Passion

I was not looking forward to going back to school for two reasons: One being the fact that involved doing things other than eating, sleeping and playing baseball. And the second one being that I would have to talk to Carter about what happened. I signed over dramatically as I got out of the comfy bed; it was good to be at home in my own bed. Since I’ve been home my father hasn’t even attempted talking to me, not like I blame him. I changed into a random pair of jeans and my Bob Marley tee-shirt. I ran down stairs grabbing a packet of cinnamon poptarts and my grey Vans, before making my way over to the Fisher household.

“Morning Mrs. and Mr. Fisher,” I smiled at the couple drinking coffee in the kitchen.

“Welcome back home, honey. What did you and your dad do to celebrate?” Mrs. Fisher asked me as she flipped threw the newspaper.

“He took me out to a nice dinner,” I lied threw my teeth.

“Sounds like fun, Carter and Derek should be down any minute, did you eat?” she asked. I shook my head yes and showed her my poptarts packet. The boys were downstairs in less than 2 minutes and we were on our way to school in awkward silence. Once the car was stopped Carter busted right out and jogged the rest of the way until he was safely inside the building. Derek turned around with an eye brow raised in a curious manner, I just shrugged my shoulders.

“Well Cammy, since you threw the last pitch in the Championships, it is tradition for you to present the trophy to the school.” Derek told me pushing the gold trophy in my hands.

“No, I’m not doing it. Your caption it’s your last year, you do it.” I tried to argue but he put his hands in front of my face silencing me.

“Are you trying to break tradition?” he questioned.

“No,” I mumbled, he opened his car door and held his hand out for me.

“Ass wipe,” I muttered as I brushed shoulders by him, he just laughed and walked besides me.

***

School was going relatively okay, other than the mountains of make-up work the teachers threw at me. At lunch I really didn’t want to test my chances with Carter so I ate with Luke and his friends, he was more than happy with letting me intrude; He went around the entire table yelling that I was the one that he has been sleeping with all week, much to my displeasure. Luke was sure one ball of energy, at the end of lunch he threw my over his shoulders and wiggled his eye brows suggestively before running out the door yelling that he was going to ‘make sweet love’ to me all day.

We didn’t have practice today but Coach wanted to hold a meeting, we all met on the field since we couldn’t do it in the boys locker room were they normally hold these meetings.

“Well I just wanted to start off by saying how proud I am of you guys,” Coach smiled “we kicked ass down there in Orlando. This is the first state championship this school has won at, and well that means were kind of new at this. What I have been informed is that in just two little months we will be in Dallas, Texas playing Nationals.” Sharp intakes of breaths were heard everywhere, this would definitely put the senior boys on this team on the map. “Yes, you heard me right. 50 teams all playing for the one title of National Champs, so starting next week practice starts back up again and if you thought I was hard during state training you haven’t seen anything yet.” With those final words Coach dismissed us. I saw Carter walking by himself back to the field so I ran and caught up with him, we needed to discuss what ever went down at the party.

“Hey Carter, do you have a minute?” I asked as I approached him.

“Uh sure,” he shrugged.

“What happened at the party?” I asked getting straight to the point, I hated it when people bullshit around.

“What do you mean?”

“Well you and Erin and pretty much the rest of my friends won’t talk to me, what did I do?” I asked and he just laughed.

“You really have to ask that?”

“Um yeah, I’m pretty confused here,” I told him with a frown on my face.

“If you have to ask what’s going on, than you will never understand,” he turned around and called over his shoulder “by the way, the others aren’t mad at you, they just haven’t been in the best mood lately.” And for the second time today the Fisher boy gets the last word.

Stupid Fisher boys.

Monday started the first week of hardcore training and I was not looking forward to that, I still had a good amount of make-up work to finish and on top of that Carter was still barely talking to me. Erin and the others welcomed me back to the table with open arms claming that they were just PMSing and upset that we left them for so long. Erin was the first one to congratulate me on my win and offered to take me out for some frozen yogurt, which I said yes too. Today should be one hell of a day that’s for sure.

***

“Pick up your pace Cam, do you want to win or not?!” Coach yelled from the sidelines, I mumbled a silent ‘yes sir’ and tried to sprint a little faster. We were doing sprints around the bases trying to beat our times by a few milliseconds, like my dad always told me milliseconds mean everything in baseball it can determine a hit or a miss, a safe or an out, and a clean field or a pass ball. It means everything to make sure every millisecond of the game were putting are all into it. I pushed myself and ended up beating my time by .89 seconds, extremely well if I do say so myself. “That a girl Cam! I knew you could do it,” Coach yelled again before getting on to Luke’s ass for trying to cheat in the squats.

