I Have Lost My Way(43)

“I got you covered,” Nathaniel says.

Freya knows he’s talking about baseball, but she feels warm all over. “I’m holding you to that.”



* * *



— — —

Nathaniel’s having a blast. He can’t remember the last time he’s had such fun. The smell of the grass, the soil, the particular sound a ball makes connecting with a bat. It brings something back to life.

It doesn’t even matter that they’re getting their asses handed to them; the opposing team has quite a go, filling up the bases, scoring a couple of runs before they can even manage a single out. When a burly woman steps up to the plate, Nathaniel sees the hit before it happens with the same inexplicable clarity he had earlier when he’d heard Freya’s song and known that it was, somehow, meant for him. So he knows the hit will be a fly, heading straight to right field, straight to Freya. Before the bat connects with the ball, he’s already moving toward Freya, who, when she sees the ball sailing toward her, crouches a bit and tentatively reaches her left, ungloved, hand to catch it. Nathaniel knows it’ll bruise the hell out of her if she catches it and smash her in the face if she doesn’t. He comes up behind her. “I got it,” he calls, and loops an arm around her shoulder, easily catching the ball and sending it to the third baseman in time to tag the runner.

“Nice one,” Finny calls.

“Yeah, nice one,” Freya says.

“Anytime,” Nathaniel replies.

A blast. A total blast.

How long since he’s swung a bat? Caught a pop fly? Had butterflies in his stomach because of a girl? When he came back to school with his eye patch, his teammates treated him politely but coolly. They didn’t make jokes around him anymore, didn’t invite him to hang out on Friday nights. He went to every practice, sat on the bench.

When he got fitted with his temporary prosthetic eye—which became permanent by default—his coach invited him to the field, just the two of them, for a game of catch. Nathaniel caught the first few tosses easily, but then the coach threw a few higher and to the left. Nathaniel reached up with his glove to where he thought the ball should be, but came back with an empty glove. This happened again, and again.

The doctors had warned that his depth perception would be off. That certain things, like descending stairs, would be difficult, and other things, like watching 3-D movies, would be impossible, but over time, his good eye would learn to compensate. He told the coach this. He promised to practice round the clock.

“I’m losing most of my strongest guys this year,” the coach said. “This might be our last shot at the championship for a while.” He looked at Nathaniel, not saying any more. He didn’t have to. Nathaniel realized what he was expected to do.

“It’s all good,” Nathaniel told his coach. He said the same thing to his teammates when he announced he was quitting. He tried not to take it personally when they all believed him so eagerly.

Now he steals glances at Freya the way he once stole bases. He’s skilled enough at this that she doesn’t notice, but when Finny yells, “Look alive, outfield!” just as a ground ball streaks past the second baseman, he realizes he hasn’t been paying attention to the game at all. The ball is skidding directly toward Freya, too late for Nathaniel to intercept.

But Freya scoops up the ball in her gloved hand this time. “I did it!” she cries, turning to Nathaniel. “Now what?”

“Throw it to me,” he calls, jogging toward her.

She does an underhand toss, which he easily catches. Then he pivots, throwing the ball past Finny, all the way to Harun. Two runners have crossed home, and the third is making a start for it and Finny is expecting Nathaniel to throw the ball back to him, but Nathaniel knows that today they all have a sort of magic on their side, so he beams the ball toward Harun, certain that he’ll make the catch, which, backlit by the setting sun, he does.

“Out!” yells the umpire.

“Did we do it?” Freya asks.

“We did it,” Nathaniel says.

Freya whoops and does a little victory dance. “Go, Harun!” She high-fives Nathaniel, and now his right hand tingles just as much as his left.

“Ha!” Finny calls. “Suck it!”

“Suck what?” the other team captain says. “We’re up by four.”

“Suck it anyway!” Finny replies, and then, emboldened with some mojo, proceeds to strike out the next batter, and that’s three outs.

Their team up to bat, Freya and Nathaniel take their seats on the benches. Harun stands next to the chain-link fence in conversation with Finny.

“I’m not going to have to bat, am I?” Freya asks.

“There’s a bunch of batters ahead of you, so don’t worry,” Nathaniel says.

“Because I don’t know how to bat.”

“I can show you if you want.”

“I might smash you in the head. Again. Give you a second concussion.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

They walk over to the bat bag, and Nathaniel rifles through. “First off, you need the right bat.”

“What’s the right bat?”

“For you,” he says, extracting a slim wooden number, “it has to be a Louisville Slugger.”