Chapter Text
Marella Redek has no idea how her friend, Sophie Foster, got her to try out for the boys’ baseball team, or why she is even bothering to be serious about the actual tryout.
But, in the blinding sun and the spring air, she takes the bat handed to her by the coach and gets ready to warm up. She raises the bat and moves it near her ear, her elbow sticking straight up. She can barely see past the face guard and has to adjust the helmet up farther on her head so it doesn’t fall down.
She normally loves the sun, and all it comes with—tans, warm weather, shorts, to name a few—but today, in her black, thick pants and her equally black and slightly green lighter shirt, she’s glowering, staring into the blinding sun, barely able to see the coach, who is gearing up to pass the ball—and dear god, she’s dying. She isn’t even on the team and yet she’s wearing the team’s uniform, which doesn’t exactly look very cute on her.
The ball whizzes past her, and she jumps. Shit, she thinks. She doesn’t even know why she’s trying; it’s a stupid bet that doesn’t mean anything and it’s not like she could actually be on the boys’ baseball team because she’s not a boy and this is all pointless and she’s gonna show up to school and the baseball dudes are going to laugh at her and—
“Hey, Redek!” the couch shouts.
They aren’t even very far apart, and she winces from the sudden noise hitting her ears. She lowers her bat, lamely thunking it on the white plate slightly right of her feet.
“You a’ight over there?” he asks, squinting from the light to see her.
“Just tired,” she manages, and she takes a deep breath, slightly embarrassed at the sudden attention.
“I’m gonna throw again, so . . . be ready,” he says, awkwardly, and she guesses that this coach either has never coached girls before, or he still can’t get over the fact that one has actually asked to be on the all boys team. While it has never barred against girls, the whole school has just accepted that baseball is for boys, and it was—at least in their high school, in the middle of San Diego—until Marella, in a heated argument with Dex over if he was being sexist or not (he wasn’t, she was just on her period, annoyed and crampy, and decided to pick a fight) so Sophie dared Marella to try out. “Just to see if the baseball team really is only meant for boys,” Sophie had said, amused and way hyped up on her too-big coffee from Dunkin.
And Marella, all argumentative and way too bold for eleven in the morning, had accepted, with all of the scoff and bravado she could muster.
“I’m ready,” she says, and she has to say it again, her voice rough and tired.
The couch grabs another ball, and she briefly shuts her eyes from the light, bracing the rejection to come as soon as she swings and misses and falls on her butt like those old cartoons where it’s funny when they get injured when in real life, they would have been dead meat.
She opens her eyes again, the light hitting her again, seemingly brighter this time. She clenches the bat harder, breathing deeply, and swinging the bat over her shoulder, she focuses on the coach, winding up from his base.
The ball seems to fly forward, and she absent-mindedly thinks that maybe she isn’t cut out for this. But nonetheless, as the ball is driven into the air, almost reaching her, she pushes all the negative thoughts away and thinks about how cool it would be if the bat actually makes contact with the ball—
And just like that, she swings, her eyes lazer-focused.
She feels the powerful impact of the metal hitting the white and red ball, and follows it through.
The ball seems to rocket through the sky at a speed Marella didn’t know she could affect. The coach’s jaw drops; she would be lying if she says that hers doesn’t too.
She watches it soar before it stops in the outfield, landing lamely on the ground.
She feels . . . amazed. That’s probably not even the most accurate word she could even use, but it is the word that pops up into her mind when her mouth won’t form English.
“Wow,” is all the coach says. He stops looking at the ball long enough to swivel back to the dumbstruck sophomore before him, her hair disheveled and falling out of her obviously borrowed helmet, absolutely melting in the heat and yet still smiling fully.
She reeks of new-found confidence and the what-just-happened awe that Mr. Endal had seen plenty of times before in the many boys he’d coached over the years. Even in his own son, Wylie.
“So . . .” Prentice rocks on his heels.
She heaves a breath, letting out a startled breath. “Didn’t know I could do that.”
“Me neither,” the coach whistles back, and they both stare at each other.
Marella coughs and looks away, rubbing the back of her neck, clearly uncomfortable. She hadn’t meant to do well. She hadn’t even meant to hit the damn thing. “What happens now?”
“Well,” the coach starts.
He squints his eyes. Predicts how problematic having a girl on the team would be. Cringes at the vision of a makeout session with her and one of his boys. Then he realizes that he barely knows the girl—making assumptions would be pointless and pessimistic.
The girl smiles up at him, feeling her own confidence, and the coach relents.
“Welcome to the team, kid,” Prentice says. “Welcome to the team.”