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FASTBALL

CAMDYN

A pitch thrown at the fastest possible speed.

E ver have those moments where you think, “Yeah, I’m finally getting over it, yay meeee,” and then the universe sucker-punches you right back into your trauma? That’s me—crammed into an airplane, clutching my water cup like it’ll protect me, pretending not to spiral with a bag of pretzels.

Brynn’s next to me, chewing her nails like she can bite away the last inning.

She keeps glancing over, and it’s not because we lost to Penn State or our standings dropped.

Super Regionals are looming. Judging by her bouncing leg, I’m not the only one with a stomach full of static.

Our last home game is this week—if we win, we clinch the playoff spot.

About two hours into the flight, Brynn finally turns, voice barely above a whisper. “I need to… talk to you.”

Five words that never mean anything good. If she says she’s dating Jaxon, I’ll make a dramatic exit through the emergency door. “Okay,” I mumble, bracing myself.

Brynn hesitates, then blurts, “I might have accidentally led Inez to think you had a miscarriage when she was writing that blog thing.”

My brain just stops. My heart leaps out of my chest, does a jig on the disgusting airplane carpet, and leaves me behind.

I stare, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come.

I sip my water to keep from screaming. Then again, as if hydration can cure betrayal. It can’t.

Finally, I choke out, “What?” My voice sounds far away, echoing from the cargo hold. “Why?”

Brynn shrinks, shoulders curling in, eyes glistening. “I didn’t mean to,” she says, voice wobbling. “I told her about that game, the one where you were bleeding and got pulled. I guess she… assumed.”

“She just assumed?” I manage, my voice a whisper-shout. A few teammates turn, probably hoping for in-flight drama. Now I know why Brynn’s been so twitchy since the blog post dropped. “What did you say to her?” My hands are shaking—I can’t even tell if it’s anger or adrenaline.

“I just… I said you and Jaxon broke up, and you left the game bleeding. That’s it, I swear.” She’s crying now, dabbing her face with her sleeve. “I didn’t think she’d write that. I didn’t even know she had a blog.”

My laugh comes out sharp and hollow. “She’s a journalism major. She interviewed the team. What did you think she was doing, a crossword puzzle? Of course she’d mention me.”

She reaches for my arm, and I jerk away like she’s on fire. “Listen, I’m sorry, but you don’t have to get all mad at me,” she stammers through tears.

Is she serious? Am I being punked? “I’ll get as mad as I want, Brynn,” I snap, my words cold as the ice cubes rattling in my cup. “You betrayed me for a story.”

She winces, the words hitting her like a wild pitch. “I’m sorry. But Inez took the post down after Jaxon freaked out on her.”

“Jesus, stop saying you’re sorry!” Then I process what she said. I’d figured Jaxon talked to her, but freaked out? “Wait—what?”

Brynn nods, sniffling. “He stormed into our dorm, threw her laptop at the wall. There was a hole. Campus security came. She said it was a misunderstanding but King and Jameson had to step in to get him to leave.”

I blink. I can picture it—Jaxon, furious, Inez clutching her MacBook for dear life. For a second, I almost feel grateful. Almost. “I’m glad he destroyed it.”

“She’s not a terrible person, Camdyn,” Brynn pleads. “She made a mistake. We both did.”

A mistake? She wrote a fucking blog post about me having a miscarriage. That’s not a mistake. I stare at the seatback, wishing the plane would hit turbulence and shake the knot loose from my chest. “How can you defend her after that?”

Brynn’s lips tremble. “I know she’s sorry. And I am too. I never meant to hurt you.”

But you did. The words are heavy, final. “You let me believe it was Jaxon who told Inez. You let me walk around thinking I was just some melodramatic ex, when it was you, Brynn. My teammate. My catcher. The one person who’s supposed to have my back.”

She opens her mouth, probably to justify it, to argue until I see her side. But I don’t. I won’t. If roles were reversed, I’d have protected her. Warned her about Kingston, about anyone. That’s what a girl’s girl does.

Trust is supposed to hold a team together. Turns out, it’s a lot more fragile than I thought.

I press my forehead to the cool window as the plane banks, the wing slicing through clouds like it’s nothing. My reflection stares back, eyes rimmed red. Brynn sits rigid beside me, arms folded, jaw clenched—holding back tears or another apology she knows I won’t accept.

She’s my catcher. The one person in the world who’s supposed to know my tells, who should have my back with every pitch. I trusted her—with signals, secrets, nerves I never showed anyone. And she threw it away.

