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Batting was a lie.
That was the only real conclusion Yuwen could come to after forty-five minutes of trying and failing to time the godless hurl of the machine crouched twenty feet from him. It squatted there on the dirt like some mechanical toad, spitting balls with clinical cruelty. One after another, straight to the strike zone, indifferent to the state of the batter, the sun overhead, the staleness of breath in his lungs, or the fact that he'd had a decent lunch and still wanted to throw up from the frustration.
He cracked another ball. It screamed past the tip of his bat like it was daring him to matter.
Whiff.
Again.
He turned, paced a tight circle, pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, then backpedaled into position and squared up again. Bat lifted, shoulders tense, everything pointed forward. This time, he told himself. This one.
Whiff.
He let the bat dangle from his fingers and stared down at his shoes. The tips of them were caked in red dust. The kind that lingered after a hot week. He shuffled them side to side, drawing lines. A geometry of failure.
It didn’t make sense.
Pitching made sense. Pitching was about angles. Velocity. Torque. He could feel it from his spine to his fingertips. Like shooting a basketball, or tossing a rock across a lake—there was a logic to it, an architecture beneath the motion. He could close his eyes and feel the rhythm of a proper pitch. Predictable, solid, repeatable. Like math that could hurt people if done right.
Batting, though?
It was luck. It was theater. The swing felt like guesswork, no matter how many times you did it. One millimeter off and it didn’t matter how strong your stance was, or whether you kept your eyes on the ball, or whether your stupid “Little You” inside your chest was cheering or sobbing—it was all just wind. You were swinging at air, praying that this time your body would figure out the one-in-twenty miracle timing of when to move.
Yuwen exhaled hard and pulled his helmet off, letting the humid spring air cling to the back of his neck like a punishment.
It was after hours. The rest of the Pickles had long since stopped coming to the field. They had school, sure, but mostly they had closure. They were done. Win or lose, the championship had happened. It was a blur of heat and screaming and bad calls and snapped tension like rope. Some of them cried. Some laughed. Everyone had eaten pizza like they were still on a team, and then that was it. Routines dissolved. Jerseys shoved in closets. Coach even said they didn’t need to come to practice anymore—because there was no more practice. Not until next season. And for some, not even then.
Yuwen hadn’t stopped coming.
He wasn’t even sure why.
At first, it was because he wanted to stay in shape. Duh. The Peaks Valley High School scouts? They didn’t notice you because you batted .230 and then disappeared for a year. And besides, he was the pitcher. He was the ace. People expected him to show up like it was in his bones.
But he hadn’t touched the mound all week.
He’d been doing this. Batting. Swinging. Missing. Bleeding pride all over the field and telling himself it was fine.
The machine hurled another ball at him. He stepped into the box late and caught the handle instead of the barrel. The bat trembled in his hands and bit into his palm with a shudder that zinged up through his elbow and into his teeth.
He let it clatter to the dirt.
“Stupid,” he muttered. “So stupid.”
He kicked the bat. It rolled lazily toward the fence.
The field echoed. That was the worst part. Without the team there—without Rochelle’s too-loud heckling, or Kai doing everything right effortlessly, or Taylor smirking while she laced up her cleats—the place sounded too big. Like it didn’t want him here. Like it didn’t know what to do with just one person using it. The field wasn’t for individuals. It was for teams. For noise. For shared energy.
He felt like a ghost haunting a memory that didn’t want him back.
The worst part wasn’t the field. It wasn’t the misses.
It was the voice that wouldn’t shut up. Not out here. Not in his head.
“Bottom-of-the-lineup Yuwen.”
She said it in the dugout, that day they clinched championship week. Laughing. Smiling. Teasing him with that half-mocking grin of hers.
He could still hear Taylor say it. Playfully. Light. A jab in front of everyone. She’d laughed when she said it. And he’d laughed too. Louder than anyone. That fake, head-tossing, “yeah you got me” kind of laugh that buys you three seconds before someone notices you’re bleeding.
But she meant it. Even if she didn’t know she meant it.
That unspoken version of him inside? It cried instead.
The dumb, stupid paper-cutout of a boy who lived somewhere behind his ribs, who clutched his cardboard heart with quivering hands and sniffled when Yuwen said too many dumb things in a row. He cried all game, cried when Taylor teased, but celebrated harder when Yuwen asked her out anyway—looking back, maybe he was an idiot. acting like it would fix everything.
It hadn’t.
Taylor was still cool. Still on the team. Still Taylor. They were “still friends,” whatever that meant. Still smiled at each other in the hallway. Still didn’t bring up the fact that they’d broken up the same night the season ended, right before dinner, when she told him it wasn’t personal.
“You’re not a bad guy, Yuwen,” she’d said, biting her straw as they waited for the pizzas to come out. “I think we just have a bit of... growing to do first. By ourselves, you know...?"
Whatever that meant.
He put on a smile, fully knowing well that everyone else, Kai—hell, her little brother Ira—were there, though not fully paying attention. Just there. He knew it didn't matter too much, but he couldn't stop himself from keeping it all in.
"Yeah, it's cool. I totally understand. Pretty sure I can make a good ex," before letting out that signature chuckle.
But something had shifted.
He crouched, picked up the bat again, and spat into the grass. His mouth was dry. His arms ached. But he reset the machine and got back into the box.
Another pitch. He saw it late. Tried to connect and fouled it off toward the left baseline.
It rolled. Far.
Yuwen lowered the bat. Sighed. Walked after it with dragging feet and burning legs.
The ball came to a stop against the mesh fence on the far end of left field. The sun hung low now, red and orange like a soft-punch bruise on the horizon. The school was visible just beyond the trees—Peaks Valley Middle, proud and ugly. He didn’t even know if the janitor locked the gym yet. He didn’t care.
He bent to scoop up the ball and straightened—
—and froze.
A girl was walking the sidewalk parallel to the fence. Head down. Backpack snug against her spine. Blonde bangs cut stiff across her forehead. Crocs.
He blinked once.
Laurie.
Just… there.
Walking like she didn’t know he’d seen her. Like maybe she hadn’t seen him. But then her head turned slightly. Her body slowed. She stopped walking.
Their eyes met.
Just that.
The ball was in his hand. The air felt too thin. He didn’t say anything.
Neither did she.
They just stood.
The machine behind him clicked. Ready to launch again. The machine coughed.
Yuwen turned, too slow. The pitch blasted past the plate and slammed into the net with a flat, hollow thud, like it was disappointed in him. He hadn’t even twitched. Just let it go. It could’ve hit him in the chest and he wouldn’t have blinked.
Because he was staring at Laurie.
There she was, just… walking. Alone. Backpack crooked on one shoulder, her gait awkward and stiff like she was trying not to be noticed by the sidewalk. Her blond hair caught the last of the sunlight, lit up like straw under a match. She hadn’t even reached the crosswalk yet. Just trudging past the outfield fence on her way to—what, church club? Maybe home, maybe Dairy Queen. Maybe some weird Christian summer program that made her hand out bibles at gas stations. Who knew.
She paused.
That was the only reason he noticed her. If she’d kept walking, maybe she would’ve been a blur. A passing thought. But she stopped. Her neck turned, just slightly. Her eyes lifted like she felt it—the weight of being looked at.
