by Ginger Scott
“Until she tells me otherwise,” he says, grabbing a fry from my plate and popping it in his mouth. I grimace at him.
“If you steal my food, that might happen sooner rather than later,” I threaten, teasingly. He reaches for another fry and holds it at his lips, and I lower my brow. “You sure about that?”
He pauses with it there for a few seconds and opens his mouth, about to bite into it, but closes quickly and places the fry back on my plate, brushing his fingertips together to get rid of the left-behind salt kernels.
“Nope,” he chuckles. “Pretty much not sure of anything at all.”
Wes pulls his own plate closer, folding his slice of pizza in half and eating nearly a third of it with the first bite. I watch as he chews, his long body stretched under and above the table, his legs jutting out into the aisle. He’s outgrown this place already, and he’s only seventeen.
“So does this mean…you’ll be going to the dance on Friday?” My stomach drops the moment my friend puts that out there. I could kill her. Literally, my mind is racing through the millions of ways I want to punch her or push her into traffic, and my face is red and beating.
“You know I hate dances,” I blurt out, realizing too late that I cut Wes off, his lips held open, about to speak. He was going to ask? He wants to go to the stupid dance with me? I will never know now, because I’m a stubborn cuss who sucks at this whole boy thing.
“Oh, believe me, Joss…I know,” Taryn says, finishing her last bite and standing from the lunch table. Her eyes glide from me to Wes and back again, her eyebrow raising a tick just to let me know I fucked up with that one. I raise both of mine and push my lips together tight to signal to her that I know.
Taryn leaves us alone, and the tension makes me slink down a little in my seat. I can tell Wes isn’t looking at me. He’s feeling the tension too, and it’s sucky, and I hate that it’s over a stupid dance.
“I just don’t really do the whole dress-up thing,” I blurt out.
That made it worse.
I spare a glance at Wes. He smiles tightly and nods, but I can tell from the deep inhale that slowly fills his chest that he’s still uncomfortable, maybe disappointed? I turn my attention to my things, pretending to straighten notebooks and papers in my backpack as I unzip and zip again. Wes steps away from the table with our trash, and I exhale the second he’s gone. When he comes back, he looks around at the tables nearby, his eyes not quite making it to me.
“So you have a game today, yeah?” he asks, still not fully engaged.
“Yeah. You guys are off, right?” I respond, pulling my bag over my shoulder. He reaches for my hand as we begin to walk and a heavy breath falls from my chest in relief that he’s still proud to be with me, even if I throw baby fits over school dances. His hand squeezes mine tightly, as if he senses the inner turmoil I’m feeling. Everything about the last two minutes feels so utterly teenager, so unlike me. I need to get back to me—to feel home.
“I bet you ten bucks I can hit the ball over the fence today?” I throw a challenge out there. It’s meaningless, but the goal somehow gives me something else to think about—something other than dances and my dream boy and…dreams.
I look up at Wes as we pass through the cafeteria doors and into the hall, his lip pinned in his teeth and his brow bunched.
“So, all I get is ten dollars if you don’t pull this off?” he chuckles. “I mean it’s not like I’m pitching to you. It doesn’t feel fair.”
“Silly Wes,” I say through a breathy laugh, shaking my head as we step into the photo lab. “If you were pitching, I guarantee I would hit one. That wouldn’t be fair. That would be like taking on a T-ball team.”
I spin around at my desk, dropping my bag in my seat and folding my arms, standing toe-to-toe with him. My lips are tingling, and I comfort the itch by letting a smirk slide into place. This feels more natural. This is how we are. This is how Wes and I need to be. We’re races and tickets and dares. And maybe some kissing too.
Wes steps close enough that his head is nearly resting on mine, and I have to look up at him. I love looking up at him. The right side of his mouth curves into a grin, and he shrugs one shoulder, adjusting the weight of his bag slung over his arm. The noise of more students bursting through the door causes him to turn and look at them, but he comes back to me quickly, his smile reaching both sides of his mouth now.
