I'd got accepted to the elite program in Alabama.
They sent me a note after the interview, asking me to please fill in an application so they could officially commence the process of my enrollment with a full ride scholarship.
So we cancelled the protest. Basically, now what mattered was to graduate without major incident and go off to college after the summer. Mr. Jones and staff were relieved, but they didn't seem to press the issue when I started showing up at baseball practices anyway, giving my advice as a casual bystander. Dad also didn't seem to mind when I joined him and he even asked for my opinion on occasion.
The team was now preparing for state and the pressure was intense. One single loss and we'd drop out of the running. But the fact was that this was already farther than any other Alligator team had ever got. We'd written history, and I'd been a part of it.
The first game for state was tomorrow, but that Saturday morning I was with my pee wees, where it all started. Kwentin batted off a nice hit and ran for first base, where Pedrito waited for the ball. I urged them on, each one for their respective task. Kwentin got on base and shot me a grin that was now missing a tooth.
He'd dropped that one after a fall last week, but I'd been assured by his dad that it'd just been a milk tooth. This morning I'd asked if the tooth fairy brought him something and he said yes, a new glove. I was trying to help him break it in as he played.
"Hi."
I swiveled around on the bench and saw Santiago lean against the chainlink fence. He looked like a man candy, with his green t-shirt falling off his wide shoulders onto a narrow waist that curved as he rested his weight on only one foot. The breeze tousled his hair and his eyes, oh, his eyes, they left a hot trail where they looked at me.
"Hi, what are you doing here?"
He showed me his bat and hat laying on the floor. "I was wondering if I could join the team."
My eyebrows went up. I looked at him, all big and grown, and back at my pee wees who were stumbling on loose shoe laces and fighting over a bat. My lips pursed.
"I'm not sure we need you. Our players are all fine and talented, you see."
He put his hand against his heart. "Oh, I know. That's why I want to learn from them."
Not waiting for any sort of retort, he walked into the field and announced to the kids that they'd got a new teammate. Of course the boys remembered him from that time I brought him with me and inflicted torture on him while they played. A couple of the kids threw themselves against him and pulled him to the plate. I caught bits of their conversation. Was he a catcher? Was he any good at playing at all? I had a laugh when Pedrito told Santi, straight to his face, that he didn't think he was.
So I continued breaking in the glove with my hands, a ball and rope as I watched him play with the kids. He pretended to fumble with the ball, or maybe he did, because the kids threw very low and slow, but he kept them entertained and energized for about an hour. When we were done with practice each of us said what had been good or bad from today, as Domingo had taught his sons and me back in the day, and when the good part came their answer had been Santiago.
I couldn't agree more.
He sat next to me and grabbed my water bottle as we watched the kids being picked up by their parents. One of them approached me and asked what they were going to do when I went off to college. I told him the same thing Santi had told me while I was at the hotel, that we had a bit less than a year to figure that out. But I was going to miss my pee wees so much; I knew that by the way my stomach turned to knots as I saw the last ones go.
"That was us," I told Santi. "Ten years ago that was us. Toothy, snotty and cry babies."
He snorted. "When you think about it, we haven't changed much."
I laughed and nudged him with my shoulder. "Hey, I'd say at least we grew in height."
He conceded that point. For a while we just shared the water bottle in silence and looked out at the deserted field. I imagined the three of us running amok on it back then. We'd been so happy.
"I'm gonna miss this," I said.
"Yes, it's the end of an era." He stood up and looked down at me. The glare of the sun had me squinting up at him. "C'mon, I want to see if you got any better at batting."
I shrugged and got up, borrowing his bat and hat as I walked up to the plate. He grabbed a few balls and put them in the pockets of his shorts. I watched him walk to the mound, which was not a usual sight. Back in the days, when it was just Seb, Santi and I, we'd switched around and tried all the positions. But Santi had never been a steady pitcher. He had the occasional good pitch, but he couldn't normally keep them within the strike zone.
I was mesmerized as he did a full wind up, perfect posture and everything, and threw a first ball. I was too busy looking at the way his t-shirt clung to his shoulders and chest, at how his powerful arms swung up and out and how the muscles of his legs tightened that I completely missed the ball. Too busy salivating.
He sighed. "You're not paying attention."
"You're distracting me."
He shook his head as he reached into his pocket and grabbed another ball. He mustn't have liked that one because he put it back in and replaced it by another one. This time I was ready, hips pulled out and everything as he'd advised. When his pitch came I was able to hit it somewhere off to the right of him. He'd have caught it and thrown it to first easily, if that were necessary. As it was, he grabbed a third ball from his pocket and threw it. I missed that one by a mile with a wide swing.
"Really?" he asked, with not a bone of sympathy in his body.
I cringed and could feel heat traveling up my face. "I want to coach pros, not play with pros, okay?"
"Yeah, but how are you going to get them to respect you if you bat like a little boy?"
I shrugged. "By the power of my screams, I hope."
Santi flashed me a grin. He pulled out the last ball he had in his pocket and looked at it with way more care than the previous ones. That put me on high alert, and when he threw it I was able to detect that it was different. So I didn't swing my bat and just let it go. I turned back to see where it landed, and saw that it was small and orange.
"Is that...?"
He jogged over and picked it up, dusting it off as if it hadn't been caked in mud for years in a cardboard box.
"What's that ball doing here?" I asked him
He shifted his eyes up at me before extending it toward me. "Remember? You told me to bring it home. Well, here it is."
I blinked at it, not quite understanding his meaning. Had this been the field where we played that game?
He placed the ball in my hand and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "That was the whole thing. You screamed at me to bring it home and what I thought about wasn't to run to home plate and score. All I could think of was to bring it to you. To my home."
I drew in a shaky gasp. "Oh, Santi."
His smile was pinched. "I was not ready for such a grand gesture back then, though."
I remembered the video Seb had recorded of us fighting after that game. I never knew he'd been filming us, or that he'd helped his baby brother find the ball. I never knew what that game and this ball had meant to Santi. Until now.
I blinked at the ball, rolling it over on my hand. "Is it mine, now?"
He stepped closer until his chest bumped against my forehead. "It was always yours."
I had a feeling that just like that I held his heart in my hands. And it was going to be my most precious treasure. I didn't have a special memento for him. I just hoped I could give him my entire future and that that would be enough.
I looked up at him and circled my arms around his neck. In turn, he pressed me close to him.
"Thank you, I'll treasure it."
The corners of his lips lifted. "You better, it's been through a lot of shit."
I laughed and pressed my lips against his softly. "Well, at least now it has company. Forever."
it all ends where it started, you guys, at the pee wees. HOLD ME WHILE I CRY