“This place kicks ass.” Dylan flopped back onto his bed after tossing his bag on the floor. I stood by the window that looked out onto the quad and took a deep breath. After a two-hour drive, we finally arrived at the small college campus where the Central New York Youth Baseball camp was held. Turning around, I took stock of the small dorm room and a huge smile spread across my face.
“Hell yeah, it does.” I felt freer in that moment than I could ever really explain. For two full weeks, I could run and play ball with people who were here for the exact same reason; they weren’t here to break or belittle me.
“So it looks like we’ve got a meeting at eleven and then lunch. Our first practice is this afternoon at four.” Dylan laid back on the bed, holding the itinerary in one hand and the TV remote in the other. “What should we do until then?” he asked as he mindlessly flipped through the channels.
Looking beyond the open field out behind the quad, my legs grew twitchy. After sitting in the car, biting back my anxiety the entire time, I needed to let off some steam and a run seemed like the perfect way to do that. “I think I’ll hit that trail out there.” I angled my head to the huge evergreens lining the path as I pulled my running sneakers out of my bag.
“Sounds good,” Dylan agreed as he turned off the TV and got up from the bed. Ten minutes later, we made our way across the field and stretched a little before hitting the trail. I could tell that Dylan wanted to say something, probably wanted to ask about my dad again. Maybe one day I’d want to talk about it, but today, with the warm air filling my lungs with some kind of renewed energy, was definitely not that day. Right then, all I wanted to do was run until my legs gave out, until my lungs couldn’t take it, until I felt like I was far enough away from who I really was so that I could be someone else entirely. Since that last part would never happen, I would have to settle for the three miles we had time for.
When we arrived at what we assumed was the halfway point, we stopped to take a quick break. Neither one of us thought to bring any water, not that we would have wanted to carry it anyway. While most people would have felt anything other than happiness at being hunched over, completely unable to breathe with sweat dripping from pretty much everywhere, I felt nothing but elated.
“Keep running like that and you’ll knock a full second off your home-to-first time,” Dylan managed between shallow breaths. The sharp reminder of why I was here hit me right in the gut; I had to use this time to train, to sharpen my skills, to shut my father the fuck up.
That last thought caused a wicked smile to pull at my lips. “What time did you say the weight room was open?” I straightened up, finally able to pull in a deep breath.
“Um, I think it was seven. Yeah, after dinner. Why? You think you want to go?” Dylan looked at me sideways as he stretched out his legs.
“I’m just thinking I might as well use the time here to my advantage. Prove to my father that I’m not a total failure.” Dylan’s eyes widened a little at my small confession, but thankfully, he didn’t press for more. Instead, he jumped up and down a few times and shook out his legs. Shooting me an I’m-up-to-no-good look, he said, “It’s on, now. I am so going to kick your ass. Let’s go!” Then he was off, sprinting ahead of me, leaving his challenge to race him back to the dorms somewhere in the dust behind him.
“Nice work out there, Shane,” Coach Murphy squeezed my shoulder as he walked up to me in the cafeteria later that night. “You’re a real natural. With a little bit of work on that slider, you’ll be unhittable.”
“Thanks, Coach. I’ll be sure to get out there early and stay late to work on it.” For some odd reason, putting in a little bit of extra effort here didn’t seem like punishment.
“Sounds good, Shane. Keep up the good work, kid.” Coach tipped his hat to me as I walked away, dinner tray in hand, to the table where Dylan was sitting with Scott and Eric, two friends we met earlier in the day while running drills.
“Dude, did you leave anything up there for the rest of us?” Scott joked as he took stock of my overly full plate.
“What? I’m bulking up. You might want to follow suit.” Scott was fast, but mainly because he was skinny as hell.
“Works to my advantage. Last season I was only caught stealing twice. I’ll take speed over strength any day,” he mumbled around a full mouth of pasta.
I would never admit it to anyone aloud, but while my main motivation for the extra workouts was to prove my father wrong, I also had an ulterior motive – to be finally big enough to fight back.
“So I guess that means you won’t be joining us in the optional weight-lifting session tonight, huh?” I asked as I sank down into my chair.
“No, we’ll be there. Even though it says ‘optional’, we know they keep track of those things,” Eric answered for both him and Scott. “Our coach back home would kill us if he found out we didn’t do everything that was ‘optional’. He’s quite the overachiever.”
“Sounds familiar,” I grumbled under my breath, wondering if their coach was as mean about over-achieving as my father was.
We laughed through the rest of dinner, sharing horror stories about our coaches and laughing about some of the stuff that went down that day. For the first time in so long, it felt cathartic to be with friends and not have to worry about anything.
However, stepping into the weight room a few hours later brought the worry back in full force. Determined to prove my father wrong, and maybe finally shut him the fuck up, I grabbed a pre-printed workout routine from Coach, and then Eric, Scott, Dylan, and I hit the circuit. After forty-five minutes, our arms and legs were shaking and we were covered in sweat.
I tossed Dylan a bottle of water and sat next to him on the bench where he was sitting, his head in his hands wiping away the sweat with a towel. “Hey, man, you okay?”
He didn’t say anything at first, swigging back most of his water in one huge gulp. He made another pass with the towel across his face before finally looking over to me. When he did, it was as if he was seeing me for the first time, as if I hadn’t been in the same room as him for the last hour. “Yeah, I’m good.” He stood from the bench quickly, again without even looking at me. When he got to the door, he turned around, an almost sad look on his face. “Must’ve ate something funky at dinner or maybe I’m just shot from the long-ass day. I’m gonna head back to the room.”
When he walked away, I knew that something else was bothering him, but I was in the zone and needed to get in another round on the circuit before I could call it quits.
Standing at the head of the bench, I spotted Eric on his second round of bench-presses. “He okay?” Scott asked from the other side of the bench, tipping his head at the doors through which Dylan had just left.
I shrugged before helping Eric place the bar back in its holder. “Yeah, I guess. Just tired probably.”
“No, I mean like…” Scott’s words fell silent as Eric stood from the bench.
Eric shot him a glare and gritted out, “Dude,” as a way to silence whatever Scott was just about to say.
I stood back, watching the entire exchange pass in the blink of an eye, not really sure what to make of it. “What do you mean?” I folded my arms across my chest, my voice taking on a defensive tone.