“All right, Joss,” he says, taking two steps back and leaning against the tabletop of the desk across from me. He folds his arms and lowers his eyes, and his smile switches into something almost devious. “I’ll take that bet…with a twist. You hit one over the fence today. And if you don’t, you are going with me to that dance on Friday.”
Well, shit.
I pull my top lip into my mouth and suck. Half of my body is jumping up and down, dying to go to this stupid dance. The other half is pissed, and wants to hit the ball over the fence and prove that I don’t need dances and dresses and hearts and boys showing up at my door with flowers.
But I want that too. I want it so badly.
“Deal,” I say, reaching out my hand for his. He chuckles and shakes his head, pushing off from the desk and taking my hand in his. He shakes it, but steps closer to me, towing my hand up to his mouth, turning it over to press his lips on my wrist. I swear when he turns away, I’ll be able to see a brand from it, I still feel it so strongly. I actually look when he leaves, but it’s only my skin—no visual memory of his touch. But my heart remembers. My stupid heart, and the thump in my chest and the numb feeling I have in my toes and fingertips.
I swallow, move into my seat, and pull out my notes on lighting. We spend the rest of the afternoon learning new ways to use shadows to tell a story, but all I think about is how I want to crawl into one. I think about how even if I blow this and weasel my way into a school dance date with Wesley Stokes, I don’t have anything to wear, and I wouldn’t know what to do when we got there.
I resolve myself to swinging at the very first pitch I get and putting it over the fence to end the misery of living with expectations. And then I regret knowing I will. I simmer in regret until the bell sounds and Wes and I link fingers at the door and walk down the hallway and outside to the gym to change. When his hand leaves mine, I feel lucky and terrified all at once.
Taryn comes in last—she’s always late to practice, late to the games, late to coach’s meeting. She says that’s why she’s stuck in right field. But really—she’s just not the strongest player. I come in late. And before I met Wes, I used to skip practice all together. But I still played short and batted fourth. Sometimes, skills get you a pass in life. I rode mine for a long time.
Lately, though, I’ve been trying harder. I’ve wanted more—more from myself, more out of life, more…
More expectations.
I don’t know if it’s because of Wes, or if the timing was just fate that I decided to make a change in my life. I would like to think I’m strong enough to fight for things on my own. But I also know that I didn’t really care about much, until the boy who saved me once, showed up to do it again.
I take my time lacing my cleats, pulling my socks up high around my knees. My pants are snug against my thighs; my sliding shorts padding me underneath. Taryn is still getting dressed, so while I wait for her—while the rest of the girls have gone and I have this small window in front of the bathroom mirrors alone—I stand still and look at myself.
My chest is flattened under the thick stretch of Lycra. My hair is pulled back tight, the few loose strands around my hairline glued down with water I splashed on them with my hands. As I turn to the side, I take in my figure. I curve, but more in the way that screams of speed and muscle. My arms are still blue with bruises in spots; more green, really. And where they’re not, I’m scratched up like a tomboy who spent the day wrestling fish barehanded from the rocky river-bottom.
I turn back to the mirror and step forward, resting my hands on either side of the sink, letting my face get close
. My freckles are faint, and my blue eyes are muddied, but when I stare closely, holding my breath, I can still see her—I can still see the girl Wes…Christopher…saved years ago.
“She’s in there,” I whisper, my eyes held open until they start to tear.
I back up and shake my head, clearing myself of that sad feeling that was starting to crawl inside. I breathe in slowly and turn to my right. I don’t look like a girl who goes to a dance. And this is the first time I’ve ever really cared about the outside—what people see and how I fit into their mold.
“You ready?” Taryn yells from the locker room end.
“Coming!” I shout back, lingering on my reflection for one more second—just long enough to clear my head and get on my game face.
I snag my equipment bag on my way to the front door and meet Taryn there to walk along the dirt path that divides the baseball side of our school fields from the softball side. I catch a vision of Wes on the mound, my father standing next to him with a clipboard and the speed gun. It’s too far to see their eyes, but their hats are both tilted toward me. Wes reaches up and adjusts his, and I let myself smile because I know it was for me—a sign saying hello. And then I think about our deal, and the girl I saw in the mirror, and I look away.