The engines drone on, a steady roar, and I think of Jaxon—how sure he’d looked when he swore he didn’t tell Inez. How I’d rolled my eyes, sure he was lying to save face. Guilt gnaws at me, sharp and hot. He tried to tell me, and I didn’t believe him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brynn wipe her cheek, shoulders shaking. She’s sorry, or she wishes she could undo it. But sorry doesn’t make it hurt less. Sorry doesn’t stitch trust back together.

Thirty thousand feet in the air, with nothing but clouds below, I realize something I should’ve known all along: you can’t call timeout on betrayal.

I don’t say another word to Brynn. Not for the rest of the flight. Not when we land. Not when we drag our bags through the terminal and back to campus.

Not a damn word.

I grew up on a ranch in west Tennessee before we moved to Washington.

Most kids had sleepovers and birthday parties.

I had baby goats and a softball glove that never left my side.

My friends were four-legged, sometimes feathered, always better company than the kids at school.

Introverted, a little weird, but happy. That was me.

Dad was always gone, running into burning buildings and working shifts that made holidays a logistical nightmare.

Mom? She was the queen of “figure it out yourself.” Plumbing disaster?

She’d fix it. Fence down in a thunderstorm?

She fixed that too, with me trailing behind, handing her tools and dodging nervous sheep.

Maybe that’s why, when everything falls apart, she’s the only one I want.

Not that I ran to her after the worst things.

I didn’t call after I lost the baby, or when Jaxon broke up with me, or after that disaster of a World Series game.

I couldn’t. I was already drowning in disappointment—I couldn’t stand to see it in her eyes too.

But sometimes, no matter how old or stubborn you are, you need your mom.

Seattle looks like something out of a movie when spring fades and summer starts to arrive.

Even the air feels dramatic, like it knows you’re heartbroken and wants to show off.

I step off the bus in a historic neighborhood where every house has a plaque and a story, maybe a ghost or two.

The sidewalks are uneven, the gardens overgrown in a way that says, “We care about charm, not grass height.” I pass a yard of rhododendrons blooming so loud they shout at me, but I barely see them.

I’m too busy replaying everything—Brynn’s confession, Jaxon’s hurt face, my own stupid anger.

I want to text him, apologize for believing the worst, but I can’t. Not yet.

Mom’s new project is a Victorian with peeling paint and a porch sagging like it’s as tired as I am.

I trudge up the steps, dodging a patch of moss that looks suspiciously slippery.

The door sticks—I have to hip-check it open, which feels like the universe’s way of saying, “Nothing will be easy today.”

The second I step inside, my mom pokes her head out from behind a half-demolished wall, wearing paint-streaked overalls and safety goggles on her forehead.

“Oh, honey, have you been crying?” She’s at my side in a heartbeat, tucking my hair behind my ears, searching my face with those mom X-ray eyes.

I try to say I’m fine, but my throat closes up. The tears come, hot and messy. I nearly drop my eight-dollar coffee on the floor. Honestly, if I had, I’d have needed a second hug to recover.

Mom wraps her arms around me, grip solid as ever. She leads me to a couch that looks like it’s seen better centuries, and we sit. She rubs my back, lets me bury my face in her shoulder. No questions, no “tell me everything right now.” Just her, and the soft sound of her breathing, grounding me.

It’s like my body decides, “Now’s a great time to relive every heartbreak you’ve ever had.

” I sob harder, the kind of ugly crying that leaves you snotty and exhausted.

Why do I care so much? Why did I trust Brynn?

Why does it still hurt when I think about Jaxon?

I don’t know. But I do know I can’t hold it in anymore.

So I tell her. Everything. The baby, Jaxon, the fight, the blog, the fact that I’ve been carrying all this by myself because I was sure she’d be disappointed. I let it all out, the words tripping over each other, half-coherent, but she gets it. She always does.

Mom smiles, gentle and forgiving, brushing my tears away with her thumb. “You could have told me when it happened, and I would have been there for you. You know that, right?”

I sniff, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “I didn’t tell you guys because I’d already disappointed so many people. I lost the baby. I thought I’d ruined my career. I didn’t know how to say it out loud.”

She hugs me tighter. “Honey, what did Jaxon say?”

My chest tightens. I think about that night in my dorm, pizza boxes everywhere, both of us pretending we were normal college kids.

He tried to be supportive—he did. But I saw the fear in his eyes, the way his hands shook when he thought I wasn’t looking.

We both knew our lives were about to change, and neither of us was ready.