“Coach I know how to fucking squat, stop getting on my ass about it!” Luke whined and I laughed, he was a big baby about actually doing work around here. After we finished sprinting, Coach gave us a 30 second water break and then we were out there fielding balls.

We were on that field from 2 all the way till 6 o’clock, when we finished I couldn’t even sit down my legs hurt that much. I called Erin and told her I was too tried to even think straight and that we would have to go get frozen yogurt another time, she told me that it was fine and not to worry about it.

“Derek, do you hurt as bad as I do?” I groaned out from the back seat.

“Yes I do, but I don’t want to sound like a dieing whale so I hold my groans in,” He smirked and I groaned again loudly, he made a face.

“Come on Derek I know my groans are flipping your switch,” I groaned again.

“Yeah you’re flipping them off,” He laughed.

“Hey Derek, do you work at AT&T?” I asked out of the blue.

“No, why?” he looked confused.

“Because you’re raising my bar!” I started laughing hysterically and he just looked at me like I had gone mad.

“I think you need to drink this,” he handed me his water bottle “your beginning to scare me, Cammy.” I just laughed and shook my head no.

“Pst, I always scare you,” I told him with a smile.

“Yep its official you have lost it,” He laughed and practically carried me home.

“Wait!” I yelled just before he walked out of my door, I could feel sleep starting to take over my body and I yawed. He turned around a raised an eyebrow at me. “I never did say thank you for saving me,” I yawed again really loudly.

“Saving you from wh—“Realization dawned on him what I was talking about “Don’t mention it, he was a dick head for attempting to do that to you.” He smiled and my eyes started to close on me.

“I don’t know what I would have done without you, Derek.” My eyes shut forcible and I was out like a light.

***

“Do you know why he is mad at me?” I asked Erin as we made our way to science the next day.

“Not a clue, he hasn’t told you why he’s mad yet?” She asked as we took our assign seats pulling out our homework from last night, which I didn’t do.

“Nope,” I told her popping the p “all he said was ‘you have to ask what’s going on, than you will never understand’ stupid boys and there stupid confusing words.” I mumbled the last part to myself.

“Where’s your homework miss Henderson?” The teacher asked me.

“I didn’t do it,” I told her frowning.

“Miss Henderson please stay after class today,” I nodded my head and started on the worksheet she gave us. The class went by really slow, and to make matters worse I had to stay after today to get a lecture.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I asked her quietly as I approached her desk.

“Yes, Cam you know that your grades are slipping in my class right?” She asked and I nodded my head no. “Well they are you have a D average in my class. If you keep up with your work habit I will have no choice but to talk to your coach and put you on academic probation.”

I looked at her shocked, “No! Please I promise I’ll bring my grades up, I’ll do anything.”

“Okay, but if you don’t have your grade average up to a C by the end of this month no more baseball, am I understood?” She asked.

“Yes ma’am,” I grabbed my book bag and made my way to the lunch room, I spotted our table and made my way over there. I stopped in front of my seat; I threw my stuff on the table and groaned loudly.

“What did Mrs. Eaton want with you?” Erin asked, noticing my odd behavior.

“That if I don’t bring my grade up in her class that she won’t let me play baseball.”

“That’s pretty hard,” Carter commented and I nodded my head. “Well I have an A in that class, so if you need any help just come over.”

“Thank you so much Carter!” I yelled and threw my arms around him.

***

“Why am I taking chemistry again?” I groaned throwing the page of homework I was working on away from me.

“Because it’s a graduation requirement?” Carter asked picking up the paper and handing it back to me. I tried to throw it again but he stopped me, “no finish your homework.”

“Can I please have a break? We’ve been doing this for the past 2 hours,” I gave him my best puppy dog pout and he sighed.

“Fine,” I jumped up and tackled him.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I yelled, and he grunted.

“You know if your baseball career fails you can always go out for football,” he breathed deeply trying to recover from my tackle.

“Hardy har, very funny Mr. Fisher,” I got up and turned on his TV.

“Cammy?” He asked.

“Yes?”

“Never mind,” he looked away quickly and went back to looking over my work.

“Okay then?” I asked laughing and turned my attention back to the TV. We finished all my work around 8 o’clock; I said my goodbyes and made my way back over to my house.

“Dad I’m home!” I called out into the dark hallway, “Dad?” I called out again.

“In here Cam,” the voice came from his office, and if he’s in his office I’m in deep shit.

“Uh, Dad?” I asked stepping into his office.

“Camille what is this?” He asked holding up my state championship jacket.

“My jacket, you know the one that we got from winning the state championships. Oh right! You weren’t there, nor did you acknowledge my existence after we won.” I told him with my hands on my hips in a cocky attitude.

“Cut the shit Cam, I’m taking about this,” he held up the card from the talent scout. I visibility gulped, this is going to be along night.