Heroine(39)

Aaron sweeps Carolina up in his arms when she finds him, spinning her, and I pause, waiting for them to end whatever this is so that we can finish the circuit and get back to the locker room. Finally, he sets her down, gives me a fist bump that’s hard enough to send a jolt up to my shoulder. We take off again, yelling and slapping hands down the hall, our adrenaline spiking to exactly the right spot—slippery anticipation that makes it difficult for the butterflies in my stomach to land. By the time we’re back at the locker room I’m exactly where I belong—a hot, feverish pitch of emotion where I’m perfectly capable of slaughtering an opposing team member or dying to protect one of my own.

Lydia hooks up a speaker to her phone and the locker room is ours, school clothes stripped off, carefully folded uniforms emerging from gym bags. Some of the JV girls pull brand-new cleats from unopened boxes, a mistake. Their feet will be pinched and sore by the second inning, the pristine leather of the shoes ruined the second they hit the dirt. My shoes slide on easy, the same pair I had last year, nicely broken in and appropriately filthy.

There’s a wealth of skin apparent, some girls walking around without a stitch on, others strutting in sports bras and underwear. Calls for necessary things—forgotten tampons, a hair tie, deodorant—fly back and forth—as does whatever we requested. Some girls change in the showers, a few taking their turns in the one toilet stall we’ve got in here. But mostly those are the JV girls, the freshmen and sophomores, plus one or two unlucky juniors who don’t have quite what it takes to make varsity.

But those of us who have been together forever don’t care—me, Carolina, the Bellas, and Lydia, plus the rest of the infield. We were wearing diapers when we started playing, and have no secrets between us. Everyone has seen the long magenta scar that curves around my hip, hugging the edge of my underwear. We all know that Bella Right has horrible back acne and that the first baseman has a wine-colored birthmark between her shoulder blades.

The Bellas have formed a braiding line and are wrist-deep in each other’s hair when Nikki comes in. She glances around the locker room, taking in the long muscles of our naked legs, the tight forearms of the girls who are stretching out sports bras. Nikki doesn’t hesitate, simply plops her gym bag onto a bench and starts to strip down. I’m the one who tosses her deodorant when she realizes she forgot hers, and Carolina puts her hair up in a tight ponytail when her nervous hands can’t quite get the job done without bumps.

“Well, hoo—fucking—ray for you!” Bella Right says suddenly, and I look up to see her slapping Nikki on the shoulder.

Nikki’s putting on a black jersey—our home color. The JV is traveling today, wearing red, and while I knew that Nikki was good enough to earn a spot on the varsity bench, I didn’t expect her to prefer that over actually getting playing time in JV. I don’t say anything until I’m cutting across the grass of the outfield with Carolina, equipment bag slung over my shoulder.

“Why’s Nikki dressing varsity?”

“’Cause she earned it,” Carolina says.

“Yeah, totally,” I agree. “But who’s catching JV?”

Carolina shrugs. “Some other freshman, I guess.”

My best friend isn’t exactly inviting conversation right now, so I don’t think it’s a good time to dig into my words, find a way to express what I’m feeling. Which is that if Nikki is here, Coach doesn’t think I can make it a whole seven innings on my bum leg. And it’s entirely possible that Mattix asked Carolina her opinion before deciding whether Nikki got on a bus or stayed with us.

I don’t say anything else.

We warm up together, like always. The whole team pairs off wordlessly, me with Carolina, Bella Left with Center, Right with Lydia, shortstop and first rotating with third on who’s going to pair off with a bench rider each game. The other girls find someone, and I feel a tug at my heart when I see them searching faces, looking for that person they know will accept them when they say, “Wanna catch?”

I would be one of them, if it wasn’t for Carolina. Before she moved in I was always close with my team, but I never had that one person I always threw with, the person who just assumed they’d be across from me as we lined up, midafternoon sun flashing off our sunglasses.

“Can I throw with you guys?”

It’s unexpected, and I balk, bobbling the ball even as my weight shifts to release it. Nikki is standing on the edge of our two lines of girls, her words directed at Carolina. She was slow getting out to the field, and has no one to pair with. She wants to make a triangle, like we’re all back in third grade or something. I’m about to tell her to throw with Coach, which is the usual punishment for being the last one out of the locker room, but Carolina waves for her to join us.

She actually misses the first ball I throw at her, and Carolina raises an eyebrow at me as the freshman runs after it, well aware that I side-armed it with a spin, just to be a bitch.

“What?” I ask, expecting a rebuke in Spanish, something that most of our teammates won’t be able to follow. But Carolina only sighs, welcoming Nikki back into the triangle with a smile and a pop-up that a kitten could catch.

She’s been doing that a lot lately, letting some remark of mine go without responding, or only rolling her eyes. Carolina has always given me shit, it’s part of how we operate, but I’m starting to wonder if some of it is meant to stick, and if what Aaron said to me in the parking lot about the accident being my fault has anything to do with it.