“I guess Trinity really sucks,” Taryn says. I glance out to the right side of the field where the other team is throwing, girls dressed in bright green with bows and matching shoelaces. They all have matching jackets, and when I look over at their dugout, their equipment bags all have their numbers stitched on them.
Private schools.
“They look like they have money,” I say, dropping my bag on the dugout bench and looking at my own cleats—my laces worn and knotted. I wouldn’t trade my shoes for theirs for anything in the world.
“Whatever. Remember last year when we snuck a smoke behind their school before the game?” Taryn says, grabbing a ball from the bucket and leading me out to the field to throw.
I laugh under my breath at the memory, nodding to her when I’m ready for her to throw.
Last year’s matchup with Trinity was when my bottom began. I took myself out of the game, pouting from a bad call, and that night was the furthest I went in a make-out session with Kyle. I kissed him and let him get my shirt off in his back bedroom while our friends all got drunk in his living room. I felt ashamed during, and the shame only amplified when I pushed him away after an hour of him hoping things would go somewhere. I don’t know how he doesn’t hate me, but I’m glad he doesn’t.
That’s when I started skipping practices and sleeping in, blowing off class. I skirted by with mostly Cs, and one D last year. My grade point average is shit. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t want to go anywhere, other than some place that wasn’t in my father’s home.
I didn’t think about limitations. I only thought of not giving a damn about much. But I kind of want to go somewhere now. I kind of give a damn. My stomach twists knowing that my spiral could have cost me the opportunity to go anywhere at all—to go anywhere Wes might go.
“They’re ending early,” Taryn says, nodding over my shoulder and flipping the ball to me underhand. I catch it and rest it in my glove on my hip, squinting into the sun as I look out at the baseball team huddled around home plate.
“He never ends early. He’s probably just lecturing them more,” I say, still captivated by the scene on the other field.
Our coach calls us to the dugout, so I join the rest of the team, but I watch as the boys grunt out a chant and begin to move from the field, grabbing their bags and unlacing their shoes. A few of them begin to walk across the field, but it doesn’t hit me until I see Wes walking alongside my father—heading this way.
“Holy fuck,” I say under my breath.
“What?” Taryn says, flipping her hair up as she kneels on the bench beside me, looking through the back holes of our dugout. She locks onto what I see a second later. There are maybe twenty guys on my father’s varsity team, and they are all headed this way.
Every single one of them.
Taryn’s laughter starts to brew in her chest, and soon the raspy rhythm of it is filling my left ear, her hand slapping my arm.
“Holy shit, they’re coming to watch us!” She leaps from the bench and rushes to the other end of the backstop so she can talk to TK as he walks up to our small set of bleachers. I stay where I am, on the opposite end, working the rough edges of my glove around my hand.
Wes stands behind the bleachers, resting his hands on the top of the back seat. My father is next to him, but only Wes looks my way. He lifts his hand and smooths his hair under his hat, sliding it back in place before giving me a slight nod.
I feel sick.
Thank god we’re in the field first.
Our coach gathers us for some warm-ups, and I only half listen to his assessment of the other team. It doesn’t matter what his assessment is. I only know one way to play—my way. The Eric Winters way. It’s just that it’s been a while since I’ve played in front of my father.
I catch my father’s eyes over my coach’s shoulder. He’s watching intently, even though he can’t hear anything. As we take warm-ups, I notice him lean over and give commentary to Wes.
It doesn’t take long for muscle memory to kick in, and I glide side-to-side, my feet find their natural rhythm for every fielding attempt, for every throw. My head kicks in with my father’s voice.
You are better than that. Throw it harder. Don’t leave room for errors. Nothing gets by you. Come on!
I toss my final warm-up throw to our catcher, Shelby, and the ball snaps in her glove. She flicks her mask off and glares at me, but I look away. I took that out on her. I’m not proud. But I’m also not apologizing.
