“Let me take you home, Hollis Taylor from Indiana.” His soft smile shines back at me. I rub my arm across my eyes to dry the tears and make room for the smile I mean with every bit of my soul.
There will be more to face tomorrow, questions from people who were there, accusations from Cannon’s uncle, and poor excuses from Zack. It’ll be ugly, and I wanted to spare everyone from that. But all I did was keep the negative for myself, take the abuse, and make myself small. I’m ready to live large again.
I thread my fingers through Cannon’s while he hoists my bag up on his shoulder with a heavy groan. Catcher’s gear is no joke, and he’s used to nothing but a glove. It’s about time I let someone else carry the load.
Epilogue
Cannon
When we first started this journey, there was snow on the ground. Never a lot, but it was there. Today, it’s unseasonably warm—a balmy eighty-five with humidity crawling up and down my ass. How Hollis survives in that gear beats me, but we’re literally one out away from going to state.
One.
I’m at eighty-one pitches. That means I can throw this guy eighteen and still be under my cap. God help me if I have to throw more than four, though. My arm is beat.
I’d like more than a one-run lead in my arsenal, especially now that the Henderson team seems to know what to do with my fastball, but I’m glad to have the edge. My dad has always told me that pressure is what makes the man on the mound. Well, if I’m not man enough after throwing up my orange Gatorade behind the dugout before this inning and still climbing back up on this rubber, I don’t know what a man is.
“Come on, Can. You got this.”
My dad’s voice cuts through everyone else’s and I manage to block the rest of the noise. We started this inning in the heart of their line-up, and the guy at the plate is the only one to have gotten a hit off me tonight. It was a dinger over the right field fence.
Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat.
My cousin taught me that trick when we were kids. I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but he said it controls the heart rate and helps you clear your head. Maybe it’s all voodoo bullshit he made up, but in baseball, whatever works is never considered weird. Hell, Hollis has worn the same socks for every game in the division playoffs—unwashed. If we make it to the state championship, her dad is going to make her ride on the roof of the bus, or at least put her socks in cargo.
“Hey!” Her muffled voice carries through her mask and she punches her mitt to get me focused. I wait for her sign, praying it isn’t a fastball. My ego can’t take another dinger. She gives me the slider sign, and I take another one of those deep breaths before bringing my glove in to my chest and winding up. I miss my mark, but Mr. Eager Homerun Hitter swings and misses.
“That’s right, Can! Go right at him!”
This time, it’s Zack’s voice that breaks through. After all the shit we went through, somehow, we’ve mended a lot of broken trust. It took an entire season to get to where we are, and we still have a ways to go, but I credit Zack for making the first move. He marched into Coach’s office the morning after he sent him home to think and told him to remove him from the potential roster for the season. In the back of his mind, maybe he thought Coach Taylor would go soft and tell him to stay, but he couldn’t, not after everything he did. And not after a two-week suspension from school on top of it all.
At this point, baseball isn’t healthy for Zack. At least, not competing. It’s something he’s slowly come to realize, thanks to therapy. That was his second move, an idea of his own. Being a fierce competitor who sometimes gets carried away isn’t so bad when you’re eight and weigh fifty-seven pounds. When you shave and weigh two-ten? Different story. Zack’s anger issues were more than festering, they were exploding, and it’ll take him a while to fully scratch the surface and see what’s underneath. Competition, though, is a trigger. That much he’s learned. But he seems to handle it all right when he’s on the coaching side.
I went to Coach Taylor in mid-April, right before playoffs started, and with Hollis’s blessing, asked if he could be team manager. Zack missed the comradery so much, and it never seemed fair that Jay and Roland got to skate by but he didn’t. Hollis didn’t call them out publicly, and neither did Zack. They accepted the free pass, and that’s on their consciences. Every time they ask Hollis to forgive them, though, she says, “No.” They get a taste of what they deserve.
Zack’s worked his way back into some good grace, though I think he will always be held at arm’s length by Hollis and her dad. My Uncle Joel was also pretty rocked by the realization that his son was willing to physically intimidate a girl just to get his way on the field. There was a lot of self-reckoning at the start of the season, and my uncle has learned enough over the last few months to know that he can’t be here to watch while his son sits inside the dugout with a clipboard. This was never part of the dream.
Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat.
Hollis sets up for another slider and I take her sign, willing my arm to listen to her this time and throw the ball exactly where she wants it. I’m closer, but I still miss my
