by Sarah Sutton
Saying things to provoke him, to rile him up. It turned into a game. I couldn’t imagine why, though. Why she’d been so cruel and antagonistic towards him. But I could recognize it in the way my own parents interacted with each other sometimes. When they were angry with each other, they used the other’s weakness. Exploited it.
Walsh didn’t respond right away, allowing my words to hang in the air, marinating for a moment. The way he looked at me made me wish, not for the first time, that I owned a direct line to his thoughts. Focused gaze, tightly-pressed lips. What could he possibly be thinking about, looking at me like that?
“She knew how important this was to me,” he said after a moment.
“But why? Why was this so important?” What was I missing?
Walsh smiled instead of answering, but it gave me no comfort. It was his fake smile, smooth and practiced. Corners tight, teeth hidden, lips curled slightly. Half lifted, half arrogant, and totally faked. It eclipsed all his emotions, only showing the ones he knew looked good on him. “Let’s get out of here.”
I tried to brush it off, to swallow his subject change. Walsh sat so close, but he still felt a million miles away. “And go where? It’s nine o’clock.”
“So?” He stood up, grabbing onto my hands to try and drag me up with him. “It’s not even that dark yet. We need to do something other than baking cookies.”
I put all my weight into leaning back against the dining room chair. “I was looking forward to cookies.”
“Trust me,” Walsh said, finally managing me to my feet. “You’ll like this more.”
Chapter Eighteen
“This is better than cookies? You’re insane.”
Since Walsh lived out in the boonies, it took us thirty minutes to get to the place deemed better than cookies: the baseball field.
Yeah. He took me away from cookies to practice. Jerk.
Being team captain, Walsh had a key to the equipment shed that sat behind the bleachers, and he made a beeline for it when we arrived. The sun was setting quickly, but that didn’t sway him from trying to pull some gigantic machine from the equipment shed to the pitcher’s mound. And it didn’t sway him from making me help.
“It’s a ball launcher,” Walsh said through a grunted breath, dragging his end to the field. He managed to hold his corner higher than me, taking most of the weight. “It pitches the baseballs so you can hit them.”
“You took me away from cookies just so you could practice your batting?” I huffed, trying to not trip over an uneven patch of grass as I held up the other end of the machine. I had made an awful decision to wear jeans—even though the sun was almost set, humidity still clung to the air, and I was dying of heatstroke. Dying of heatstroke and about to be crushed by a stupid ball launcher. “You officially suck.”
Walsh wasn’t even dressed to practice, wearing his usual button-down shirt and signature boat shoes. His ghost of a laugh carried a musical tune that ran right through me, easing the tension out of me. “Not me. You.”
Once we set it up at a safe distance from home plate, Walsh handed me a metal baseball bat and helmet that was way too big. It smelled like head-sweat and sulfur.
“I don’t know why you’re dolling me up,” I said as he positioned me in front of the home plate, a straight eyeshot at the machine. The metal monster looked ready to charge me and swallow me whole. Or impale me. “Because I am so not doing this. This is me, not participating.”
The noise echoed as Walsh knocked his knuckles against the helmet. “You’ll do great, Sophie.”
I loosely swung the bat in the air, and Walsh ducked out of reach just in time, my aim nearly knocking him in the shoulder. “And what if I end up being better than you?”
He walked backward toward the pitching machine, grinning the whole way. “Then you can take my spot. Be team captain.”
“I’ll settle with co-captain.”
“So generous.”
I swung the bat again, my grip firmer this time, and a muscle in my arm screamed. Walsh fiddled with the machine for a moment, then loaded it with a few baseballs. “I’m putting on the lowest setting so it won’t come at you fast.”
I mock saluted him, knocking the helmet against my forehead. I guess I could humor him just a little bit. The machine came to life with a whir, and I squeezed the metal bat in my fists, trying to channel my inner baseball star.
If I’d blinked, I would’ve totally missed it. A ball whipped its way past me, the air fizzing as it zoomed by my head, and I jumped back.
