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That has me stepping away from him. “How do you know?”

He shrugs like it’s common knowledge. “Mira, you are a grumpy son of a bitch, and that is why I like you, why you’re my best friend, and I’m your best friend…because we understand each other. You learn Spanish for me.”

Not necessarily for him, but, yeah, I’m trying to learn Spanish because so many players come from Spanish-speaking countries. It only makes sense to learn how to communicate with them. We’re on the field together, for Christ’s sake.

Yadi elbows me. “I been playing in this country for five years, and you know how many of my teammates do that? None. If we come from the Dominican or PR or Cuba or wherever, we all hang out by ourselves. We go out to dinner and sit at a table, and all the other guys ignore us, you know? But you try. You do. So when I see you sit by yourself, that’s why I come sit with you.”

I roll my eyes. “Then you don’t understand me at all. If I’m sitting by myself, that’s not an invitation.”

“No, you are wrong. I come sit with you because you are like… Cenicienta.”

“What?”

He motions in the air, speaking in a lot of Spanish, but I only understand hermanas and medianoche. Honest to fucking god, Duolingo is not worth the ten minutes I spend doing it every day unless I’m trying to buy an orange at the supermarket in a small neighborhood with a very slow Spanish speaker. And when I shake my head at Yadi’s long-winded story, he heaves a sigh before pulling out his phone. After a few moments of typing, he dances in place, “Ah, ah, ah, see.”

He shows me his phone screen with a photo of the cartoon Cinderella, and I don’t get it. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“This is you! This is why I’m your friend. You are the pretty princess with the ugly sister and mean mama, entiende?”

“No, I don’t understand how I am a princess.”

He shoves his cell phone back into his pocket before turning his full focus on me, as if I need a play-by-play breakdown. “You never tell me about your family, but I figure… Your dad, he’s…not nice. Your brother, same thing. I know you, and I know you would not fight just because. Your brother did something. Your father did something to make you hate them, and it’s how I know you don’t hate me, you don’t hate everything like you say. You might hate them, but not me…your best friend, okay? I know all of it. I’m like…like…the fairy godmother, and you are the princess, and Millie is the prince, but I will help you get her back, and your family can go to hell.”

That’s the dumbest fucking shit I’ve ever heard. But also… “You’re kinda right.”

“See? I know!” He tows me into a hug that I reluctantly reciprocate. “Now, you want to warm up, and I can give you pointers to get Millie back?”

“You are going to give me pointers?”

“You ever see me crying over Esther? No. Because I never fuck up. But that’s okay. I’m your fairy godmother, and I will help you fix this. We will practice your apology, okay?”

And I do. As we jog around the field and stretch, I let my fairy godmother fix me up. I finally let my apparent best friend in.

So that hours later, when I’m on the mound, nothing is standing in my way.

“Come on, Ashwood. Show ’em what you got!” someone from the dugout shouts, and I spit on the ground as the speaker crackles with the call.

“Curve ball.”

I nod once and take a moment to center myself. Turns out, when you shift your mind-set to positive outcomes instead of negative ones, you’re more likely to succeed.

Who knew?

I stare down the space between the mound and the catcher’s mitt, the crowd’s roar muted to a distant hum. Tracing over the seams of the ball, I take a breath, the familiar grooves calming my nerves.

I’ve done this a million times before. I can do it a million more times.

I’m home.

I’m safe.

I’ll make it through this.

I blink up to the night sky, find my stance, take one more breath, and release.

Thwack.

Strike one.