Homerun (Norminah)

chapter three

Normani pulled her phone out of the waistband of her shorts. It was 11:30 at night and she was drenched in sweat, her hair flying all over the place. It was another night at the batting cages, getting her anger out by violently hitting the softballs. She still had another half hour until they closed. She put her helmet on and loaded another round.

Practice had been a mess. Their coach had Normani and Dinah both run practice, which was a disaster waiting to happen. They were unorganized and too focused on competition to get anything done.

Because of that, they both had to run three laps around the field. Normani was close to barfing but kept running, despite her stomach churning and calves burning.

She didn't understand why she was always at the batting cages when she was mad. She just ended up there. Normani struck a ball that came at her and it soared. She was doing pretty well until she thought of Dinah and swung too hard, completely missing the ball and earning a blow to the right shoulder.

"Fuck," she hissed as she dropped the bat and clenched her shoulder with her left hand.

"Looks like you're in need of my tips again," Normani heard an all too familiar voice say from behind her. She spun around and saw the blonde standing there with her bat in her hand, smug smile on her lips.

"I don't need your so called tips. I'm doing just fine," Normani said through gritted teeth. Dinah laughed dryly.

"That shoulder is gonna hurt, make sure you ice it later."

Normani rolled her eyes and picked up her bat again. Another ball came at her and she missed again, this time it hit her thigh.

"Son of a bitch," Normani cursed, rubbing her thigh.

"You're supposed to actually hit the ball."

Normani ignored her and violently swung again. She missed by a mile and she somehow hit herself in the ankle with the bat. Normani yelped, dropping to the ground. She gripped her ankle and buried her head in her knees so Dinah didn't have to see her cry.

"You might wanna ice your wounds," Dinah said. Normani clenched her jaw and breathed in deeply through her nose.

"Yeah, no shit," she spat as she stood up. She was still crying a little. Dinah's expression changed. Normani thought she was crazy. Her expression almost looked like it softened. It was only for a split second, as the same old smirk was back on her lips.

Normani wiped away her tears and decided that she was done for the night. She limped to her rented locker and packed up her stuff. She left the building and Dinah followed behind her.

"Normani?" Dinah said.

"What is it?" Normani said harshly, not bothering to turn around.

"I-never mind," Dinah sighed. Normani almost stopped in her tracks. That was the first time Dinah had said something that wasn't snarky to her.

Normani wouldn't be lying if she said that she smiled through the pain she was feeling in her body. Maybe Lauren was right and she should try and be nice to Dinah. When she arrived home she instantly grabbed a few ice packs from the freezer and went up stairs to her room.

Normani stripped of her shirt and shorts looked in the mirror. A bruise had formed on her shoulder. Her bare thigh had a darkening mark on it where she had been slammed. Her ankle didn't look good either. She sighed and laid down in her bed in her sports bra so she could ice her shoulder. She balanced an ice pack on her thigh and one final one on her ankle. She took a picture for snapchat, not caring if she wasn't wearing her shorts. She captioned it with 'ow' and sent it to her story.