“Walsh!” The machine threw another ball, shooting past me and smacking into the chain-link fence. “That’s slow? Are you sure this thing isn’t broken?”
Walsh—the little jerk—was laughing, leaning his hands to his knees and bending over. Even from the distance between us, I could hear him try and gasp in a breath, and it took him a moment to get his words out. “Okay,” he said breathlessly. “Maybe that wasn’t the best idea.”
Even though all I wanted moments ago was to see him laugh like this, I now wanted to throw the baseball bat at him.
I whipped the helmet off, knowing my hair had to be terribly tousled. “Well, I’m glad nearly concussing me with a baseball makes you feel better.”
Walsh turned the machine off. He held up a finger to me, jogging back in the direction of the baseball shed. “I have a better idea. One sec!”
“I don’t trust your ideas!” I shouted back, my voice echoing in the night. “My ideas are way better than yours. They involve cookies!”
The landscape shielded the sinking sun, only a faint flame now that darkness moved in. This moment reminded me of the Fourth of July, sitting in my backyard with Walsh. As soon as the fireworks ended, I made Walsh deflate the float and head home. My parents could’ve been home any minute, and though they seemed to like Walsh enough, I hadn’t wanted to take any chances.
Or, at least, that’s what I told myself in the moment. But I also really needed space from him and his googly eyes, and sending him packing was the only way for me to breathe. For some reason, I found myself back in that headspace, my lungs unsure how to draw in a normal breath of air.
Walsh came back from the shed clutching a tee, the kind kids used in little league. He must’ve seen the look on my face. “No, you’ll love this. This way you have total control.”
“I’ll look like an idiot. An idiot who doesn’t know how to play baseball.”
Walsh set the tee up over the plate, reaching down to scoop up a baseball. Brushing it against his shirt, he gingerly set it on the tee. “Have you ever played baseball before?”
“Unless you count that week we were required to play in gym class, no.”
“Then this is perfect for you.” Walsh took the helmet from my fingertips, placing it gently back on my head. His sea-depth eyes met mine under the lip, and he carefully adjusted how it sat. “This is how everyone starts out playing. They use a tee. And it’s great because you’ll hit it every time. Well, probably.”
I swung the bat up from the ground, and Walsh edged back just in time to avoid being knocked under the chin. Oops. “I’m only doing this to cheer you up,” I told him, moving to stand by home plate, “because I really think this is silly.”
“Five bucks says you’ll really like it.”
“Doubtful.” I hardly enjoyed watching baseball, and even that took effort.
Tightening my grip, I took a step to the tee and swung, the bat heavier now that I put power behind my blow, and the ball cracked loudly against the metal. It went left sharply, bouncing along the white line sprayed into the grass. The bat vibrated under my hand, and I lost my footing as I tumbled off-balance.
Walsh grabbed my arm to steady me, excitement already evident in his gaze. “Okay, we need to work on your stance. But that was a good start!”
I laughed at the shot of happiness and reached back to touch my shoulder as it throbbed. “I thought it was great.”
Walsh moved to grab another baseball, setting it on
the tee. “It was great. But, here, put your feet—” Walsh bent down and grabbed my sneaker, sliding it against the dirt. He pushed it out wider than my hip and then moved the other foot, so it was parallel to that leg, spreading them wide. “—like this. And put a bit more weight into the back foot, but when you swing—”
“Move onto the front foot?”
“Lightly.” He got to his feet, brushing his hands on his pants. “It’ll make sure you aren’t tossed off balance when you put your little muscles into that swing.”
“Please!” I scoffed, shoving him. “Little muscles. These bad boys are bigger than yours.”
“Just swing.” Walsh stepped back, far from reach. “And remember to put your front foot—”
“Light pressure. Yeah, yeah.” I fell into position, a bit more confident even though I was at little league level. “Eat this, stupid baseball.”
When I swung, the difference was obvious. This time when my bat connected, the ball seemed to straighten out more than before, going farther. It touched the ground almost to third base, rolling past.