Yuwen didn’t pretend to look away.
He just watched.
Her eyes caught his. Wide and soft and caught between two reactions: flight or freeze. Laurie never fought. Not really. She flinched and blinked and whispered, but she never barked back. That wasn’t her speed. She was a housecat. A wallflower. A doormat with knees.
He almost smiled.
He couldn’t not mess with her.
Something in his gut twisted, familiar and stupid. It was a tickle, that edge of thrill that came when he realized he had her attention. When someone like her gave it to him—even for free—it felt like a little win. A silent one. One he didn’t have to earn through skill or numbers. One that wasn’t measured in averages or RBI's. Just… a flinch. A twitch of uncertainty. A blush. A stammer.
She was built for teasing. Like someone put her together with the express purpose of being the weakest link on a roster, but the easiest target in a game of who-can-embarrass-who. It was too easy. Like batting off a tee. You didn’t have to aim to get a reaction from her. You just had to show up.
Even now, just standing here, dust on his knees, sweat under his hat—he could feel it. That little hit of power. The recognition in her posture. The way her shoes scuffed at the curb like she wasn’t sure if she should walk faster or wait to see if he’d call out.
He didn’t.
Not yet.
Because there was something better about this version of her—this Laurie with the backpack and the flushed face and that same old nervous energy humming off her like static cling. She wasn’t in her uniform now. No Pickles green. No visor. Just a plain t-shirt and that same dorky bracelet she always wore, like something from a Sunday school fair. It made her look younger somehow. Or maybe just more... real.
The machine fired again. He didn’t even hear it until the ball slapped the backstop and rolled down the mesh.
Yuwen finally moved, bending to scoop up the ball he’d chased earlier. His hand closed over it, palm gritty with dust, fingers curling tighter than they needed to.
The sun burned low behind the trees, staining the whole field gold and pink and tired.
Laurie was still looking at him.
She hadn’t been at the field in a week. Not since the championship. Not since the game blew up in slow motion and ended in pizza and confusion. The season was over, and Laurie—despite somehow being useful in that last inning, taking notes, shouting orders from the bleachers like some jittery little coach wearing her typical, slightly nervous smile—had quit.
Just quit.
No fanfare. No huddle. No goodbyes. Not even a text in the team chat.
Coach had mentioned it. Not proudly, not bitterly. Just... like a weather update.
“She wants to try something else. I support her.”
Yuwen didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t want to do anything with it. Except maybe make a dumb joke about her joining the chess club or auditioning for the school play and accidentally fainting onstage.
He’d spent the week pretending she didn’t exist.
But now—here she was. Alone. Not looking away. Not walking off. And it was weird. Not “deep” weird. Not meaningful weird. Just weird enough that he couldn’t help himself.
He rolled the ball in his palm. His arm twitched.
If he said something, she’d flinch.
She always flinched.
And he needed something—anything—to punch a hole in the heavy, dead air of the field that hadn’t stopped echoing since the team left it behind.
He flicked the ball once, lazily, in his palm, then again—faster, a light rhythm, something to make his hands busy while his brain scrambled for the next thing to say. Laurie hadn’t walked off yet. That alone was surprising. She’d paused, stared, flinched a little. But she was still there. Which meant something.
Yuwen didn’t know what, but it was something.
“Hey,” he called out, half a beat too loud for how empty the field was. “You get lost or just waiting for divine intervention?”
It landed flat. Sounded too sharp in the empty air.
Laurie twitched like a startled rabbit, eyes flaring wide for half a second. Her shoulders curled inward automatically, like someone had dumped ice water down the back of her t-shirt. Her hand clenched the strap of her backpack tighter, white-knuckled against the green.
She didn’t respond right away. Just blinked at him like he’d spoken in a different language. Then she looked away. Down. Like she was considering pretending she hadn’t heard him.
Yuwen let out a puff of air through his nose, rolling the ball in his palm again like it was something to do with his hands. “What, no Bible verse for that one?” he said, more casual, biting the edge off the sarcasm this time. “Come on, that’s gotta be worth a ‘He who walks beside the fence shall not stumble,’ or something, right?”
Still nothing.
She just started walking again. Not fast. But purposeful. The kind of walk that said: I am ignoring you, but I hear everything you’re saying and it’s ruining my day anyway.
Yuwen jogged a few steps, falling into stride across the fence from her, keeping pace as she moved along the sidewalk. “So what’s the plan, Laurie?” he called. “Gonna transfer to dodgeball now that softball’s too violent for you?”
That did it.
She stopped.
Whipped around to face him, one hand still clutched on her backpack like a life preserver. Her mouth opened, then shut. Then opened again. “I—I’m going home,” she said, and her voice trembled just slightly. “And you don’t have to talk to me.”
He held up his free hand in mock surrender. “Whoa, relax. Just trying to say hi. Sorry I interrupted your silent march of martyrdom or whatever.”
“I’m not—marching.” Her brow furrowed. “And I’m not a martyr.”
Yuwen smirked, because that kind of response was too perfect. “Says the girl who took a softball to the face and still ran the bases like a busted Roomba.”
“I—!” Laurie’s voice cracked mid-protest. She looked away again, blinking fast, and he saw her swallow hard. “I made it home,” she mumbled.
“Only ‘cause Kai hit the outfield like a god,” he replied easily, flipping the ball in his palm. “Let’s be real, your face took more action than your bat ever did this season.”
It wasn’t mean, he thought. Not really. It was just how they talked on the team. Everyone ribbed each other. Banter. That was normal. She’d been on the team, hadn’t she? This was part of the deal. If she’d stuck around, she could’ve learned how to roll with it.
But she hadn’t.
And now that edge in her expression was back.
That scrunched look she got when someone called on her in class and she didn’t know the answer. The kind of look that made her shrink an inch taller. That made her hands curl like she wanted to disappear into her own sleeves. She opened her mouth again like she was going to throw something back at him—anything, even if it was dumb—but nothing came out.
Yuwen hesitated.
Just a second.
It hit him weird. The way she stood there like she’d already lost. Like she’d shown up to a fight in her church clothes and realized too late that she’d never win.
Her voice dropped. “Why do you always do that?”
He blinked.
She wasn’t yelling. Not even close. She just said it like a sigh she’d been holding in since October.
“Do what?” he asked, but the cocky edge was starting to dull a little. He tossed the ball up and caught it again, letting the silence sit between them.
“You always act like everything’s a joke,” Laurie said, not looking at him now. Her eyes were somewhere on the grass, voice tight. “Like teasing people is the only way you know how to talk.”
Yuwen raised a brow. “Yeah, well. You’ve never exactly given me much else to work with.”
“Maybe because you’re not nice to me.” That came faster than expected. Almost automatic. But it wasn’t angry. Not defensive. It was tired.
The kind of tired you only get when you've carried something too long and no one’s helped you set it down.
Yuwen let the ball roll down his fingers and caught it again with his other hand. He looked at her. Really looked. Not just the usual once-over. Not the checklist of flaws and quirks he usually picked apart for sport.
He noticed how stiff her shoulders were. How she kept one foot angled toward the road like she wanted to run. How her face was still red—not from anger or heat, but from something closer to embarrassment. Shame, maybe.
Something in his stomach turned.
