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Chapter Three
Sam
I walked into the house and kicked the door shut behind me. My thoughts were bouncing around with nowhere to land, and the quiet only made it worse.
When I agreed to go to the Reiki session, I did it just to appease my mom. I never thought I’d feel so off balance afterward. So restless. Like my skin didn’t quite fit right.
Mom wouldn’t be home for at least an hour, and the silence seemed to stretch out around me. I needed to do something or I’d crawl out of my own skin.
I thought about working out. Throwing, maybe. But I pushed myself yesterday, and I know better than to risk my recovery by messing around with it.
Still, I needed movement. Focus. Something that would settle me.
I wandered into the kitchen and decided to make dinner. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, and maybe the rhythm of it would help me regroup.
The freezer was packed—leftover chili, frozen pizza, some mystery container I wasn’t brave enough to open—but I grabbed a pack of chicken cutlets. They’d cook the fastest, and I wasn’t in the mood to wait around.
I put them in the microwave to defrost, then started hunting for a clue of what to make. The bell peppers, onion, mushrooms, and half-empty bottle of wine made the decision obvious. Chicken cacciatore it is.
I’ve made the dish with my mom more times than I can count. On Sunday afternoons, quiet holidays, and even random weeknights when wanting comfort food was reason enough. At this point, I can make it on autopilot.
I set the Dutch oven on the stove and poured in a slick of oil then pressed in two cloves of garlic. Once they started to sizzle, I laid the chicken in. While that browned, I grabbed the cutting board and got to work on the onions.
The bell peppers came next, then the mushrooms. Each cut precise, deliberate.
My hands moved without thinking, muscle memory taking over.
This was something I could control, something that made sense.
No radar gun, no disappointed looks from coaches.
Just me, a knife, and ingredients that would actually cooperate and do what I wanted.
I moved the browned chicken to a platter, then tipped the cutting board and let the veggies slide into the pan. The sharp, satisfying sizzle cut through the silence like music.
My mom always makes polenta with chicken cacciatore, but I’m not in the mood to stand around stirring tonight. Pasta will work just as well, so I grabbed a pot, filled it with water, and set it on the stove to boil.
Once the onions turned translucent, the peppers softened, and the mushrooms started to give up their moisture, I reached for the wine.
It hit the pan with a sharp hiss, steam rising as I gave it a quick stir.
While it simmered down, I grabbed a can of crushed tomatoes from the cupboard, popped the lid, and poured it in, then added spices by instinct, just like mom taught me.
She always told me that cooking isn’t about precision, it’s about comfort and the love you put into it.
I nestled the chicken into the sauce, lowered the heat, and covered the pot to let it all come together. Soon the kitchen filled with the familiar smells of comfort food, warm and rich, and I let myself breathe. Really breathe.
My mind drifted back to lying on Hope's Reiki table, her hands hovering inches above me. I hadn't expected much, and definitely not what happened. The heat that built inside me, the weird floaty feeling, the colors.
Shaking the memory away, I washed my hands and wiped them dry on a towel.
“Did I imagine all of it?” I muttered to the empty kitchen.
I focused on opening the box of rigatoni and pouring it into the boiling water instead of obsessing over the answer to that question. Unfortunately, that only took a second, and just like that, I was back to thinking about my session with Hope.
Over and over, I had felt myself winding up and moving through the mechanics of pitching…knee lift, hip drive, arm over the top. But every time I went to release the ball, it vanished.
As if that wasn’t strange enough, when Hope pulled me out of the session, my fingertips ached in that familiar way.
That faint, raw burn that comes after you’ve thrown deep into a game.
Not injured, just worked. Spent. Like every ounce of effort had poured out through my grip, even though I hadn’t thrown a single real pitch.
I glanced down at my fingertips and rubbed them together. I’m still not sold on all the woo-woo stuff my mom swears by, but whatever happened in Hope’s Reiki room got under my skin enough that I booked another session.
Hoping to distract myself from the thoughts swirling in my head, I grabbed my phone and queued up an 80s playlist. As much as I complained about my mom’s music when I was a pain-in-the-ass teen, now it’s my go-to when I need to unwind.
The opening beats of Down Under by Men at Work started, and I smirked.