I whirled to face Walsh while grinning like a fool, holding up the bat like it was a trophy. “Oh, my gosh! Did you see that?”
Walsh’s smile was so wide when he saw my genuine delight, and my heart jumped at the sight of it, so vivid in the dying light. In his hand sat another baseball. “Now do it again.”
We spent what seemed like hours switching turns, practicing our hits underneath the fading sun and soon the glowing stars. Walsh even got me to step back and underhand-pitch a few baseballs to him, laughing like an idiot when he “accidentally” missed. The more we joked around, the more relaxed he became, his swings becoming wilder and more theatrical.
I dropped the bat after I swung to put my hands around my mouth, calling, “And it’s out of here! Sophia Wallace hits a home run! The crowd goes wild!” My voice echoed in the field, loud. I mimicked an audience screaming an ahh, ahh sound.
“I can’t find the ball,” Walsh called, wandering around. “It’s too dark; I can’t see.” And then all at once, Walsh collapsed in the grass by the dugout, falling easily, landing hard. I almost called out to him before he began to laugh. Laugh and laugh, the sound plastered with happiness. “The sky is so pretty, Sophie. Come look.”
“You’re quitting? Walsh Hunter is a quitter?” I got closer, hovering over his lying form, hands on my hips. “Man, Scott’s going to steal that captain spot from you if you don’t put in enough effort.”
Walsh’s eyes shifted from the endless sky to me, but his gaze didn’t change. He still looked at me like I held all the stars in my arms, brilliant and aglow.
Gosh, he shouldn’t look at me like that, I found myself thinking, my lungs taking a shaking breath. It’s not fair.
In the blink of an eye, Walsh reached upward and grasped my wrist, pulling me down to the grass beside him.
The ground was firm when I landed, but the laugh pulled from me was loud. We were close enough that I could feel Walsh’s shoulder brushing mine, hear his breath pull in and push out. I didn’t know why watching him breathe was so mesmerizing in that moment, but I became distracted.
For a long, silent moment, I stared at him and he stared at the sky, both of us mesmerized, both of us lost in thought. I wished I could be like him, caught up in the beauty of the night. His eyes, which had been glazed over with an excited sort of humor, bled into a more haunted look the longer we held onto our words. And the longer we were quiet, the harder the idea of talking became.
I tugged off the baseball helmet so I could see him better. “Are you going to play baseball after high school?” I asked, trying to fill the silence, wanting to hear his voice again.
“Don’t know yet,” he responded, not looking at me. His fingers were splayed at his side. “There’s a county league for Fenton—you’ve heard of it?”
I hadn’t.
“It’s kind of like your newspaper internship, just for baseball. They pick a few seniors from each school in the county to play for their league, especially if they want to go on to play for college.” Walsh raised a shoulder. “They take their picks in the fall and it’s hard to get into. That’s why Coach drills us so hard about winning, why our team is so competitive. Last year, they only took one senior from Bayview.”
“So that’s what you want to do?” I asked, anxiety curling in my chest. “Play for that team next summer?”
“The county league has a leg-up for players to get on college teams. I have a better shot at it if we win the last game—it’s the championship game in the entire county. It’s us against Greenville.”
I swallowed hard. Guilt, my brain whispered. What you’re feeling is guilt. “But do you want to do that?”
“I love baseball,” Walsh told me, voice almost sounding mechanical. I couldn’t figure out why. “It would be a great opportunity.”
I stared up at the stars as his words sunk in. Playing for the county league—that would be a great opportunity for him. He said that it’d be a good step if he wanted to play on a college team. But if I published my article and word got back to the county team about Bayview’s cheating habits, they wouldn’t want a player from a corrupt team. They wouldn’t want Walsh, captain of that team, no matter how great his batting average was.
I blinked fast, feeling like I was fighting back tears, but my eyes were dry. My brain was right—this was guilt, and it ate my insides, weighed down my body, turned my spine into lead.