He didn’t know why. But it didn’t feel as funny as it should’ve.
“Look, I’m just messing around,” he said, softer than before. “You used to come here all the time, remember? Thought you could take a joke.”
“I don’t,” she said, so quiet he barely heard it.
And that made him pause.
He clicked his tongue. Shifted his weight. The air felt thicker now, like the sun had dipped just enough to cool the field but not enough to make anything feel lighter. Like everything was stuck at the end of a long, heavy breath.
Laurie’s fingers twitched on her backpack strap.
She wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t think. But she was small. In a way he hadn’t really noticed before. Not just physically. She looked like someone who’d just found out her safety net wasn’t real.
“I didn’t mean to—” he started, then cut himself off. He hated apologizing. It always tasted like cardboard.
The machine hissed behind him, firing off another ball that no one caught.
“Oh, come on,” he said, smirking still but trying to dial it back. “You know I’m kidding. I have to keep morale up now that you’ve bailed on us. Like, officially.”
She stopped. Just halted in her tracks, right at the break in the fence where the sidewalk kinked to the corner.
“I didn’t quit because of you,” she said, quiet but hard-edged. Like she’d been holding it behind her teeth since the season ended.
Yuwen raised a brow, leaning on the post. “Didn’t say you did.”
“You implied it.”
“I teased it,” he corrected, one corner of his mouth still up. “Pretty sure that’s what I do.”
Laurie looked at the grass. Then the concrete. Then him.
There it was again. That smallness. That hollowed-out version of her she didn’t even know she was showing. Like she’d folded herself one too many times to fit inside the space people allowed her, and now she wasn’t sure how to unfold.
Yuwen frowned.
He didn’t want her to fold like that.
Not for him. Not because of him.
He shifted, looked toward the mound. Looked back. Shrugged.
“You wanna pitch for me?”
Laurie blinked, breath catching in her throat. “What?”
He nodded at the ball machine, then the plate. “The robot’s got a vendetta. I need a real person. Preferably one who can’t throw a strike if her life depended on it.”
“I’m not pitching for you.”
“Sure you are,” he said, already turning toward the field. “You owe me. For running home with your face.”
The machine whirred again, then spat another ball into the nothing—sharp, fast, indifferent. It hissed as it rotated back into place, blinking red like a lazy cyclops, waiting for another target that wouldn’t come.
Laurie flinched at the sound, barely, her shoulders ticking up before she caught herself. Yuwen noticed. Didn’t comment.
He waited instead.
Waited for the “no,” the “I’m busy,” the “why would I ever.”
But all she did was stand there, half-tensed like a deer not yet running, her mouth parted slightly. A breath waiting to become a sentence. Her eyes were on the field now, not him—something in the way people look at a spot they’ve bled on before. Like if they stare long enough, maybe it won’t still be there.
She looked smaller than she had a moment ago.
And he didn’t like that.
Didn’t know why he didn’t like that, but it clung to the base of his neck like sweat.
“So?” he prodded. “You got better things to do, or are you just gonna keep standing there acting like I threw the ball at you?”
She blinked. Then shook her head once, subtle and stiff, like she’d just remembered she had a spine.
“I don’t pitch,” she muttered again. “And I don’t owe you anything.”
“Oh c’mon,” he smirked, spreading his arms wide. “You don’t want to help the guy who gave you your fifteen minutes of fame?”
Laurie’s expression shifted. The wind moved her hair just enough for him to see the twitch in her brow.
“I never asked for that.”
There it was.
The video.
Her voice didn’t even crack this time. Just dropped a degree.
Yuwen’s mouth went dry before he could stop it.
She was there. For all of it.
The click of his phone. The smirking playback. Her eyes, unsure and a little dazed, trying to figure out if it was supposed to be funny. If she was supposed to laugh. Then Rochelle’s voice cutting in like a blade, going on this long-winded rant that shook him to the core before saying those three words.
“You like Laurie!"
Just like that.
And Laurie just stood there, blinking through it like someone trying to process a car crash in slow motion—even though there was a spark of curiosity in her eyes.
He hadn’t denied it to her, not directly. He hadn’t said anything to her specifically. He’d looked practically past her, cracked a laugh, said he liked Taylor, and then—
He asked Taylor out.
Right there.
In front of everyone. The team. Her.
And Laurie—
Laurie had smiled.
That stiff, crooked, too brave smile that made her look like she was holding her skin together with safety pins.
Yuwen swallowed thickly. Felt the ball roll between his fingers like it was suddenly too round to hold onto.
“You laughed,” he said now, quieter. “That day. I showed you the video and you laughed.”
“I thought I was supposed to,” she shot back, eyes flashing for the first time.
He looked at her—really looked at her—and realized she meant it.
She thought she was supposed to.
Not because it was funny. But because he was laughing. Because everyone else was.
And because Laurie always did what she thought people wanted. Always.
“You didn’t like it,” he said, quieter now. Not a question. Just a recognition. Like tasting something familiar hours later and only just realizing what it was.
Laurie blinked fast. The kind of blink she did when she was trying to keep her voice steady, and not let anything show in her eyes. Her lips opened like she was going to say something right away—but she didn’t. She hesitated. She pivoted.
“Oh, it was… I mean—it’s fine,” she said too quickly, pitching her voice up half a note higher than her usual. “You—you caught it. It’s actually impressive how fast you got that angle. Like—good reflexes, I guess.”
There it was.
That thing her voice did when she was lying.
Too airy. Too full of fake enthusiasm. Like she was trying to inflate the moment before it collapsed in on her.
Yuwen frowned, but didn’t speak.
He watched her fingers fiddle with the edge of her sleeve, twisting the fabric like she wanted to disappear inside it. Her eyes didn’t meet his now, instead fixed on a patch of grass by the curb, like the ground might say something that could save her.
“I didn’t even… I don’t remember most of it,” she added after a beat, waving her hand in a weak little motion, like she was dismissing a mosquito. “The game. That part of it. It was loud.”
Nonsense. He knew she remembered. All of it. The phone in her face, the gasps, Rochelle’s voice cutting the air like a knife, and the whole team turning to stare. Her voice when she said, “I never knew.” Like it might be something good.
And then—
“My mom owns a Dairy Queen! If you want, we could—”
And he had laughed.
And he had picked Taylor.
Laurie rubbed her nose, then pushed a strand of hair behind her ear that didn’t need pushing. Still not looking at him.
He didn’t say anything.
The machine fired off another ball, and this time it clattered into the net with a sharper whap, louder than before. The sound made her flinch—not much, but enough for him to feel it somewhere behind his ribs.
“…You know I didn’t mean it like that,” he muttered.
“Mean what?” she said too fast, too lightly, and smiled—tight-lipped and weak, all teeth gritted behind it.
“Forget it.”
“No, it’s—it’s fine,” she said again, smile still plastered on. “I mean, you didn’t have to be nice or anything. I’m used to… people not being. It was just softball. I wasn’t great. And it’s not like that stuff mattered anyway.”
Yuwen stared at her.
She meant that. That last part. That wasn’t just deflection. That was real. A thought she’d repeated in her head until it stopped sounding painful and just became true.
