Ball one.
I catch the return throw from Garrett, stand on the mound, and take stock.
The crowd doesn’t know. The crowd is still with me, fifty-two thousand people generating enough noise to make the air vibrate. To them, it was one pitch, one ball, the opener of what could be a long at-bat. Not a sign of anything.
But I know.
My shoulder is fine.
My arm is fine.
The mechanics were fine.
The release was fine.
My head wasn’t.
I am standing on the mound at the most important game of the regular season with my head forty minutes away at a tattoo studio, wondering whether the woman I want more than any win I’ve ever had is home sketching in her private sketchbook, pulling into a parking garage, sitting in traffic, or doing anything other than sitting in this stadium.
I amnotpresent.
And if I throw the next pitch the same way, this game is over before it starts.
I step off the mound.
One step back. Left foot off the rubber. It’s allowed. It’s legal. It stops the clock.
Garrett stands, lifts his mask, and gives me a look that is four parts question and one part threat.
I hold up one finger.Give me a second.
He settles back down.
I stand behind the mound, do the thing I haven’t done since I was nineteen years old and pitching the most terrifying game of my college career in front of forty scouts who would decide my entire future. I stop thinking about the batter, about the count,the lineup, the scouts, the analytics, the contract, the coaching staff, the cameras, the blogs, all of it.
I take one breath in.
Hold it for four counts.
And I look up at the stadium.
Not at the crowd as a mass. At the crowd as individual people, faces, jerseys, rally towels, and signs stacked in tiers from field level to the upper deck, every seat filled with someone who drove here, took the train here, or talked their spouse into coming here because tonight mattered.
My eyes move without deciding to.
Third row of the club level section. The wives, girlfriends, and families section is separated from the general seating by a low barrier, visible from the mound if you know where to look. I’ve never looked before, never had a reason to.
Mack told me to check the aisle seat.
Dark hair. A Wildcats cap pulled low. A leather jacket she wore the first night I helped her with the stuck roller door, the night everything started.
Ava Bishop is sitting in the third row of the club level, aisle seat, with her hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed on the mound.
Fixed on me.
The breath I’ve been holding comes out slowly.
She came.