Walsh turned his head to look at me, his hair rucking up against the grass, his bright blue-green eyes cutting into mine. “Are you cold, Sophie?”
Goosebumps dotted my skin, but I wasn’t cold. The night stole my voice when I spoke, words coming in a whisper, “Why do you call me that?”
“It’s your name.”
“My name is Sophia. An a, not an e. I’ve corrected you how many times? And yet you didn’t want your mom calling me that.”
Walsh fell quiet for a moment, but I couldn’t look at him. I was too afraid he’d see how desperately I wanted to know his answer or be able to sense how quickly my heart was beating. Rapid succession, boom, boom, boom, like stars falling from the sky and landing around us.
“I don’t know.” His voice was as rough as the gravel in the diamond. “I think I like calling you something no one else calls you. It makes it feel like I know you in a way no one else does, which sounds strange. It makes it feel…makes this feel real.”
I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight. Real. It was a fake word between us, a lie.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” The word came out of my mouth before I even realized it, and there was no taking it back. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. “It’s okay.”
Walsh lifted his hand to run a single finger down the length of my cheek, tracing to my jawline. His fingerprint drew a tiny shock along my skin, making the goosebumps worse. “I needed this, you know. Thank you.”
I tried to go back to the joy I’d been experiencing moments ago, pushing all thoughts of baseball and articles and guilt down. “I needed chocolate chip cookies, but I’m here for you.”
The bright moonlight shined down on his face, reflecting off his cheeks and igniting his hair. He’d never looked so beautiful. “You’re a good girlfriend.” He lifted his eyebrows. “A good fake one.”
“Who would’ve thought?”
Lying next to him in the scratchy grass of the baseball field, I thought about how I would never do this for Scott. I wouldn’t have helped him haul out the pitching machine, I wouldn’t have let him put a helmet on me and make me swing at a baseball. I don’t know why I wouldn’t have; I just knew that there would’ve been no way.
But for Walsh, without question.
“I don’t have a good relationship with my parents,” I admitted quietly, suddenly, the words pulled out of me before I could think twice. He’d shared something personal with me—his mother—and now it was my turn. “I think they just want to give me space,
but they gave me too much. We used to bake together, have movie nights. Now, I’m just…lonely. And they’re getting a divorce—did I tell you that? I don’t think I did.” I took a breath, closing my eyes. “I thought I was glad about it, thought things would change, but now…I don’t know.”
The memory of the way I’d left my parents this afternoon came back to me, but this time, I wasn’t angry. The pain I’d been stuffing down rose to the surface, making everything in my body feel like it was tearing apart, nerve by nerve.
“What kind of kid is happy that their parents are splitting up?” I asked him. “That makes me the worst kind of daughter ever. But they just bicker all the time, like they’re teenagers or an old couple who argue just to keep things interesting. And then I’m there, a little girl in a dollhouse, waiting to be picked up and played with. And that’s…” My breathlessness caught up to me, my voice catching abruptly, like I’d swallowed a bug or something embarrassingly close to crying. “…sad.”
I wanted to just sink into the rough grass, blend into the soil and disappear beneath the earth. A few crickets chirped in the distance, filling the silence between Walsh and me.
Like the brush of the breeze, gentle and tender, Walsh’s fingertips ghosted across my cheekbone again. I fought a shiver at the touch. When his knee shifted against my leg, he kept it there, a comforting pressure.
I couldn’t believe I was being so emotional in front of him. I couldn’t even imagine what Scott would’ve said if he were here instead. Or if he would’ve even listened. “I didn’t mean to make this about me.”
Walsh’s voice was as soft as whisper, raspy, like he’d been silent for years. “I love listening to you talk.”
“Even though I’m a selfish spoiled brat? The one who is so consumed by her own joy in her parents’ separation?”
“Look at me, Sophia.”
It was because he said my name right—my stupid name—that I listened to him. Compelled, I turned my head and blinked my eyes open. All the crickets stopped chirping, and my heart stopped beating, and Walsh’s leg touching mine became a much more prominent pressure.