1
IN EVERY BASEBALL MOVIE EVER, IT’S THE SAME.
Bottom of the ninth. Bases loaded. Two out.
The crowd breathless at the batter’s back. The players in the dugout on their feet. The opposing pitcher staring daggers from the mound with steam pouring from flared nostrils.
At the plate: the team’s star, bat pointed toward the wall, challenge clear.
In real life—in softball—it doesn’t exactly work out that way.
It’s close.
But not as if penned by a writer’s hand.
It’s the bottom of the seventh—there aren’t nine innings in high school softball. But the bases are loaded. And there are two out.
The crowd is breathless, the players in the dugout are on their feet, and the opposing pitcher has got the raging-bull thing going on from the mound.
But the team’s star isn’t at the plate.
She’s on it.
Wilted in the dirt after taking a sixty-mile-per-hour fastball to the back. Motionless. Eyes stunned open. All senses on pause, a rolling clap of pain drowning out everything else.
As the crowd holds its collective breath, I search for mine. My lungs don’t seem to be working, and the catcher and umpire both loom over me, outlines blurry with the same fuzzy energy as a 3-D movie left to the naked eye.
I blink a few times. First at the lights. Then at the catcher and ump. And, finally, at the upside-down EAGLES name scrawled across my chest, willing my rib cage to nudge my lungs into action.
Up. Down. Up. Down. In. Out. In. Out.
The sound comes flooding in as my chest finally rises. The shouts of my teammates, the sweet girls of Windsor Prep, will me up. My coach’s voice—my sister’s voice—above them all.
“Stand, Liv! Stand!”
I make it to my feet, back hot and lungs still warming up.
Brows pulled together, I shoot my game-day glare at the mound. Kelly Cleary’s red hair clashes horribly with her stupid orange-and-white uniform; her cat-eye liquid liner is so thick it hides the fact that she has actual eyes. And they must not be able to see worth a crap, because she just hit a batter with the bases loaded and one down.
Which means that if I can walk over to first base, everyone advances and we score a run to tie it. Not exactly the walk-off grand slam of my dreams, but it’s one way to move out of this round and into the Kansas state championship game.
Or at least get one run from doing that.
Again, another true-life technicality.
Both sides of the crowd are clapping, because that’s just what you do when someone gets hit by a pitch. My parents, brother, and Heather are on their feet. My teammates are a rowdy block of purple, crowding the dugout rail, ribbons and ponytails kissing their cheeks in the breeze, clapping me to first.
“Nice job, O-Rod!” There’s my best friend, Addie, cheering even though she’s about to bat.
My sister, Danielle, has her arms crossed over the EAGLES scrawled on her chest, the wedding ring Heather gave her two years ago glinting in the stadium lights. She does her stern-coach nod. It’s a look I first saw at age three, when she was twelve and egging me on as I threw her the ball for the millionth time. She was a hell of a player, but she’s always—always—been a coach.
On the other end of the stadium, I spy my boyfriend, Jake. Dreads to his shoulders, he’s dressed out in his orange football jersey, number thirty-two, clapping along with a few teammates in Northland’s section of the crowd. Wearing their jerseys out of season to big games is a tradition, or so he says. But while he looks the part of a good, supportive student-athlete from the rival school, I know that even though we’ve only been dating since the Spring Prep Preview photo shoot at the Kansas City Star in February, he’s totally here for me.
Below the Northland section is its dugout where the Tigers’ veteran coach, Trudi Kitterage, observes from the steps. Coach Kitt looks like the burnt-bacon version of a head cheerleader—all hard curves and tan lines. But her talent is real. And her team is good. Too good for Kelly’s mistake. Meaning, if I sawed Kelly in half with my own glare, Coach Kitt’s stare is roasting the pieces of her in a bonfire of why-the-hell-did-you-do-that.
Because in ten of my shuffling steps, we’ll be tied.
Eight more steps. Six. Four. Two.
And then I’m on the bag at first, squeezing in next to Stacey Sanderson. Who, up until a minute ago, was my least favorite player on the Northland team.
She can hit. She can run. And she’s Jake’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend.
From, like, two years ago. Or something. Whatever. I’m not sure—but there’s a history there. And she’s been reminding me of it the whole game. Giving me side-mouthed sass every time I’ve gotten on base. Which, let’s be honest, has been a lot.
This time, I strike first. Shaking my head as I clap home our third-base runner, Rosemary, for the tying score. “One away, Sanderson. All because your girl Cleary can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
The corners of Stacey’s mouth quirk up but her eyes stay at home, where Addie is settling into her mega-erect stance. The girl can dunk and hit the three, but she’s a praying mantis in cleats. “I’d say she hit the broad side of something, all right.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “Jake loves my curves.”
“Jake also runs headfirst into a pack of bodies for three months a year. Brain cells aren’t his forte, Rodinsky.”
“Whatever, Skeletor.”
Addie dusts Kelly’s curveball, but it falls straight into the catcher’s mitt. Strike one.
Come on, McAndry. Just a base hit. No extra innings. Just a straight seven-inning pass to the championship.
Stacey sniffs. “I have a lot of admirers of my ass, thankyouverymuch.”
I don’t even miss a beat. “They’re just trying to figure out how you sit comfortably on something so flat.”
Addie squares her shoulders and waits for another pitch, looking very badass. Kelly is taking forfreakingever, and I so want to inch off the base and away from Stacey’s fish lips—too bad it’s not allowed. But then Cleary actually does something right and rips a strong fastball. I lead off base, sure Addie will connect, but McAndry hesitates—strike. Shit. I dive back in just as the catcher whips the ball to first. I hit the dirt just in time, fingertips grazing the base before Stacey gets the tag.
Called safe, I stand, not bothering to wipe off the dust streaking across my chest and the Eagles logo.
“Nice skunk streaks, Rodinsky.”
Whatever. I keep watching Addie, willing her to mow down whatever-the-hell pitch Cleary comes out with next.
“I think they highlight my assets much better than my uniform on its own,” I shoot back.
“I’m not so sure about that”—here comes the pitch, fast and straight, and square in the batter’s box—“better ask your sister.”
Addie’s bat rockets forward and connects, sending the ball straight into the gap between second and third, dropping short of the outfielder at left.
My body knows it’s supposed to run—it’s been trained to run at the crack of the bat for the past thirteen years—but my mind is reeling. Did she just imply what I think she implied?
Stunned, I stutter-step, weighed down by her voice in my ears. Somehow, I move forward enough to make it to second, giving Addie room at first so Christy can score the walk-off run. But my brain is back at first. Where Stacey is standing, punching her free hand into her glove, pissed that Northland’s state run is now officially over. She’s a senior, so it’s really the end of her road. We’ve won and she’s ended her high school career with a loss.