The thing was—he hadn’t thought about her that much during the season. Not really. Not until that one perfect moment when it was so easy to laugh, so easy to win something by making someone smaller. But looking at her now, he knew what this was. Not a memory.
A wound.
And it still looked fresh.
The machine exhaled again.
That low electric hiss as it rotated, then the dull "thwip" of the next pitch screaming forward into the netting. The sound had faded into background radiation for Yuwen, but now it filled the silence between him and Laurie like a metronome. Ticking. Ticking. Every few seconds, a reminder that something was waiting to be hit. Something was always coming.
The lie sat in the space between them like a bad joke nobody laughed at. Her fingers had stilled, tucked under the strap of her backpack now like she was anchoring herself to it. She stood with her weight uneven, like maybe she was about to keep walking. Or like she wanted him to say something else. Something nicer. Something real.
But Yuwen wasn’t in the business of being real. Not to her. Not now.
So he didn’t say sorry.
Instead, he squinted past her, back toward the plate, then tilted his chin toward the mound like it was an invitation, or a dare.
“You know,” he said slowly, stretching the words out just enough to be obnoxious, “if you’re gonna stand there looking like you’ve got a whole monologue building up in your head, you might as well put it to use. Pitch."
Laurie made a face. “I—I’m not a pitcher.”
He clicked his tongue, spinning the ball between his fingers. “Funny. That’s not what Kai said.”
She froze. Just a hitch. But a full-body one. He caught it.
“What?”
“Kai.” He bit the name like gum. “Told me what happened during your little solo montage before the championship. You pitched, then she pitched... you hit her with the ball, right?”
Laurie’s mouth parted. No sound came out.
He grinned—small and sharp, because he wasn’t done yet.
“She said you felt awful. But she also said it was a pretty solid hit. Surprised even her.” He lifted his eyebrows, feigning amazement, chuckling. “Didn’t think you had that kind of swing in you, Laurie. Like, full-on Squids and Trucks protagonist moment."
She went pale. Not dramatic. Not gasping. Just—quiet. Her skin pulled tight across her cheeks, like someone had drained the heat right out of her.
“She told you?” she asked, voice thin.
Yuwen gave a half-shrug. “We talk. It came up. Don’t worry, she said it wasn’t your fault. She was weirdly proud about it, actually.”
Laurie’s arms were crossed now, self-conscious, stiff, but she wasn’t backing away. And she wasn’t walking off. That was something.
“She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” she said, voice soft.
He leaned on the fencepost again, spinning the ball once more. “Why? Embarrassed you finally hit something?”
“I hurt her. And during championships, she was—"
“She’s fine. She walked it off. Or hobbled it off. Whatever. Point is—if you hit Kai, you can probably pitch to me without ending my career.”
Laurie shifted. Her fingers twitched.
“That’s not the same.”
Yuwen narrowed his eyes, not unkindly. “Sure it is. It’s still you and a ball and somebody too awesome to get out of the way. Come on.”
The machine fired again. Whap. A clean shot into the netting. The noise made Laurie jump again, just slightly. He was starting to think it wasn’t just the machine that got her—maybe it was everything. The fence. The field. Him.
“You dragged me all the way over here just to make fun of me,” she said after a beat.
“No,” Yuwen said, honest in the worst way. “That was a bonus.”
Laurie glared at him. Sort of. Her version of a glare wasn’t all that threatening—more like a wet kitten trying to make itself look big. It was hard not to laugh.
But he didn’t. Not this time.
“Seriously,” he added, tossing her the ball underhand. She caught it with both hands like it might explode. “I need a change of pace. The machine’s all rhythm, no attitude. You’ve got plenty of attitude.”
“I don’t—”
“Just pitch, Laur. I dare you.”
She stood there, wincing at his use of her nickname. Looking at the ball. Then at him. Then back at the ball like it held the weight of her entire seventh grade reputation, which—okay, fair.
Her voice came out low. “One pitch.”
He grinned. “I’ll take it.”
She hesitated again. Then stepped toward the opening in the fence, her shoes crunching the gravel. She didn’t hand him her backpack. Just hugged it a little tighter, then dropped it gently at the edge of the field like it might be watching her.
She walked with that weird posture—shoulders too high, steps too light. The way she always walked when Coach used to tell her to hustle but she didn’t know what hustle was supposed to look like.
Yuwen stayed by the plate, watching her take slow steps toward the mound. She didn’t ask where it was. She already knew.
Of course she knew.
She’d practiced here.
Alone.
All week.
She knew the distance. She knew where the dirt dipped. She knew which patch of grass swallowed cleats and which one held them steady. She had all that memorized—and never told anyone.
But Kai had.
And now Yuwen knew too.
The machine fired again. Whap. Another ball hit the net behind him, ignored.
Laurie turned back once, near the mound.
He raised the bat, resting it on his shoulder like he was bored.
“Well?” he called.
Yuwen slung the bat once in a lazy arc, then shouldered it and glanced back toward the machine, blinking under the late afternoon sun. The mechanical whir was starting to get annoying—like a fly circling a bruise. Persistent. Pointless. He turned and reached toward the rust-flecked control box near the fence and hit the red button without looking.
Click.
Whirrrrrrrr.
Silence.
The field exhaled. The tension that had been buzzing in the dirt since she stopped on the sidewalk finally cracked open.
Laurie stood on the mound—or close enough to it. Her yellow Crocs scuffed at the packed earth, a dust cloud curling lazily around her ankle. She adjusted her footing once, twice. Clutched the ball like she wasn’t sure if it might change its mind about her mid-flight. Her fingers settled on the seams. Her eyes locked on the plate.
She didn’t say anything.
Neither did he.
And then—she pitched.
No wind-up. No flourish. Just a quick, compact motion—practiced. Clean. The ball flew low, sharp, and missed the plate by a few inches but moved. It had a tail on it. He felt it hiss by.
Yuwen blinked. Adjusted his grip.
She rolled her shoulders once. He watched. She looked different already—like someone who remembered something she thought she’d lost. She kicked another ball forward with her toe, picked it up without looking. No wasted movement.
He braced.
She threw again.
And he swung.
Thwiff.
Clean miss. The bat sliced the air like an idiot trying to swat a dragonfly.
“…Okay,” he said, voice flat, shoulders tight.
She said nothing.
Another ball. Another pitch.
Thwiff.
“Cool. That’s fine,” he muttered.
He caught her face now as she reset—just a flash of it between throws. Her eyes focused but nervous, lower lip caught in her teeth. The bruise was still there. Faded now, but not gone. A faint purple-yellow bloom along her left cheekbone. Ghost of a fastball. Ghost of her last night as a softball player.
He remembered when it happened, saw it all, even as Taylor lingered at the back of his mind. Back in the dugout, the entire Pickles team on their feet cheering. She was trying to look brave, like she hadn’t just taken a line drive to the face, like she wasn’t one solid push away from crying in front of everyone.
She had walked to first anyway, smile on her face and thumbs-up in the air. After that. Walked like her bones were jelly, like her skin was made of glass. But she moved. Kept going. All the way home, eventually.
He hadn’t said anything to her about it. Hadn’t even asked if she was okay behind that smile and validation, because why would he? He’d watched her jog-slash-limp back to the dugout with her hand over her cheek after Coach's meltdown on the field, sat two feet away from her, and said nothing as she began meticulously taking notes on her dad's clipboard.
