FAST CAR - Awsten Knight ✓

i. end of the beginging

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It was the glorious, blisteringly hot summer of 2002, which is otherwise known as 

baseball season. 

Awsten was ten and Gracie was nine and a half. They'd been best friends since diapers- not that they could even remember- and neighbors since before they were even born. Now, they remained inseparable; he was the peanut butter to her sugar-free jelly.

Everyone loved Awsten and Gracie to death- they were simply too adorable not to. The both of them were practically forces of nature by the time Gracie was three months, and now they were always following each other around the streets daily looking for an adventure or two.

Grace was for sure adrenaline junky starting the very second she could open her eyes- not that she knew what that was- and Awsten could usually be found laying in the grass, catching some type of bug or frog. They were polar opposites in that respect, and they didn't let that hold them back from being attached at the hip.

But they were both deeply in love with sports- baseball to be more specific. Their town's sports club, which Gracie's dad previously coached in for her brothers years before, welcomed the pair with open arms the second they turned 3. They started their endeavor with daddy and me tee-ball, moving their way through the different teams until they found themselves on a real ball team. Finally. 

Gracie was good. So good that the baseball branch's director wanted her to play up one or two years when she was only six years old. But she, of course, refused because she wanted to stay with Awsten. (Who, to be blunt, wasn't too good himself.) And though the director was upset by this, he was overwhelmed by the loyalty, which only made her all the more adorable in his eyes. An impossible feat accomplished by someone so small.

Gracie stood near the exit of the dugout that led onto the field with the bright green bat that was more than half the size of her even though it was the smallest-sized bat the Davidson family had owned at the time. It was her oldest brother Logan's lucky one from when he was twelve. Gracie bought it from him a week ago for two Charleston chews and a nickel. What a steal! Logan had thought to himself before he remembered that it was an eighty-dollar bat. He was very grateful that he outgrew the thing and no longer had any extensive usage for it as he unwrapped the candy and pocketed the nickel. 

Logan was now sixteen and had moved onto a big travel team. He used a really nice black bat, like the rest of the players. He called it 'shark' for whatever reason. He also now had a girlfriend and figured he was too old to find luck in the form of bats, but Gracie assumed he wasn't too old to find it in the form of girls. In the form of Lola Grace Miller, to be more specific.

Gracie was up on deck with Awsten up on double deck. She usually went after him in the batting order, but today coach was shaking things up a bit, which of course no one really minded. They were only ten.

The pitcher threw his last pitch before Eddie, the boy Grace was hitting after, robbed a pop fly and got to first while simultaneously sending their runner on third home.

Awsten and Gracie cheered and giggled in front of their ball bags that were chock full of couch cushion money for ice cream after the game. In all honesty, Awsten left his house more excited for the ice cream than the ballgame.

But before they could finish celebrating their first run of the game, Gracie's dad placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and pushed her out of the dugout.