Page 27 of Praising the Pitcher

She slides back into the booth and passes me mine. Gratefully, I take it, and despite how awful this afternoon has been, this made it a little sweeter.

“Go ahead,” she urges, plucking one of the cherries from the top of the ice with a toothpick and eating it. “Ask me anything.”

I swirl my straw around, letting the cherries fall to the bottom of the glass because, unlike Sasha, I eat mine last.

“Did you walk away from softball on your own?”

Though it’s subtle, I can see she flinches. “Yes,” she finally answers.

“Why?” I whisper, feeling bad I’m forcing her to talk about it but also … I find myself needing to know.

She moves the straw around silently, sighing.

“You know that feeling like … no matter what you do, or how hard you work, it will never be enough?” Though her voice is low, her words pack the hardest punch, and I nod.

“Well, eventually, it ate me alive. That, and the constant pressure I felt. The loneliness of living for one thing only—softball.” She pushes her drink away from her. “After my junior year, I just … stopped playing.”

Her words linger, and the silence in this empty diner becomes too much because I know exactly what she’s saying. That loneliness? I feel it daily.

“Have you ever regretted it?” I feel bad immediately after the words leave my mouth. If she’s been living with regret, she probably doesn’t feel like talking about it with a stranger. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that,” I quickly add.

She shrugs her shoulders, sighing. “Nah, it’s okay. It’s something I’ve been asked plenty of times since I left the mound.” She swallows. “Yeah, I do. I think I left partly out of spite. I was tired of my entire family putting so much pressure on me. I think I lost sight of the fact that I really do love softball. I began to question if it was all just for them, and eventually, I think I convinced myself it was.”

I stare down at the table in front of me. Sasha has been exactly where I am right now. And while I know it’s for the wrong reasons, that loneliness subsides because she gets me.

“Something tells me what just happened in the parking lot, with your dad, that had to do with softball, didn’t it?” she asks softly.

“What doesn’t have to do with softball when it comes to my dad?” I scoff. “Even on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we talk about it or we train for it. There’s no day or conversation that doesn’t lead to softball when it comes to me and him.”

I blush slightly at my outburst. I’m normally someone who keeps to myself, yet this is twice in the past few days where I’ve blabbed about my issues to people who I don’t even know that well. First, to Noah. Now, to Sasha.

“So then, what happened out there?”

I think back to sitting in the car with my dad—not wanting to tell her the truth, that he was making an example out of her. I decide to tell her everything but that detail.

“He thinks I’m throwing away my life and making bad choices,” I say. Even though he may not have said those exact words, that’s how he feels. “And one thing about my dad? He needs control.” I laugh bitterly. “I mean, he tracks me at all times. Has my schedule nailed down for me, and he even tries to control what I eat.”

Sasha points to my glass. “Guessing this surgery Shirley Temple with extra grenadine isn’t on his list of allowances?”

“Nope,” I say, smiling and taking a sip out of spite.

“So, is he really losing control? Are you pushing back, or is it just in his head?” she asks, genuinely curious. “Or do you just want the chance to be a normal college kid? What caused the, um … outburst today. Because I have to tell you, it seemed intense.”

I don’t tell her the final straw was the other night when I stayed out late and then turned my location off. I don’t say that because then I’d have to explain why I didn’t go home. I don’t feel like diving deep into a conversation about the reason I needed to stay with the campus playboy to help me sleep. So instead, I decide to keep it shallow.

“I’m still working just as hard as I ever have, but this year, I’m living in a female athletic house called⁠—”

“The Nest,” she says, grinning and cutting me off. “Yes, I’m pretty familiar.”

“Right,” I say, nodding. “Yes. The Nest. Anyway, I think the older I get, the tighter his grip on me becomes. He wants to control every single part of my life. I know he helped me get this far, but also, despite what he thinks, I got myself here too, you know? And it’s not like I’m careless or a bad kid.”

A swift knock on the door has my heart jumping into my throat, and her eyes grow wide. Slowly, she stands up and peeks around the corner.

“It’s him,” she whispers. “I know you said no to calling the police, but is there someone else you want to call?” She looks down. “I’m not trying to be dramatic, it’s just … he was really intense earlier.” She nods at my arm. “I’ll even bet you have a bruise forming under there.”

The knocking stops, and instinctively, I put my hand on my upper arm.

“He’s done some pretty crazy things, but he’s never done that,” I say quickly, defending him. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. I know what she’s thinking.