Why would he? He still somehow had Taylor on his mind. He felt a knot twist in his chest. There it was. Not guilt. Not exactly.
But close.
Thwiff.
“You’re aiming for the air, right?” Laurie said suddenly, deadpan.
Yuwen blinked. Lowered the bat.
“…You just make a joke?”
“I can make jokes.”
“Since when?”
Laurie shrugged, a bit sheepishly. “I’m full of surprises, I guess.
Another ball. She held it in both hands this time, looking it over like it had something to tell her. Her gaze flicked up.
“You’re standing wrong,” she said.
“I’m standing perfectly.”
“You’re not.”
“You wanna come show me?”
“…No.”
“Then shut up and pitch.”
She rolled her eyes, but she smiled, barely. It was subtle, but it was real. Not the same brittle smile from the video. Not the one that said I think I’m supposed to laugh. This one cracked at the edges like warm bread—unexpected, a little awkward, but sincere.
She pitched again.
This time, he connected.
A solid hit—maybe not clean, but enough to sting up his arms through the aluminum and send the ball skittering across the infield. Not bad. Not good either. But progress.
Laurie stepped back, blinking once. “Huh.”
“What?” he challenged.
“You hit it.”
“Wow. What a revelation. You want to write that down?”
“No, it’s just—I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Oh, so you don’t believe in me either. Classic.”
“I believe you like hearing your own voice.”
Yuwen grinned, his thoughts returning back to that attentive, trainer-like role she took on during that last inning that night. “Okay. Okay, Coach.”
She flinched, just barely. But it was there.
He winced at himself. That one slipped out. Too sharp.
Laurie’s eyes darted away. She busied herself with the ball again, but slower this time.
He thought about saying something. Fixing it. He didn’t.
The bruise caught the light when she glanced toward the sun. He couldn’t look at it long.
“You wear it like a badge or something? A souvenir from home base?” he muttered before he could stop himself.
She blinked at him, confused.
“The bruise.”
“Oh.”
Her hand ghosted up to her cheek, touched it without pressure. “I mean... I think it's kinda cool. Got us a run, I guess..."
He looked at her. A part of her was proud of it. Even though she was practically near-knocked out in front of the entire field. How does she do that?
She threw again. He swung. Missed.
“Why are you still practicing?” she finally asked.
The question hung there.
Yuwen twitched his grip on the bat. Not a flinch. Just a shift. Like resetting his stance when he wasn’t even sure what threw it off.
He looked back at her, just briefly, then toward the field, where the last ball had bounced off the net and was lying there, sun-dappled and still.
“You already… the season’s over.”
Yuwen didn’t answer.
She didn’t repeat herself.
Instead, she shifted back, adjusting her footing like she was bracing for recoil. The silence between them stretched thin—tight, awkward, the kind that made his ears ring.
He tossed his bat from one hand to the other, then stepped back toward the plate again, setting up like he hadn’t heard her. As if moving would answer the question.
It didn’t.
He could still hear it. Right in his ribs.
Laurie frowned faintly. “You’re not trying out for anything else, are you?”
“Do I look like I’m trying out for anything?”
“You’ve been swinging at the same pitch for like, a while now..."
“That’s because your pitches are weird.”
“They’re not.”
“They curve.”
“You keep standing wrong.”
“I stand fine.”
“Then why do you keep missing?”
Yuwen turned his head sharply. “Maybe I like missing.”
Laurie blinked.
He regretted saying it.
“I mean, whatever,” he added quickly, gesturing vaguely at the net. “It’s just muscle memory. Keeps me sharp.”
“Sharp for what?”
He didn’t answer.
He swung again.
Foul. The ball skipped off the bat’s end and rolled toward the fence with a weak spin.
He reset. Again.
Laurie still watched.
It was then, uninvited, that it came back.
Taylor’s voice.
“You mean bottom-of-the-lineup Yuwen?”
The rest of the team chuckled, even Kai.
He laughed too. Big, loud. Played along, his phone recording forgotten, the voices of their teammates echoing in his head.
“She got you good.”
But that voice—his voice—inside him didn’t laugh. Didn’t think it was funny. That version of himself had curled up and gone quiet.
He didn’t even look at Laurie, not then. She was out of sight, just past the fence, waiting for her turn at bat. He hadn’t thought of her once during that moment until her turn began.
But now—he felt her gaze like a pin at his back.
Yuwen adjusted his cap. Swung again.
Another foul.
Laurie stepped forward, just one pace closer to the mound’s edge.
“…Did someone say something to you?” she asked. “Is that why?”
Yuwen gripped the bat tighter. His knuckles strained.
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone must’ve said something, right? For you to be out here by yourself all week. I mean—it’s not like you were bad. You’re not. You pitched great. Everyone said so.”
He made a noise. Some hybrid between a laugh and a grunt. “Yeah. Sure. I’m legendary.”
She didn’t smile.
He could feel her still looking at him. His fingers itched.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said.
“But it is.”
“It’s not.”
“You’re here alone,” Laurie said simply. “Still. A week later.”
He didn’t look at her.
His heart thumped a little too hard against his chest.
“Just trying to stay sharp,” he muttered again.
He swung. Missed.
The silence returned.
Laurie let out a breath, almost a sigh.
“…Do you want another one?” she asked.
He nodded—tense, braced—just now remembering one pitch from her was the original plan. He figured maybe, for some reason, she forgot too.
And she threw.
The ball sailed perfectly across the plate.
And he fouled it again.
The thunk of it against the bat’s end sounded like failure. Not dramatic. Not final. Just… dull.
Yuwen stared at the ball as it rolled to a stop near the dirt.
Laurie didn’t say anything.
Not yet.
She just turned back for another pitch.
He clenched his jaw, reset his grip, and tried not to remember the voice in his head still laughing.
She threw again.
The ball hit behind him with a soft smack against the backstop netting. Not because he missed entirely—this time it was a foul, again, tipping off the end of the bat like it had lost interest halfway through.
Yuwen let the bat sag. He didn't say anything, but the silence after the swing said enough. He could feel her watching from the mound, not smug, not grinning. Just... watching.
"You’re not this bad," Laurie said after a minute. Her voice had that hushed, hesitant edge like she was walking over thin glass. “At batting, I mean. I remember, from a few games..."
He rolled his shoulders. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Another ball. Another pitch. He swung. Missed.
She shifted her weight and caught the next ball without looking. Tucked it in her glove, and cleared her throat softly.
“I used to practice alone here too,” she said. “The week before champs. Y'know, with that one time with Kai..."
Yuwen didn’t answer, eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder. The last time he remembered her practicing at all, it, yes—ended with Kai sprawled in the dirt and Laurie acting like she’d broken one of the Ten Commandments.
“I was trying to get better at batting,” she continued. “Just like this. Same time of day. After everyone went home. I didn’t really think anyone noticed.”
He didn’t respond.
Laurie shrugged. “It felt dumb, honestly. I wasn’t improving. Not really. I’d just stand here for hours missing balls. Talking to myself. Praying sometimes, I guess. I don’t know.”
That caught his attention. He turned his head, squinting at her. “You prayed to get better at softball?”
