Girls Don't Play Baseball

Chapter Six

"Lift your elbow a little higher," Andrew instructed, and Chloe obliged, making contact with the ball and sending it flying hard into the net. There was a hum of approval behind her, usually the only praise she got other than a thoughtful "good," or "well done". She was sweating and her muscles ached from swinging the wooden bat, but she pushed herself on.

The next pitch from the machine came hard and fast, a little inside but right at the height of her belt. She tucked her wrist in a little, swinging with protesting muscles. She made contact, but the ball went foul.

The machine was paused and she turned to Andrew, who held the remote to the automatic pitcher. She took a few steps towards her private instructor, who was on the other side of the net. He was tall and handsome, with shaggy dark hair that curled a little at the edges. His eyes were an attentive hazel, and his body was lean with muscle. He was a couple of years older than Chloe, and he loved to teach. He told Chloe one time that he had turned down a major league opportunity because it would mean he wouldn't be able to instruct other kids anymore.

"You tense up when you get an inside pitch. Your shoulders freeze and it doesn't allow your hips to swing all the way around, which is why it goes foul. Focus more on relaxing, let your body do what it knows instead of over thinking it."

Chloe nodded, thinking over what he said. She didn't feel like she tensed up. In fact, her swing felt normal. But she trusted Andrew's input, and when the machine started back up again, the ball was inside and at her belt, the same place as before, and she took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders, and swung the bat.

The ball thunked into the net behind her, and she looked behind her to see Andrew with his poker face on. "Again," He said.

The ball plunked from the machine at seventy miles an hour, the same place as before. Again, Chloe made an extra effort to relax her shoulders, swung the bat, and missed. She looked back at Andrew again, growing faintly irritated. Andrew nodded, signaling for her to continue. Again, she missed. And again, and again.

After her sixth straight miss, she let out a frustrated groan and turned to Andrew, who failed at suppressing an amused smirk.

"I thought you were supposed to be helping me!" She whined.

Andrew raised his hands in a surrender motion. "I did! You just need to get the hang of it is all."

"But when I did it the other way I hit it."

"But you couldn't hit it in fair territory."

"At least I was hitting it."

"It's not my fault you're going through a slump."

Chloe narrowed her eyes at her grinning instructor. "You're laughing at me!" She accused.

He let out a smooth chuckle. "It's refreshing to see that you can miss the ball once in a while like the rest of us."

Chloe smiled a little at the almost-compliment, but not enough so that he could see. Instead, she huffed, turning back to the machine with determination set in her body. Behind her she heard Andrew chuckle again as she missed the next ball, and the next, but skimmed the top of the third.

"Alright kid," Andrew said, stepping under the net and ruffling her hair. "I think that's enough for now. Go home and get some rest, you look beat."

Chloe felt beat.

"One more."

"Go home."

"One more," she insisted.

Andrew looked exasperated. "Sometimes I admire your dedication. Sometimes, like now, I wish you would just go home."

Chloe looked at the clock on the other side of the netting. Twenty minutes past the official end of her session. "I'll pay you overtime for going past my spot."

He sighed. "It's not about the money, and you know that. Put your bat back up, three more."

Chloe tried not to let her triumph show, but the glare her trainer shot her way let her know she wasn't doing a good job. But he loaded up three more tattered baseballs into the machine. She heard it whirr back to life, and counted down in her head.

Three, two, one...

The ball was shot out of the machine, coming to the same spot as before. Inside, belt level. This time, instead of thinking about what Andrew told her, she tried to feel it. Her shoulders relaxed, but this time, they still kept their form instead of slouching. She swung the bat, her elbows tucked slightly more in. There was another thunk, and for a split second she thought she hit it into fair territory. Behind her, she heard the ball connect with something not as swish-like as the net, but not as solid as the metal poles that held them up...

"FU-" Andrew caught himself, clutching his leg, where there would surely be a nicely rounded bruise with lovely lace marks the following morning, if not by the end of the night.

"Sorry!" Chloe yelled, already turned and focusing on the next pitch.

This time, she knew she made contact. She could feel it was going to happen before she swung the bat. Something felt right in the core of her being, like the steady, faithful tick of the grandfather clock in her grandparent's living room.

When she hit the ball, it went far. Or, it would have, had there not been a net. The net itself seemed to protest at the force of being hit. Chloe felt pride bloom in her chest, but she didn't have time to celebrate before the next pitch came flying at her.

Again, she made contact. Not as hard as the time before, but it was definitely in fair territory.

Now that the machine was out of pitches, she was jumping and screaming, ecstatic. She ran to Andrew, jumping and hugging him while he still clutched his throbbing leg. But he couldn't help but smile; this was the part of training he lived for. Knowing that he was able to help bring this kind of joy to someone who truly loved the game as much as he did- if not more- was the most rewarding thing he could think of.

"Good job, kid." He said, still smiling. "Now can you go home?"

Chloe smiled, knowing he was only partly serious. He was just as proud of her as she was of herself, and they both knew it.

"See you Thursday, Andrew!" She said, replacing the weighted bat next to his stack and slinging her ball bag over her shoulder. She tucked her helmet underneath her arm and walked out to her mom's van, ready to go home.

The drive from Andrew's personal training facility was only twenty minutes away from her own home, but twenty minutes with nothing good on the radio was a lot of time to think about things she would rather not think about. Her mom had taken out her CD, placing it who knows where. Thoughts about Thompson entered her brain like treason. No matter how hard she tried to push them out and engross herself on the commercial about a local bug extermination plant, but the continued to invade.

Why had he kissed her? Out of pity? She didn't want his pity. She didn't want his anything, much less his kiss. What had invoked him to do that? Was it something she did to lead him on?

She immediately pushed that thought out of her brain. Nothing about a purple jaw insinuates "kiss me".

But when her and Thompson had been setting up Amanda with Mike, things had felt so easy for the first time ever, really. They hadn't felt like rivals, like they always had at school and on the baseball team. They had felt like friends.

She pushed that thought out of her head, too. There was no way she and Thompson could ever be friends. There had been too much history.

The headlights shined on her garage door, and she had a hard time remembering the drive home. It had mostly been spent in a thought-clouded haze, and she was thankful to be able to push these thoughts out of her head for good, at least for the time being. Here, at home, she could focus on her school work, on helping her little brother with his math. She could set the table, and talk strategy with her dad. Here, things were normal.

Instead of doing these things though, she found herself climbing up the stairs to her second-story bedroom, more exhausted than she had realized from her practice. She collapsed on her bed on top of the covers in her sweaty practice clothes, barely mustering up the energy to shove her cleats off her feet before she fell asleep.