Page 17 of Pitcher

For someone else to love her.

To steal her away.

Seeing her standing there behind the fence, blonde hair falling out of my hat, was just like staring back at the fourteen-year-old girl who showed up to my game for the first time all those years ago. I’d found myself in the middle of a tied game with a full count and twitchy hitter. I remember wiping the sweat from my brow and rubbing the ball in my hands until my breaths evened out. There was no point looking into the stands for support. My parents had never come to any of my games. They had better things to do than sweat and watch their son sling a ball around in the dirt.

I’d grown accustomed to pitching to a faceless crowd. I’d grown tired of the game with each throw. What was the point? At first, baseball was something I loved. Later it became an escape.

Standing on that mound in ninth grade? It had become a chore.

I was bored.

Baseball was routine, nothing like it used to be when me and my dad would spend the evenings in the front yard tossing the ball around.

So I pissed the talent away with my moods.

Until I heard her voice.

“Stop fucking around, Von Bremen, and finish this!”

I remember my head snapping up, locating that voice I talked to every night on the phone. Anniston McCallister had become the constant in my life. Someone I looked forward to seeing every holiday when I could return home.

The girl I had spent my whole summer laughing and arguing with stood on the bleachers, blocking several parents’ view, with her hands cupped around her mouth.

She was beautiful.

She was loud.

And she was at my school.

At my game.

Wearing my number with what looked like a homemade shirt.

And she dropped an F-bomb that sent collective gasps all around the bleachers.

I was so goddamned proud in that moment I could have volunteered somewhere stupid with Thad.

And then she went and raised those scrawny arms in the air like she was silently asking me what the fuck I was doing.

I was done.

Then and fucking there.

And then she gave me the sign. I only knew two pitches back then, and she knew one was better than the other.

She gave me the sign for the curve.

And when I threw it—perfectly on the corner—her arms went up and her scream deafened all of the uppity women next to her.

But it wasn’t that moment that sealed Anniston’s fate.

It wasn’t her smile either.

Nope.

It was when she jumped on those silver benches, turning around to high-five her grandfather, that I knew she was mine.

Because she told me in thick black tape that stretched across her back, spelling out my name.

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