She flushed a little. “Not—like that. I mean, not just that.”
“Wow,” Yuwen said, deadpan. “God didn’t deliver, huh?”
That one landed. He saw it immediately.
Laurie froze for half a second, her expression pinching—just a flicker of something sharp and uncertain. Then she looked away, blinking hard.
“…Oh.”
That was all she said.
Not an argument. Not a comeback. Just that one word, small and flat and cracking just slightly at the edges.
The sound of it hit him like a line drive to the stomach.
It wasn’t just a noise—it was a withdrawal. A retreat. Something in her shut down all at once, folding up quiet and fast like a notebook slammed shut. No scene, no drama. Just her voice tightening and her shoulders hunching and that look in her eyes like she wished she’d kept her mouth shut in the first place.
Yuwen blinked. His stomach turned.
He opened his mouth. Closed it again.
He hadn’t meant it like that.
Hadn’t meant to—what? Mock her? Make her feel stupid?
That’s what he always did.
But this didn’t feel the same.
He didn’t like this.
And worse, he didn’t know why he didn’t like it.
Laurie stepped back to the mound again, quiet, her shoes crunching softly in the dirt. She didn’t say anything else. Didn’t look at him. Just picked up another ball like it was her job to fill the silence he’d created.
And he let her.
Because he didn’t know how to fix it.
The next pitch hit the net again. Not hard. Just clean and distant, like even the ball had stopped caring if he could keep up.
Laurie didn’t flinch. She just crouched to retrieve another from the grass, hands methodical, quiet. The bruise on her cheek had caught the light again. Yellow now, mostly. Dull. Still visible.
Yuwen wasn’t sure how long it had been since either of them spoke. Ten seconds? A minute? Longer?
The bat hung low in his hands. His arms had stopped aching somewhere in the third or fourth round of self-inflicted embarrassment. Now they just felt heavy.
His chest was heavier.
Laurie hadn’t said anything about his last comment. No biting remark, no “you’re such a jerk" (something he'd probably expect to hear if Rochelle were here to fight her battles, per usual), no wide-eyed tearful retreat.
Just “oh.”
And now silence.
He hated it.
No—he hated how he deserved it.
Because it was obvious, wasn’t it?
Everything he’d been doing—coming back to the field, hurling himself at batting drills like he could punch his way into being good at it, pretending like he was just here for "muscle memory"—all of it was a joke. A cover.
Because deep down, the thing echoing around inside him was her voice. Not Laurie’s. Taylor’s.
"Bottom-of-the-lineup Yuwen."
Taylor was always kind of like that. Light jabs. All smiles.
And then, when he confessed he liked her—when he said it out loud after Rochelle shouted that he liked the wrong girl to the whole team, and Laurie had just stood there looking at him with that face like maybe someone might see her for once—he didn’t say no to her.
He said no to Laurie.
He remembered that part now. Weirdly clear.
"I don't like Laurie. I like Taylor."
Right in front of everyone.
And now? Taylor wasn’t his girlfriend. Hadn’t been for a week—both now apart just as long as they'd been together. He apologized, sure, still friends—but that underlying notion remained—she didn’t think he took things seriously. Said he was funny but—despite all they'd revealed to one another, cardboard and all—she didn’t know for sure who he was under it anymore.
And Laurie—quiet, bruised, awkward Laurie—was standing in front of him now, throwing the best pitches he’d seen all week, in borrowed jeans and a shirt that still had a half-washed mustard stain on it. Like she belonged here. Still here. After everything.
She wasn’t even on the team anymore.
And she was still Laurie.
Still... herself.
He swung again, weakly, and fouled one into the side net. The thud barely registered.
He didn’t reset this time. Just let the bat lower.
“Hey,” he said, voice low, the word almost startling in the silence between them.
Laurie paused, mid-reach.
He looked down at the bat. The dirt. Anything but her.
“…How’d you do it?”
She straightened. “Do what?”
“This.” He gestured vaguely, slightly toward the bruise still on her face. “The whole… softball thing. Screwing up. Constantly. Taking hits. Getting laughed at. Getting… bruised. And still—still coming back. Still showing up.”
He bit his lip back after realizing the brutal honesty in his question. Laurie blinked.
Yuwen glanced at her, just for a second.
“…How’d you not disappear?”
It wasn’t an insult. Not this time. It was honest. Not sharp, not clever. Just real. The way it fell out of his mouth surprised even him.
Laurie didn’t answer at first. She clutched the ball in her hands like it was suddenly made of glass. Then she sat down on the edge of the mound, arms folded over her knees, eyes distant.
Yuwen waited.
The sun dipped lower behind her, lighting the edges of her hair like it wanted to make a point.
She picked at one of the holes in her Crocs for a second.
Then, without looking at him, she said:
“I didn’t think I had a choice.”
Laurie didn’t throw the ball again.
Didn’t even look like she was planning to.
She just sat there at the edge of the mound, elbows on her knees, the sun dying slow behind her back. Her fingers traced absent shapes in the dirt with the toe of her sneaker, like she was trying to draw something she’d forgotten.
Yuwen didn’t say anything. He stayed near the plate, the bat dragging lightly in the dust at his side.
A single breeze moved through the field—dry, unbothered. The quiet wasn’t thick, exactly. It was just there. A kind of waiting.
“I thought I had to prove something,” Laurie said finally, voice small but steady.
Yuwen looked at her.
She wasn’t looking back.
“Before the championship. All week, I just… I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Like, if I didn’t get better—finally get better—then he’d have nothing to be proud of.”
She swallowed. Picked a small pebble off the ground and rolled it between her fingers.
“Coach—I mean, Dad..."
There was something about the way she said coach and dad in the same breath that made Yuwen’s stomach curl a little.
“I mean, he’s always been awesome to me. But ever since… ever since he moved out, it’s been weird.”
She glanced up at the fence line like the motel might be standing behind it.
“He tries. I know he does. But he’s got this tiny place now. Everything smells like laundry and leftover pizza, and we only have him on weekends now. And I guess I thought… if I wasn’t good at his thing, then maybe I wouldn’t matter to him as much anymore.”
She didn’t say it with anger. Or bitterness. Or even sadness.
Just matter-of-fact.
It was worse than sadness, somehow.
Yuwen didn’t move.
Laurie pressed her palms together. The ball sat forgotten beside her in the dirt.
“So I practiced. Every day after school. Alone. Trying to hit the machine like it’d fix me. Like if I just thought hard enough, I’d stop being the weakest one.”
Yuwen blinked.
“And yeah, I hit Kai during one of those practices,” she added. “She told me she was proud of me, but I think—I think that was the moment I knew I wasn’t ready.”
Yuwen said nothing.
Laurie tilted her head back, eyes closed.
“And then at the championship… when Dad called timeout and talked to me—I think I finally got it. That he was already proud. Even if I was awful.”
She opened her eyes. Not at him. Just at the sky.
“It didn’t matter if I missed every ball. He wasn’t watching for that.”
She went quiet again. Let the air take her words like seeds carried off in the wind.
Yuwen felt like he was intruding on something—some old thought that had taken too long to say.
She stood slowly. Brushed off her jeans. She didn’t go back to the mound.
Yuwen still didn’t move. He just watched her, the bat loose in his fingers, like someone staring through a window they couldn’t open.