The song was a staple in the pregame playlist at my high school field.
It blared through the speakers while we stretched and tossed the ball around.
That flute riff had a way of getting stuck in your head.
I swear, the whole team used to hum it on repeat, all of us singing do-do-do-do-do like idiots while we warmed up as if we could mimic the sound.
But still, what happened on Hope's table lingered, an indelible mark I couldn’t erase. It wasn’t just the connection I’d felt, but the way my body had reacted, the way it all seemed so real. Too real. The feeling that she started to unlock something inside me I'm not sure I’m ready to dig into.
“Sammy, it smells amazing in here.”
I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even hear my mom come home.
She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek as she passed, then lifted the lid of the Dutch oven.
“Mmm,” she said. “It smells perfect.”
“Thanks.”
We moved through the kitchen together, grabbing plates, forks, and two glasses from the cabinet. The kind of easy flow you get when you’ve done something a hundred times with the same person.
She took her first bite once we sat down.
“I think this might be better than mine.”
“You’re only saying that because you didn’t have to cook it.”
She laughed.
“Not true. You’re starting to outdo me.”
Nothing will ever be better than my mom’s cooking, but still, the compliment made me smile.
“So,” she said, her tone casual but way too pointed to actually be casual, “how was it?”
“How was what?”
“Reiki.”
“It was okay.”
She frowned like that answer physically pained her.
“Just okay? Did you feel anything? Do you feel any different?”
I kept my eyes on my plate.
“I’m not sure. I didn’t throw today.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she said. “Did you feel anything? Maybe a little warmth? Some tingling?”
I hesitated, then said, “I guess I felt more relaxed afterward.”
She didn’t buy it, not really, but she let it hang there.
“Did Hope say anything about your chakras being blocked? Or your energy?”
I stabbed a piece of chicken.
“No.”
My answer came out too quick, too sharp. It was just too much, especially with how confused I still felt about what I did experience. Talking about energy blockages over chicken cacciatore with my mom? No thanks.
She looked disappointed again, so I threw her a bone.
“I have another appointment Friday. Maybe more will happen then.”
Her whole face lit up with her smile.
“That tells me all I need to know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you felt something. You’re just not ready to talk about it yet. And that’s okay, as long as you stay open to it.”
I shook my head.
“It doesn’t mean anything. Aren’t follow-ups standard?”
“Maybe they are, but not for someone who went just to make his mom happy.”
I didn’t have a comeback to that, so I just kept eating. I’d just cleared my plate when she reached across the table and squeezed my hand. I looked up and met her serious gaze.
“Energy work opens doors, Sammy. Sometimes to rooms we didn't know were there.”
I wanted to dismiss what she said, maybe make a joke about new age nonsense, but the words stuck in my throat. Because whatever I experienced on that table felt real. And so did the moment of strange, instant connection with Hope.
Hope
I have no idea how long I've been glued to my screen, but my eyes burned from the strain. What started as a harmless search had spiraled into a deep dive of all things Sam Cherry.
Typing his name into the search engine had pulled up pages of articles, stats, and video highlights. He’s a pitcher, right-handed, six-foot-four, with a “cannon for an arm” and a reputation for “lighting up the radar gun.”
His fastball consistently clocks in the high 90s and occasionally breaks triple digits. When he was in the minor leagues, an announcer called him Cherry Bomb for the way the pitch exploded out of his hand, and the name stuck.
Article after article praised him for his velocity, his presence on the mound, and his signature pitch…a four-seam fastball with a late rise that batters had a hard time catching up to.
And then there were the photos. Sam at charity events, with various women at premieres and restaurants. He seemed to be living a charmed life. Until the injury.
YouTube had several videos showing the moment it all went wrong. In game footage, you could see it happen in real time, Sam on the mound, winding up like usual, and then something just snapped.
He grabbed his elbow mid-pitch, face twisted in pain, and dropped into a crouch like the air had been knocked out of him. The announcers went quiet. Even without knowing exactly what had happened, it was obvious something serious had gone down.
According to the articles published in the following days, Sam’s expected recovery time was twelve to eighteen months. They all used words like standard and routine. But nothing I felt in his Reiki session yesterday felt routine.