and Jake before they caught us, the smell of chlorine mixing with the fresh-cut grass.

“Whatever you do, Gavin, don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.”

He stifled a giggle as I adjusted the bandana holding back my hair. He wore only his swimming trunks, a pair colored red, orange, and yellow with a bunch of flowers on them. They were likely an old pair of Tanner’s or Zach’s, as they kept sliding down his body, and he’d yank them up just as fast, the drawstring in the front doing nothing to help.

I swept the sweat off my forehead even though it was September. I heard whispering a couple of feet away, meaning Jake was as bad as Gavin at keeping his voice low.

They crept around the corner, and Gavin and I jumped on them in a flash. Water sprayed everywhere—I even got a direct shot at Jake’s eyes. Laughter filled the backyard, bouncing off the trees and the house.

Then another noise butted in.

I scrunched my face, trying to place the sound—familiar but indistinct. I turned toward the driveway as an SUV pulled in, and then—

“TANNER!” Gavin screamed. He dropped his gun mid-squirt and sprinted barefoot toward the vehicle. Tanner exited the driver’s side and was immediately tackled in a hug by the chaos gremlin.

Zach, Jake, and I walked over more slowly, even though it took everything in me not to run as fast as Gavin had.