He wanted to say something.
Not sorry. That wasn’t the word. He didn’t even know what he’d be apologizing for. For mocking her? For not noticing? For laughing?
For everything and nothing?
Instead he just asked, quietly, almost to himself:
“…And after that?”
Laurie looked at him.
“I quit.”
He watched her, not blinking.
She’d said it cleanly, plainly, like it was something she’d already rehearsed.
And he believed her, in its permanence. He hadn’t seen her wear the jersey since. Hadn’t seen her pick up a glove. She still showed up sometimes, after school, to meet Rochelle, or sit with Kai, or hang by the fence and wave at her dad, but it wasn’t the same.
She was off the field now.
Out of the lineup.
And maybe that stung more than it should.
Yuwen lowered the bat and spoke without thinking.
“…Are you happy?”
Laurie tilted her head. Not startled. Just surprised it was him asking.
“Happy?”
“I mean… I dunno. Are you doing okay?”
He wasn’t looking at her directly. His voice came out weird—flat and too casual, like he’d meant to toss it offhand but didn’t know how.
Laurie shifted her weight and smoothed a wrinkle in her shirt. The air had gone still again.
“I’m good,” she said. She said it easily. But her voice hitched just slightly—just enough to know she meant not great, but okay.
Yuwen nodded, even though she hadn’t asked for a response.
Laurie looked down at her shoes, then out toward the edge of the field, past the fence.
“I still hang out with Rochelle,” she said after a moment, quiet but steady. “And Kai. We stopped by my mom's Dairy Queen yesterday, and Kai made me laugh so hard I choked on my shake.”
Yuwen smirked faintly. That sounded like Kai.
She kept going.
“Taylor was there too…”
And that was it.
No warning. No buildup.
Just Taylor.
Her name, spoken like it was nothing. Casual. Breezy.
But it hit him like someone had pitched a ball straight into his chest.
He didn’t flinch. Not physically.
But Laurie noticed.
It was small—how his grip on the bat tensed for a half-second, how his chin shifted down like he was watching a bug crawl out of his own shadow.
She saw it.
And she stopped.
Whatever she’d been about to say—maybe a funny story, maybe something Taylor did, maybe nothing—it vanished. Folded back up like a napkin. Put away.
Laurie turned to her phone instead, like it had just buzzed, which it hadn’t.
A pause.
Then it did buzz, lighting up in her hand.
She read the screen, thumb twitching nervously against the edge. Her mouth pressed into a small, neutral line.
“…My mom’s wondering where I am,” she said, not looking up. “I’m supposed to help with dinner.”
She didn’t move, though. Not yet.
Not toward the sidewalk. Not toward home.
Yuwen shifted his stance, unsure if he should let her go, or thank her, or ask something else just to keep her here another five minutes.
Then Laurie smiled. Just a little.
Not for him. Not for her phone.
For the silence between them, maybe.
“One more pitch?” she asked, already walking to the mound.
Yuwen nodded before his brain caught up. His grip reset on the bat. He didn’t stretch or say something dumb. Just watched her walk back to the mound with slow, easy steps. Nothing dramatic. Just... Laurie. Still here. Even when she probably shouldn’t be.
She rolled the ball in her hand as she moved. Checked it, maybe more for something to do with her fingers than anything else. When she turned back to him, there was no grin, no final-championship energy. Just a small breath and a soft,
“Ready?”
He nodded again. Planted his feet. This was it. Last one.
She wound up. A little faster this time. Let it go clean from her hand.
And he swung.
He didn’t even see where the bat connected until he heard it: a muted thunk, soft and wrong.
Not leather on aluminum.
Something else.
She made a noise.
Not loud. Just a sharp, shocked breath, like she’d been surprised by her own body failing her.
Then she stumbled back a step, hand already flying up to her chest.
“Oh—”
“Laurie!”
He dropped the bat. Ran without thinking. Dirt kicked up in his wake, his cleats half-sliding. The echo of the hit still rang in his ears, worse than any crack of a home run.
She was hunched slightly, arm wrapped around her ribs, her eyes squinting in the light.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice tight, too fast, all at once. “I didn’t— I wasn’t trying to—are you—?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
Too quickly.
Her voice cracked halfway through the word fine.
It was barely there—just a tremble under the insistence—but he caught it.
His stomach turned.
“You sure?” he asked again, lower this time.
Laurie nodded. Still pressing her arm against herself, like her body was trying to collapse inward without permission.
“I’ve had worse,” she added.
He didn’t doubt that.
But he also didn’t believe her.
“Come sit down,” he said. “You don’t look fine.”
“I am,” she said, already turning from the mound.
But she didn’t argue when he started walking toward the bleachers. Didn’t protest when he waited for her to follow. Just stayed quiet, trailing a step behind like she was moving because she had to, not because she wanted to.
The benches were still warm from the sun, now painting the sky orange. He sat on the lowest one. She eased down beside him, holding her breath like even sitting might poke at the bruise forming beneath her shirt.
Yuwen looked sideways at her. Her face was pale. Not scared. Just... clenched.
She dug her phone out of her pocket again and stared at the screen like it could distract her body from the pain. Then she thumbed in a message with both hands stiffly held in front of her.
“Paula’s coming,” she said after a second. “I’ll just get a ride from her.”
He blinked. “Your sister?”
She nodded, managing a half-smile. “Miraculously got her license last Friday. We’ve been timing how long she goes without hitting a mailbox.”
Yuwen huffed a faint laugh. “So far?”
“Two days,” Laurie said proudly.
He shook his head. “Impressive.”
She didn’t say anything after that. Just held her phone in her lap and let the silence fill in again. The field, the bleachers, the air—everything felt like it was winding down. Like the day had gotten tired too.
Yuwen looked down at his hands.
Dirt-lined, scraped just enough along the knuckles to look like he worked harder than he did. He flexed his fingers. They didn’t feel like his.
His brain was still chewing on the last few minutes, slow and quiet and miserable. That soft thunk replayed every time he blinked. Chest. Not glove. Not net. Her.
“You can stop looking like you hit a puppy,” Laurie said suddenly.
He looked over.
She was staring at the field like she wasn’t talking to him, like her words had just slipped out sideways. Her hand hovered over her ribs but wasn’t clutching anymore. Just resting there. Like it needed something to do.
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” she added, quieter. “I mean. I don’t think you’ve got some weird vendetta against my sternum.”
He huffed a sound that might’ve been a laugh.
Then she smiled, a little crookedly.
“Anyway, it’s fine,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t maimed someone during practice before.”
He snorted. Couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, well,” she muttered. “Kai still jokes with Roch that I folded her like a lawn chair.”
“She kinda limped like one,” Yuwen said before he could stop himself.
Laurie laughed—a full sound this time, wincing slightly as she did.
Yuwen looked at her again.
Same girl from a week ago. The one he’d only ever noticed in fragments. A swing-and-a-miss. A background sigh. Coach's kid with the glove always half off and her socks never matching length.
Now she was sitting beside him, bruised again, and laughing anyway. About Kai, of all people. Kai, who’d shrugged it off with a grin and a “Laurie’s got a mean swing when she wants to.”
Laurie let the laugh trickle out. Then she exhaled, slow.
