A Penny For Your Truth

Chapter 3 - Persuasion (Jonah POV)

I close my eyes for a second. I can hear the wind shaking the metal fence, a trio of little dogs barking at a squirrel, and the whirring of the machine in front of me. With a deep breath in, I open my eyes and refocus on what's in front of me.

The pitching machine isn't as challenging as an actual pitcher, but right now it's better than nothing. I line up at the plate and swing the bat a few times to get the feel of it. As I stand in position a ball is fired in my direction, I swing towards it and hear my favorite sound.

—-CRACK—-

The ball flies off to the left. That would have been a foul ball, but at least it went somewhere this time. I've been at the batting cages for the last hour and couldn't get myself to focus on the ball ahead of me. This was by no means a home run, but I considered it progress.

It's the second month of summer. We have approximately 36 days left before the first day of senior year. Like most kids I'm not the biggest fan of school, but at the moment I'm not so sure how I feel about summer either. My friends and I always spend the summer at baseball camp a good few hours away from here. I was there the first month, but some unexpected news caused my parents to ask me to come back early July instead of the week before school starts.

That's probably why my heads not in the game. It's just me for the next month of summer break. I'm not gonna lie, I've got some pretty awesome friends. Xander, Logan, and I have been friends since we were young, like couldn't even talk yet kind of young. We've lived on the same street since we were kids and our parents knew each other. So we definitely grew up close. Xander's younger sister Alecia has always been included in our group as well. She's kind of shy so that's why I assume she doesn't go out of her way to make other friends. She'll sit with us at lunch and hang out with us after school. She normally just reads the books she brought with her and will occasionally chime in to our conversations. Caleb and Finn are newer additions to our little group. At the start of freshmen year we were all on the same baseball team and we've gotten pretty close since then. So now it's the six of us and that's how it's been for a while now. But the guys will be away at camp until the middle of August. It's weird not having them around.

What's even weirder at my current point in life is my parents. They have been talking about adopting or fostering a kid for a few years now, but this last year I could see that it was really happening. Not that that's a bad thing. It was always just us three growing up and I enjoyed that. I had close friends who were always here, so I never felt the need to have a sibling. I'm at a point in my life where it wouldn't affect me too much, I'm not always there and I can drive wherever I need to. Surprisingly, unlike most kids, I wasn't opposed to this. The thought seems to make them happy and that's important to me. What I'm not overjoyed about is them telling me that this was actually happening this summer and that I needed to come home to be there for it all.

This definitely throws a wrench in my summer plans.

—CRACK—

The next ball goes flying past the dugout. Not a good swing. But that hit felt great. Maybe if I can just get out some anger here, everything will be fine when I get home. Today is going to be interesting. Mom and Dad are picking out a kid to bring back and I know nothing about the person.

I'm stalling. I have an hour until I know my mom will call me to let me know that I need to come back for dinner. I spend the next thirty minutes concentrating on the balls in the machine. I managed to hit most of them. Still no hits that were cheer-worthy. I might've gotten to third base on my second to last ball had I not been the only person here.

I grab my bag off the bench and head out through the wire gate. I take the long way past the playground and the dog park. As I walk by the fenced in area, I notice someone sitting on one of the benches. The girl looks about my age, she's reading a book, and seems to be ignoring everything else around her.