35. Chapter 35
Istepped onto the mound, ready. I’d waited seven hundred and fifty-three sleepless nights for redemption, and the time was now.
The crowd roared, I was sure, but the sound didn’t reach my ears. It instead blurred into a distant hum, like waves crashing miles away. My whole focus narrowed to one thing: Gavin’s fingers.
One. Fastball.
I nodded.
This was the same game in which I’d made the final out two years ago. It was the game I’d replayed in my head every night after, the sting of that last swing lodged in my ribs like a splinter.
But this time was different.
I wound up. Threw. Strike one.
Gavin didn’t have to move his glove. The pitch landed exactly where I wanted it. Outside corner, knee high. My arm rotated smoothly: no pain, no tension. Only purpose.
The first three batters went down in order on nine pitches. Two strikeouts.
I glided off the mound. No nerves, only a fire that had burned for two years. This was my game. No one else’s.
In the dugout, I grabbed my bat and moved toward the on-deck circle. It was the one the Quinn family had gotten me for Christmas—the first bat that was really mine since my mom had died. I ran my fingers along the barrel, the metal warm to the touch.
I pushed the memory aside. Now wasn’t the time.
Gavin jogged over, catching up with me as he shed his gear.
“A righty,” I said, pointing toward the mound.
“Good thing you taught me how to hit left-handed,” he grinned, swinging his orange-and-yellow bat—the one with my name stamped on it. It was the only bat brand he used now.
He walked to the plate like he owned it. And in a way, he did. He looked so much like his brother. He had Tanner’s walk, that same smooth swing, and his hair spilled out the back of his helmet in the same way. Even his pants fit like Tanner’s had.
The pitcher wound up.
Gavin didn’t wait. He never waited.
I didn’t even have to watch the ball fly. I heard it off the bat, the crack that said, This is gone. Gavin knew, too.
First pitch. Home run.
I leapt in the air. So did everyone else. We met him at the plate, a tidal wave of cheers crashing on him. His signature smirk—the Quinn smirk—was plastered across his face as he rounded third.
It cramped me a little, all of us mobbing him. From joy. From hope. But I held back. I still had a job to do.
It was my turn. Left foot in the box. Then right. Bat resting on my shoulder. Eyes locked on the pitcher’s face.
He looked scared.
And I felt calm.
The pitch came in—fastball, inside. I saw it out of his hand. My body just... moved. Muscle memory. Another crack. This one vibrated through the bat and into my chest.
Gone.
I rounded the bases, head down. I didn’t need to see where the ball landed.
2-0.
Another mob at the plate. Another explosion of sound.
Back on the bench, I sat and elevated my arm out of habit to keep the blood flowing. Gavin took a seat next to me, strapping his shin guards back on.
“Nice hit,” he said.
I bumped his fist and nodded. Then tuned it all out. I was already planning the next inning.
I didn’t have to worry. I put them down in order in the second and again in the third. Still no runs.
In the bottom of the fifth, Gavin did it again. This time from the right side of the plate. Home run number two.
We were up 6–0.
For the first time in years, I could taste the payback. It came from deep in my chest, the same place the self-doubt used to live.
I jogged out to the mound for the sixth inning.
Pop-up to short. Strikeout on three pitches. Then I threw three perfect curveballs, ending with one so nasty it made the batter buckle like someone had pulled the floor out from under him.
I walked back to the dugout, my head light. The crowd stood on its feet. I saw them. I just couldn’t hear them. I was inside a moment bigger than noise.
I found my seat on the bench, waiting for Gavin. We always talked between innings—always. But he hadn’t said anything last inning, either. No one had.
Something prickled at the back of my neck, but I couldn’t place why. My fingers went behind my ears, trying to scratch it away but failing.
I glanced around the dugout to find Gavin, and he stood at the fence, his fingers squeezing so tight I could see his wrists shaking. Jake stood next to him, dancing on his toes, eyes straight ahead, not a word shared between them.
No one else talked, either; all of their bodies were angled away from me, no matter where they stood. Even Tanner, keeping score at the end of the dugout, kept his eyes locked ahead.
My body moved on instinct, and I reached him in two steps.
