I look at her, then back at Vince.
But then I get up off the bench, almost like a coach just told me to get out there.
“When I strike out,” I say, “it’s on both of you.”
“Nope,” Vince says. “Getting you to the plate is on us. The rest of it is all you, big boy.”
“Think how pleased Abby will be,” Taylor says wickedly.
The two of them have never been close, mostly because Tay never thought she was good enough for me. But then, I’m not sure anybody was ever going to be.
I walk over to where all the aluminum bats are spread out on the grass. Lift a couple of them until I find the one that’s the heaviest, and longer than the rest.
I hate admitting it to myself, but it feels good in my hands.
And, just like that, I feel something else.
Crazy as I know it is, I feel like an athlete again, and not just working out in the gym.
I feel like a jock.
I’m a natural left-handed hitter even though I throw right-handed. But as soon as I take a couple of practice swings, I feel the pull—and pain—from behind my right shoulder, on the follow-through most of all.
I take a deep breath and take a couple more quick swings, hoping the pain will lessen.
It doesn’t.
If anything, it gets worse.
“Hey, you gonna take all night, Silas?” their pitcher, a kid I remember from Parsons High a couple of towns over, yells with a big smile on his face. Ronnie Eckels is his name.
“I wish!” I yell back.
He laughs, and then I step into the batter’s box, and in this moment, the crowd at Corley sounds ten times bigger than it actually is.
I take a big cut and miss wildly on Ronnie’s first pitch, and before I’m into my follow-through, my right shoulder feels as if somebody just set fire to it.
Same thing after I swing and miss for strike two.
Now the pain is enough it nearly drops me to my knees.
What was I thinking?
I ask the home plate ump for time then, step out of the box.
And take a couple of practice swings right-handed. I’d always joked with my teammates that the only reason I didn’t switch-hit was because it would have doubled my time in the batting cage, and I already thought baseball was boring enough.
But I discover that the pain isn’t nearly as bad swinging from this side.
Now I walk around the ump and dig in on the other side of the batter’s box. Ronnie Eckels is shaking his head as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
I call out to him, “Hey, pitch, you gonna take all night?”
The next pitch is a ball, high and outside.
Same with the one after that.
The count is 2–2.