We take the field, and Trinity only gets a hold of one pitch, sending a line drive at my knees that I snag easily and flip up to the pitcher on my way in. I notice my father lean to Wes, and I sit alone at the end of the bench in our dugout to think about what he could have possibly said.
Don’t flip the ball like that. Nobody needs showboating. Just do your job.
Our first two batters get on easily with walks, and I pull my helmet from the ground and put it on, spitting out the sunflower seeds I stuffed into my mouth seconds before.
“I don’t know how you eat those things. They’re gross. It’s like chewing on pencils,” Taryn says, kicking dirt over my pile of wet seed shells. I glare at her. “Don’t take your shakes out on me. You’re pissy because you quit smoking.”
I scowl at her.
“No, I’m not,” I say, pulling the small bag of seeds from my back pocket and pouring five or six more into my mouth. “And fuck off.”
Truth is, I don’t really miss cigarettes at all. I didn’t like the way they made me feel. I liked the distraction of them, the fact that they made people think twice about me and leave me alone. I liked that they were one more thing that pissed my dad off.
The girl at bat before me is named Bria. Her ribbon is enormous. I’d make fun of it, but she’s actually a decent hitter. And now that I’m the only player not wearing a ribbon, I don’t really have much to stand on. Bria gets ahold of a pitch and sends a ball into deep center field, and the Trinity player somehow puts a glove on it. I swear her eyes were closed for the catch. I walk toward the plate feeling the swagger of knowing anything I put out there won’t be touched. Bria hit the ball well, but she doesn’t hit as hard as I do. I won’t give anyone time to react. My ball will be gone before they know what to do with it. My father won’t have anything to say. And I won’t be wearing a dress Friday for some stupid dance.
Even though that’s all I want in the world.
I spit my last round of seeds out in the grass before I get to the batter’s box. The umpire glares at me, and I stare back at him, feeling around my mouth for the one shell left inside. I spit that out too, this time on the dirt, and I cover it with a small kick of my cleat.
“Bacon-flavored,” I say, raising my eyebrows in a fl
ash. He grumbles and points a finger at the Trinity pitcher, done with me.
I load my weight and let the bat rest on my shoulder until I know she’s ready to throw. She winds and grunts, and the ball flies by me, a little above my waist. I let it go.
“Strike!”
I hear everyone cheering in the background. Some of the guys are chanting my name, and my teammates are yelling a string of “Come on, Joss, let’s go, Joss, you got this, Joss. Let’s go, number thirty-four!”
It’s all noise. All of it. None of it matters. I don’t let it in my head. That pitch didn’t matter. It wasn’t my pitch. I tune it all out. I don’t hear a thing. Only the sound of my pulse and my breath as it comes in and leaves through my nose.
And then I hear his voice.
“Thata girl. You don’t hit those. You hit winners.”
My father doesn’t yell like everyone else. He speaks. His voice cuts through the bullshit and moves right for my ears. It’s all I hear, and suddenly my legs shift, my hands adjust and my muscles flex.
I’m a fighter waiting to strike, and when the pitcher delivers her next try, I hit the ball so hard it not only clears the outfield fence, it bounces into the parking lot.
My feet carry me at an easy pace around the bases, my eyes watching the dirt clouds that puff beneath the heels of every step of the girl running in front of me. As I round third, my team is walking from the dugout to greet me at home plate. I don’t look at them. I look right through the backstop, to the back row of bleachers, to the older man standing behind them—smiling.
I’m hugged and high-fived the second I pass the plate, but my eyes never leave my father’s. His smile is brief, and if I hadn’t looked right away, I probably would have missed it. But I did look. It was there.
It was real.
The rest of the game passes with much of the same. We end up scoring fifteen runs to their two—and the game is called after the bottom of the fourth for time. Our field isn’t lighted, and the sun is on its last few minutes of gold.
Taryn packs up quickly and yells that she’ll call me later, passing her things to TK, who carries them on one side of his body while he holds her close on the other side. I watch them walk away while I tug my batting gloves from my hand and take my time packing up. I’m the last one in the dugout when Wes steps in behind me.