“Give me that,” I said, reaching for the score book.
“No,” he said, yanking it away from me, staring at the field.
“Let me check something,” I said.
“Go rest up for the seventh,” he said, his voice crackling on every word. His hands locked like a vice on the book, squeezing it tight to his chest.
There was only one reason he wouldn’t show me what was on the page. I looked at the scoreboard, anyway.
Zero hits. Zero walks. Zero errors.
That gut feeling? The itch I’d been trying not to scratch? It was this. I was throwing a perfect game.
Suddenly, the silence in the dugout collapsed into my space. I walked to the bench, and every face stayed away. No chatter. Like I was radioactive.
Two years ago, I’d sat with Tanner the night before the state finals, and we’d talked about how baseball was a game of failure. How perfection wasn’t real. But today, I didn’t just have a chance for redemption—I had a chance to be perfect.
My eyes closed without thinking, staying shut, the darkness barely holding back flashes of the zeros on the scoreboard. This wasn’t something you talked about while it happened–no one was coming to save me now.
Our batters went down in order in the bottom of the sixth. I stood slowly and grabbed my glove. I looked around the dugout. No one moved, not wanting to be the one to jinx the moment.
But reality clicked. This wasn’t about me anymore. It was about the team. The state title. The ghosts from two years ago, the ones that had haunted so many of us, had haunted me.
I stood near the dugout steps. “Everyone on me,” I said.
They looked up. Shocked. Yeah, I was breaking superstition. Good.
“It’d be pretty cool if we threw a perfect game in the state title, wouldn’t it?” I said, laughing lightly.
Gavin broke first, giggling with his mask in his right hand. The rest followed, sighs of relief across their faces.
I gave them a nod. “Now let’s play some good defense and finish this off!” I jogged to the mound, breath even, heart steady. My warm-up tosses flew clean, my arm still sharp and loose.
Gavin’s first sign: curveball. Strike one.
I followed with two more, neither missing the zone. The batter didn’t swing at either.
The infield zipped the ball around, the fastest throws any of them had ever made. When it got to him, Zach tossed the ball back to me. “Two more,” he said, pumping his fist.
Next batter, same result. Strikeout, this time on five pitches. Two down.
I looked out toward center field. Jake jumped up and down, smacking his glove with his right hand, the sound there but unheard.
I took a breath and spun to Gavin.
One finger down. Fastball.
I wound up... and spiked it into the dirt. Ball one.
Then another fastball, another miss. Ball two.
Gavin stood and stepped in front of the plate.
“You and me, Easton. Just you and me playing catch,” he called as he pounded his mitt.
We’d done it so many times—just hitting each other in the glove, throw after throw—but none more painfully than two years ago under a bundle of trees one hundred yards away.
His voice steadied me now like it did that day.
He tossed the ball back. Then: four fingers down and a wiggle. Changeup.
I wanted the fastball. But I trusted Gavin. I’d trusted him since the first day I’d met him, when he’d invited me over to the Quinns’ house.
The ball pushed deep into my palm, my thumb and pointer finger making a circle.
Left foot back.
Pivot foot in the hole.
Rotate, lift the left knee up.
Extend both arms.
And throw it like a fastball.
I threw it right where Gavin wanted it, low and away. The hitter swung too early, exactly as Gavin had known he would, but managed to make contact.
The ball rolled to short. Was it too slow?
Zach charged and fielded it clean. There was no smirk now, only focus. He threw on the run, never coming set, the whip of his arm across his body so sure.
I quit breathing. The ball sailed past me across the infield, and I begged it to get there in time.
The ball reached the glove. The runner got there two steps later. I didn’t hear the ump; I just saw his right arm go up.
I exploded into the air, my arms extended high.
I turned to Gavin, ready to celebrate. I didn’t have time to process a blob of red catcher’s gear and blond hair running at me, his mask spiked into the ground.
He tackled me to the grass, his arms wrapped around my entire body.
Zach got to us next, then Joe. The dog pile started, and I was pressed into the dirt, breathless.
I’d never felt more alive—perfect game, state title, clean slate. I had finally become someone I believed in.
Finally, the dog pile broke, and I found a way to breathe again, but only for a second.