“I really thought I’d get kicked off the team by my own dad. Or benched. Or yelled at. Or something,” she said, chuckling, before staring at the field, gesturing toward the mound. “But Kai just looked at me there and complimented the hit. Even though she must've been dying inside.”
Yuwen didn’t respond.
“So,” she added, “you probably don’t have to be so hard on yourself.”
He blinked. “What?”
She turned her head toward him, the last stretch of sunlight cutting a glow along her jaw. She looked tired. But honest.
“I mean. You. You don’t have to beat yourself up.”
Yuwen didn’t say anything.
“You’re the star pitcher. Even when you’re awful at batting, everyone still thinks you’re great. Because you are.”
Her voice was light. Not joking. Not dramatic.
Just genuine.
She rubbed her thumb over her phone screen, not looking at him.
“I used to—” she hesitated. Then shrugged like it wasn’t important. “I used to kinda look up to you. On the team, ever since sixth grade. You were just... I dunno. Good. Loud. Funny. Confident. You made everything look easy.”
Yuwen froze.
His mouth went dry.
Laurie, still looking at her screen, added, “I know you were kinda mean to me. I’m not saying you were perfect or whatever. But you mattered. People liked you. I just wanted to matter too.”
Yuwen didn’t breathe for a second.
He felt it land in his stomach, heavy, like wet cloth thrown over a fire.
She’d looked up to him.
Him.
Even when he was being an idiot. Even when he filmed that video. Even when he threw her under the bus in front of the whole team.
He swallowed hard. The guilt was sharp now, not slow. Like a paper cut inside his cardboard chest.
She still didn’t look at him. Just sat there, calm and small, like the confession hadn’t cost her anything.
But it had.
He could feel it.
He wanted to say something.
But his throat stayed closed.
So he just looked down again at his hands.
Dirty. Scraped. Small.
Laurie’s fingers had stopped fidgeting. She let her phone fall slack in her lap, thumb pressed to the glass like she forgot what she was holding.
Then, slowly, she said, “Taylor still talks about you.”
Yuwen didn’t move.
His shoulders tensed like someone had whispered in his ear too close. His eyes snapped over to her, but her gaze was still fixed ahead—on nothing. On the field. Or the fence. Or the memory of something she hadn’t decided whether to keep or throw away.
“I mean, not like… like that,” she said quickly, a rush of nervous correction in her voice. “Just… you come up.”
His jaw unclenched an inch.
“We had a sleepover last weekend. Me and Kai and Taylor and Roch.”
He blinked. The image of that was bizarre—Taylor and Kai and Rochelle, in pajamas, probably arguing over what movie to watch and Rochelle complaining about the popcorn being stale.
“And Taylor,” Laurie continued, “she told that story again. About the… the frog one.”
Yuwen stared at her.
Laurie smiled softly. “You know, the thing you said about frogs not trusting humans because we keep naming them Kermit?”
Yuwen exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“She laughed so hard she choked on her Swedish Fish,” Laurie said. “It was kind of impressive.”
He snorted.
Not a fake one this time. Not a get everyone off your back laugh. A real one. Small. Reflexive. Like it surprised him.
He tilted his head back, eyes skyward. The sun had finally dipped, the gold leaving behind streaky pink clouds and cool breath on the back of his neck.
She still talks about me, he thought.
And maybe that was enough.
Maybe he didn’t need more than that.
He glanced sideways. Laurie was watching him now, not shy about it.
There was something in her expression that reminded him of the way she looked in the dugout right before she got hit by the ball. All nerves and sweat, yet all bravery. All there.
He opened his mouth.
“Laurie,” he said, voice low. “I… about last season—”
A car horn chirped, not loud, but sharp enough to split the moment in two.
They both turned their heads.
A battered Honda Civic was pulling up crooked to the curb, hazard lights blinking even though the street was empty. Paula was at the wheel, one hand raised in a victory sign, the other already reaching for the aux cord, blue bangs over her eyes.
Yuwen swallowed.
Laurie stood up. Winced a little—her ribs still tender, but less than before. She glanced down at him with a weird little smile, like maybe she’d heard the start of what he was about to say.
Maybe.
“Thanks for letting me pitch,” she said.
He nodded.
“You’re really bad at batting,” she added teasingly, flicking his arm gently as she passed, grabbing her backpack at the edge of the field on the way out.
He grinned without meaning to, and for a second, the bruise on her cheek wasn’t the only thing stuck in his head.
The Civic rolled to a lazy stop beside the curb, brake lights throwing long red shadows across the sidewalk like spilled ink. Paula’s elbow dangled out the window, wrist flicking in a lazy “hurry up” circle. From here, Yuwen could hear faint music buzzing through the car speakers—something tinny and fast with too much bass.
Laurie stepped away from the bleachers, adjusting her bag higher on her shoulder. She winced slightly. Her ribs. He saw it.
“Hey,” Yuwen said, already moving to stand, “you want me to walk you over?”
Laurie paused. Froze, almost. Then gave a small, practiced smile—one of the ones that looked like it belonged in a yearbook and not a real moment.
“No, I’m okay,” she said. “It’s just over there.”
Her voice dropped half a pitch, did that fluttery thing it did when she was trying to shrink herself again. To disappear into the edges of the frame.
“I’m fine.”
She turned quick before he could say anything else. Hoodie sleeves tugged back down. Eyes forward. Gait a little faster than necessary.
So he just stood there and watched.
Watched the soft fade of her silhouette across the grass. Watched her climb into the passenger seat, Paula leaning over to say something stupid—probably teasing, probably gentle. Watched Laurie laugh with her hand half-covering her mouth, like she was still afraid of how loud she was allowed to be.
And then the Civic blinked out of the lot and was gone, swallowed by the long stretch of middle school sidewalk and sleepy traffic light gold.
The outfield felt bigger now.
Quieter.
He looked back down the base line.
Her footprints were still faintly pressed in the dust. Just outlines. A little scuffed near the mound.
His chest ached.
Not in a bruise way.
In the damn it way.
There was something about her. Not in the joke way. Not in the let's mess with her until she gets flustered way. Not even in the girl-on-the-team-who-never-hits way.
Something else.
Something real.
Something.
Yuwen exhaled, hands stuffed in his pockets, the echo of his heartbeat still caught somewhere between his ears and his throat.
Not Taylor. Not the joke. Not even the championship.
Just her.
The flick of her fingers still tingled against his arm, like static. Like she'd short-circuited something in him without meaning to. Or maybe she did mean to. Maybe she'd always meant to and he’d just been too dense to notice.
Her hoodie. Her bouncy, blonde ponytail. That stupid, brave way she said I’m fine when she clearly wasn’t.
The sleeves always too long for her arms, tugged up but never staying put. The way her voice cracked when she lied, like it didn’t know how to follow through. How she stood with her knees slightly bent, like she was always bracing for something—impact, attention, disappointment. The soft, squinty look she gave when pretending things didn’t hurt. That look was still sitting in his chest.
And that laugh—quiet, like it wasn’t sure it was allowed out loud.
God.
He dragged a hand through his hair, then let it drop.
“Bottom of the lineup,” he murmured to himself.
But this time, it didn’t sound bitter.
Then he laughed.
And picked up the bat.