SMILEY

"Then" - Part 1

8 MONTHS EARLIER -

I thwacked the aluminum bat against the home plate and dug my cleats into the dirt, turning to glare at the pitcher.

She had a hell of an arm. Back in high school, I'd struck out against her any time our rival schools had played, and I still disliked her. It was no surprise she'd showed up for the community match now, a year after graduation.  Eager to regain lost glory days, it seemed.

But she wouldn't be getting them here. Not again.

"You've got this, Hadlee, c'mon!" My dad shouted from the stands, voice hoarse. I spared a quick look behind me to shoot him a smile. He'd never missed a game.

My brother Marcus, on the other hand - one row back, stomping his feet on the metal bleachers next to his girlfriend, Jamie - had been too busy off at college to see any of my softball glory days. She'd demanded he come today, to start making it up to me. I liked her.

I turned back, as the pitcher shot me a withering glare. I heard you didn't get a sports scholarship for college, I thought in her direction. How's that feel?

I wrung the bat in my fingers, ready. There was nothing she could - whoomp!  Her arm went around in a blur, the ball whistling through the air and I swung... and heard a slap behind me as it hit the catcher's mitt.

"Strike one!"

A wave of anger pulsed through me, embarrassment stinging my cheeks. I huffed and renewed my stance. No more looking at the stands. Just me and the ball. 

I eyed her, waiting for any twitch of muscle, any indication of the throw. 

Yet another airplane began approaching from a distance, roaring across the sky. We'd had four already today: the blessings of living a mile away from an airfield. This was the loudest yet.

The pitcher tightened her ponytail and locked eyes with me. This was it. Lightning lit up the sky, an odd boom of  thunder rumbling through after, mixing with the sound of the plane. I could have sworn the skies were clear earlier, but I refused to check. Just me and the ball. Me and the ball...

No one said I wasn't competitive.

The pitcher wound her arm up but suddenly stumbled, snapping the ball toward me at a wild angle. I instinctively jerked backward to avoid the bad toss but was too late, flinching as a sharp pain smacked into my shoulder, rolling upward to glance off my chin. I gasped and startled backward, grabbing my jaw and turning to glare at her. 

What the hell kind of throw was that? My arm throbbed, nerves buzzing from the ball's impact. 

The pitcher covered her mouth, looking genuinely affected at... something behind me. What?

I moved to massage my arm, windmilling it around for circulation as I turned toward the umpire - to find the catcher at eye level. She had stood up, mask peeled off and at her side, back to me. The umpire was also distracted, arms atop her head and staring the wrong way.

Was no one paying attention to this game? I looked to the stands - surely my family had seen me get hit - to see the entire crowd on their feet, gasping and pointing upward in horror.

I squinted, finally following their eyeline up... and my heart dropped to my stomach. 

Dozens of lights flickered in the sky, ripping through the cloud cover like shooting stars. Plumes of flame and smoke trailed behind them, streaking down so brightly my eyes began to ache. Down, down, like raindrops on a window pane, with more breaking into view after.

The bat fell from my hands, clanging onto the field as I came to a shocking realization. It wasn't a passenger plane or thunder storm that had lit up the sky. It was a meteor shower.

I watched, frozen, as the first of them touched down, far in the distance - and the ground rocked like an earthquake, a deafening boom vibrating outward. Hot wind whooshed across my face and I was pushed backward onto my back, disoriented. 

All the car alarms in the parking lot went off, a cacophony of ringing bleeding into the reverberations of more hits, more plummeting to the ground in the distance. I was numb, wracked with terror, barely able to hear the screaming.

"Hadlee! Hadlee!"