Four arms wrapped around me, and two voices shouted, both trying to be louder than the other.
“THAT’S HOW WE DO IT,” Gavin said from my right.
On my left, Jake said, “PERFECT GAME, YOU BADASS.”
I shoved them both away from me, laughing, my skin still tingling. “Go celebrate with everyone else. We’ll talk later.”
The two of them sprinted toward the crowd, arms shot up high into the air, neither making any sense. Didn’t matter today, though.
I made my way to the two men who’d helped get me here. The guys who’d protected me, pushed me, saw me.
Tanner first. He stood back, a half step behind Coach Berrios. He wanted to join in, but thought his job as an assistant coach wasn’t to celebrate.
Fuck that.
I wrapped him in a hug. His arms hesitated before wrapping around me as well, his hands beating on my back like a drum.
“We fucking did it, Tanner. We got the ring!” I pushed him away, barely able to look away from his face. That nose, the huge ears, the hair he had grown out to his shoulders under his hat.
Coach Berrios got to me next with a handshake. “Thank you, Easton,” he said. Tears formed in his eyes.
“Third time’s the charm, huh?” I asked. The relief of finally getting these two what they wanted gave me a sense of pure pride I hadn’t known I was capable of having.
Finally, I turned my ears back on, and I heard the roar of the crowd that was still on its feet. The sun finally came out from behind the clouds and hit my face, as if it knew we had won.
We shook hands with the opposing team, and their coach even congratulated me on how well I’d pitched. He said it was the best game he’d ever seen from a high school pitcher.
We stood on the third base line as the announcer congratulated our opponents, and they received their silver medals. This was so much sweeter than hearing our names first, like we had two years prior. Gavin’s arm wrapped around my shoulders as the names blared, and Zach swayed slightly by my side.
Finally, we were up.
The announcer went name by name through our team as Coach placed the medals around our necks. We’d be getting rings at some point, but I wasn’t sure when. This was enough for now.
When we finished getting our jewelry, the team jogged back to the dugout. I went up to Coach Berrios and asked him for one of the extra medals. The crowd had started to go quiet, but someone was still missing something around his neck.
“Tanner,” I said.
“Sup, East.”
I threw the medal over his head, making sure it fit tight.
I pounded his chest, hoping he’d fully grasp what I was about to say.
“I couldn’t get you this when we played together, but you earned this as much as all of us.
You pushed us in every workout, just like you did when you were in school.
Zach, Gavin, and I wouldn’t be the players we are without you.
“You’re going to sit here and think you didn’t earn this or that it doesn’t matter as much because you did it as a coach and not a player. But this medal should mean as much to you as the one we didn’t win two years ago.”
“Thanks, East,” he said, his smile finally getting to his eyes.
I wrapped my arm over his shoulder and headed toward the crowd.
Even in a sea of red shirts, I locked eyes with Nate, who I had no idea was coming.
He lifted his hat toward me, and when he did, I pounded on my right shoulder twice before pointing at him.
My shoulder—the one he’d rebuilt—had just gone twenty-one up, twenty-one down in the state finals.
Tanner and I made our way to the edge of the stands, where his parents stood beaming.
Mrs. Quinn wrapped me in a hug as soon as we got close enough. “Good game, sweetheart.”
At the same time, Mr. Quinn shook hands with his oldest son. “Congrats, Coach.”
“Thank you so much,” I said when Mrs. Quinn released me. I was hoping they knew I didn’t just mean the congratulations, but everything. The house. The family. The chores. Everything.
Zach joined us shortly after, followed by Gavin, who wrapped his arm over my shoulder. “That was the coolest thing ever. Never watched anything like it, a freaking perfect game. And we won, unlike Tanner’s team.”
“Hey there,” Tanner said, tapping Gavin lightly on the shoulder.
“What do you mean, 'watched’?" I said. “Like you didn’t just call the best game of your life.”
“You know what? You’re right. I did,” Gavin said.
“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Zach said.
When Mr. Quinn was finally able to get a word in, he asked, “So, how does this feel?”
I looked around. This crowd. This town. This family. Tanner.
“We’re good,” I said.
This time, I meant it.