Home Run || j.m.b [ON HOLD]

01 | zeus

"I feel like I'm going to be winning the Best Best Friend Award after this," Lizzie confidently announces out of the blue as we sit on our usual park bench, placing her Bubble Cup next to her and letting her legs swing back on forth.

"Aren't you cocky?"

"I'm just naturally amazing," she continues.

Lizzie and I have been friends since God knows when. I don't even know we ended up like this. She's always been the loud and obnoxious friend who doesn't give a damn if she wore pyjamas to a the school formals. I guess I'm the normal one in our friendship. I'm not too loud, not too quiet and I'm very sure I'm not embarrassing.

Very sure.

"Why do you say so?"

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, wouldn't it?" Lizzie grins, hopping off our bench and starts to walk up and back the dirt pathway in front of us.

Following her, we walk to a small playground with a basketball court by the riverbank. In the mornings, this place would be full of early risers getting their morning run, yoga, and sometimes kids throwing off their rubber bouncy balls to the hoop - and never make it.

"Don't I deserve to know, though?" I ask, "I mean it's my birthday, after all."

Lizzie rolls her eyes and climbs on to the top of the slide.

"Are we going to a softball match?" I guess, trying not to get my hopes up.

"No," Lizzie scoffs from up where she is, "I'm not that rich, Alissa!"

"Um..."

"A ... um ... swing set?" I ask, my eyes glancing over at the three sets of swings on the other side of the ground.

"What are you? A toddler?"

"Worth a try," shrugging it off, I think of the possible things Lizzie might get me. A concert ticket for the upcoming Taylor Swift tour? Impossible. A set of new Prismacolor colour pencils? She doesn't even have enough money to buy herself slurpees.

"Stop listing impossible things, 'Lissa," I hear her shout over the wind.

"What do you mean?" I call back, "nothing's impossible, goose!"

"Nothing but that!"

"Then what?"

Lizzie sighs and slides down from her spot on top of the bright yellow slide. "You really want to know?"

"I want to make sure I don't get pulled into a hell hole," I tell her, making her scrunch her face in mock disgust.

Lizzie plonks herself down on one of the baby swings, clipping the safety chains on before swinging herself lightly.

"Next week," she begins, "on Saturday, there are these people all the way from the States who are coming here."

"So? Who are they?"

"I'm not sure I want to tell you just yet," Lizzie tells me carefully, "but I tell you, once you see them, your eyes will be blessed."

"Are you saying they're one of these oh so good looking people?"

"Mate, they're more than just 'good looking'," she gushes, her eyes clouding in pure admiration. "Zeus could let them pass as one of the Greek Gods."

I dig my phone out of my pocket and open Google, typing the word 'Zeus' into the search strip.

"Wow, they must be really beard-y people," I comment, showing her the screen of my phone which is currently on a picture of a statue of a muscular man with curly long hair and beard.

"It's just an expression, you idiot!"

"So instead of bringing me to a softball game, or buying me anything softball related," I say, locking my phone, "you decide to bring me to a statue? Of a bearded man?"

"I swear, you're too clueless!" Lizzie goes off to throw her finished Bubble Cup in the bin before returning to me.

"Come on, it's getting a little cold," she says, "let's go home."

"I'm still pissed you wont take me -"

"Yeah yeah whatever, Alissa. Once you meet them, you'll be thanking me."

Lizzie walks slightly ahead, her bright auburn hair standing out from the lush green trees all around us. She picks up a gumtree twig from the ground and waves it in front of her.

"I just want you to feel like a normal teenager," she says, "you're too focused on softball nowadays, you don't even wear necklaces anymore - and they were your signature look back then! You don't even go out to the city as much now!"

"I am a normal teenager!" I argue, "I get pimple breakouts, I get mood swings, I get my period, I -"

"But you do not fangirl," Lizzie cuts me off.

"Excuse me?"

"I do!" I cry.

"Fangirling over food doesn't count, Lissa."

Sighing, I look at her though the side of my eyes, "what do you want me to do?"

"Just look up Joey Birlem on dear old Google tonight," she says as we get to her bus stop, the vehicle already on the end of the street. "You'll get the rough idea of who we're seeing."

"Joe - who?"

"Joey Birlem," Lizzie repeats, "do you not have ears, child?"

I nod, watching her get on the bus and sit next to the window. She waves bye a little too enthusiastically in there, making other passengers glance curiously at her and me face plam of embarrassment.

I take her advice and look this person's name up. What could be so special about a curly haired bearded man who goes by the name of Joey Birlem that Lizzie wants me to see him so badly? Is he like a weight lifting champion because from what I saw from Zeus, he seems to be like that. Is he like an artist - he looks like someone who'd get their hands messy with paint or clay, anything related with art, really. Or is he an art model? Is Lizzie trying to get me into modelling?

I mean, I'm not too ugly but really?

When I arrive home, mum is in the kitchen making dinner, dad is watching an AFL match and Colt - my younger brother - is still out. From what I can guess, he's probably at the Maccas down the road but who can actually tell what a twelve year-old's doing?

After taking a quick shower and changing my dirty clothes into more comfortable ones, I flop on my bed and take my phone out. My fingers find itself pressing the letter J then O then E then Y and B-I-R-L-E-M.

Maybe my expectations for this person were too high.

Instead of a tall muscular long haired, curly bearded giant made of stone, I get a teenage boy with mesmerising sharp hazel eyes. His hair isn't curly nor is it long, and guess what, he doesn't even have a beard.

"Wow."

Maybe the Best Best Friend Award really is going to be for Lizzie after all.

•

yoooo whaddupp! i'm back! this book is back! and it's going to be better than ever! maybe. well, at least it wont be as cringey as the version before this because well, it would prove that i learned nothing at all in like - months.

i hope you guys enjoy:)) dont forget to vote comment share because, hehe, you guys would win the best best reader award.