Throwing Like A Girl

I woke up late on Saturday morning after my late-night movie fest. It was nearly ten by the time I was dressed in workout clothes and headed to the gym for a run on the treadmill to clear my mind.

Allie had come in at about ten and we’d watched Failure To Launch and EDtv together before calling it a night. It seemed that my roommate shared my love for Matthew McConaughey, if not surpassed it, and was a little disappointed that I hadn’t told her earlier that I planned on watching a McConaughey Marathon. It was great to bond a little with Allie, though: lying together on the floor so we could both see Matthew equally well and delving into her emergency stash of Milk Duds and Junior Mints to satisfy our movie junk food needs.

But after we’d shut down my laptop and crawled into our respective beds, I found my mind wandering to Jesse’s behavior earlier that day. Just a few weeks ago, he hated me, and now he wanted to ask me out? How could he not see that it would so screw up the team if we were together? First off, we’d probably both be distracted and play like crap. Second, a breakup would do pretty much the same thing. And, most importantly, I didn’t even like Jesse like that! I saw him as a teammate and maybe a friend, nothing else. It wasn’t as if I’d forgotten how all of the guys, including him, had treated me before. I know I was automatically an outsider from the moment I stepped onto the field, but that didn’t require them to completely ignore me. I was ecstatic to have them treating me as an equal, but that didn’t mean I was going to be falling all over myself to be best friends with them, or even automatically trust them anywhere but the baseball field.

When I got to the gym, there were already a lot of people there. I guess there wasn’t much to do on Saturday mornings at Florin. I’d spent my weekends here either working out or in the library, doing homework or just reading. There was a “Student Life Building,” which I’d ventured into once or twice. It seemed like the social hub of Florin when classes weren’t in session, but it wasn’t really my style. It was a place to hang out with friends, and that was a department in which I was severely lacking.

I’d been on my treadmill for maybe ten minutes, still warming up, when one of the very people I was trying not to think about started up next to me.

“Hi, Bree,” Evan said, nodding at me as he adjusted the controls.

I nodded in reply and turned down the volume on my iPod a little. When it appeared that he wasn’t planning on saying anything else, I turned it back up to even louder than it had been before and upped the speed on the treadmill. I ran for twenty minutes, trying to keep from glancing at Evan out of the corner of my eye but not managing to win the battle against myself. I could hardly see him—just a blur of his sandy hair and gray sleeveless t-shirt—but knowing that he was there unsettled me for some reason. I was hyper-aware of my thoughts, scolding myself every time I found my mind drifting to the person on my left.

He can’t read your mind, you know, I told myself. It’s not like he even knows that you’re thinking about him. Or cares. Why are you thinking about him, anyway?

Because he’s on the team. The thing I’m trying not to think of right now. Dammit!

After doing a five-minute cool-down, I hopped off my treadmill, turning down my blaring music. “See ya,” I told Evan as I headed toward the exit.

“Bye,” he replied, barely nodding as I passed.

See? Doesn’t even care.

The rest of my weekend was rather uneventful. I was either in the library or my room except for lunch and dinner, which I ate with Allie and her friends. Tanner was still a bit of a creeper, but I tried to ignore his awkward presence as best I could by chatting with Allie, Shannon, Katie, and Avery. I was starting to become actual friends with them, and it was funny how they each had their own roles in their little group. Allie was the big sister, always looking out for the others and making sure everything was okay. Shannon was the foulmouthed sarcastic pessimist that you can’t help but love because she always made you laugh and knew how to have a good time. Katie was the little sister of the group and the blonde with dark hair—she was on the naïve side and a tad clueless, but lovable all the same. Avery was the little flirt with the long list of ex-boyfriends, but she was genuinely a nice girl. I couldn’t help but wonder if I could eventually be a part of their group.

My nerves for Monday’s away game didn’t show up until Sunday night after dinner. When Allie and I went back to our room, I sat down at my desk to straighten up my books and papers for class the next day when I caught sight of the games schedule. The first away game against Underwood Academy, right there in bold print.

I didn’t usually get nervous for games. Pumped and excited, but hardly ever nervous. I wasn’t nervous because we were playing another team; I was nervous about playing somewhere else. For the most part, a softball field is a softball field is a softball field. It’s kind of different in baseball. There’s so much more topography to the infield, not to mention the fact that it’s covered in grass. I’d gotten more than a few bad bounces on the home field at Florin, but I knew where the bigger bumps were and how to anticipate where the ball would go. If the field of the opposing team was particularly unkempt, I might end up with a black eye from a bad bounce and bad anticipation; I’d seen it happen to girls in the outfield when we played teams that didn’t take care of their gopher problems.

I felt the tightness in my chest right behind the bottom of my sternum. By the time I laid down to go to sleep, I was so wound that I had to play solitaire on my iPod for nearly an hour before I fell asleep.

I was more quiet than usual at breakfast, and Allie seemed to notice.

“Bree, are you okay?” she asked as I pushed my cereal around in its bowl.

I placed a smile on my face. “Yeah, just a little nervous,” I replied.

“About what?” Katie asked, cocking her head.

“Yeah, Bree, you don’t seem like the type to get nervous,” Avery added.

“One of those ‘never-let-‘em-see-you-sweat’ types,” Shannon smirked.

“Just nervous since it’s an away game,” I said. I pushed my barely-touched cereal away.

“You gotta eat before a game,” Allie told me in what I was quickly coming to know as her “mom voice.”

“We’re leaving after third period, and Coach said that we’re stopping for lunch. I’ll eat,” I assured her. She looked at me doubtfully and opened her mouth to say something.

The bell rang shrilly. “Oh, look, there’s the bell. Come on, Bree, Mr. Mochrie’s gonna have a shit fit if we’re late,” Shannon said, practically pulling me out of my seat and out of the caf.

“Bye, guys!” I called over my shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” Shannon told me once we were in the hall. “Allie was about to lecture the hell out of you for not eating breakfast.”

“Thanks,” I replied gratefully, fixing my skewed headband.

“But then again, I guess you gotta pick your poison. Would you rather be bitched at by Allie or Mr. Mochrie?” she asked me, smirking as we neared the classroom.

I widened my eyes. “That’s a hard one. But at least with Allie, I wouldn’t be stuck beyond the gates of hell.”

Shannon stopped right in front of the classroom and laughed. “Well, get ready, ‘cause we’re about to enter those gates of hell.”