Tales of Another Broken Home

[12]- The Oakland Otters

All my life I have only lived with my mom and my twin brother, Tyler, who I was proud to also call my best friend. We grew up in this small neighbourhood, where everynight, the sound of yelling, shattering glass, screams and fights would echo through the streets. When my Mom would pass out, Tyler and I would always sneak outside of the window and run down to the local skatepark. We both had saved up to by skateboards for eachother as a birthday present on year. We would go down to the skatepark and ride in the dark for hours. Most of my memories were made at the skatepark.

The sun blared through to curtains. I heard talking coming from outside in the hallway, it was Billie and Jakob.

"C'mon Dad" Jakob whined "Can't see come?"

"She's probably still sad about what happened yesterday" Billie replied "Let her sleep"

"But Dad, we need another player" he said "And she used to play"

"Fine, you can ask her" he aggreed "But your waking her"

I heard footsteps come towards my room. Jakob knocked. "You can come in" I said. Jakob walked in, he was dressed in his baseball uniform which had a otter on cap.

"I'm about to go to a baseball game" he said "And it would be cool if you could come along and play, because you used to didnt you?"

"Yeah." I said "I guess I could come and play" I started to get out of bed "Wait. I dont have a uniform"

"You can borrow my old one if you want, it will probably fit you". Jakob walked out of my room and came back a few moments later with a cap, a shirt, and pants. He gave them to me and walked back downstairs to tell Billie.

I got dressed into the uniform. On the back of the shirt, it read: ARMSTRONG 13. I walked downstairs to grab some breakfast before we went to the field to play.

"So" Billie said "You're gonna join the Oakland Otters?" I laughed a little at the name of the team and replied yes. He gave me a Pop Tart for something quick to eat, as we had to get out of the house quickly.

While we were driving to the feild, Billie brought up the topic I was hoping to avoid.

"So..." Billie started as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel "About yesterday, we will get your board back. Without anything bad happening".

"I hope so" I sighed "It's the only thing I have left of Tyler's".

Billie looked at me, with a look in his eyes that screamed 'damn. Thats sad'.

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I walked to the field, which was much bigger than the one at my old place. Billie sat down as Jakob and I walked over to the other team members. Jakob introduced me to them. After I said hello to them all, it was time to start playing. I didn't know who we were versing this match, but all I knew was that they came from the other side of the country on some type of Baseball camp.

"Who are we versing?" I asked Jakob as I grabbed a helmet out of the cage.

"Uhm. Something" he thought for a second as he tried to remember the teams name "I think they're called the Blue Back Busters". I paused. No. God Damn it. I looked at the opposite side of the feild where the team was talking, and sure enough, it was the team we versed when Tyler died.

"Dakota?" Jakob asked. I didnt even hear him, there were to many emotions. "Dakota?" he repeated "Are you okay? You're shaking or something" he started to look concerned. I still didn't reply, istead I started to move back and forth trying to think properly.