“No, Dad, you did that yourself.” I tugged at Amanda. “Let’s see if there’s a Coke machine around here.”
As soon as Dad figured out that Matt wasn’t going to die but probably was going to have to pay for the ornamental fish, he cleared out. Mom and I stayed at the hospital all night. Tim and Amanda stayed with us.
Matt showed up the first day of school in a wheelchair and with his jaw wired shut. The Great Fish Encounter was the stuff of legend. Mom made him apologize to the mayor of our town for breaking the statue. She never made me apologize to Dad.
11
When we were little kids, Amanda was the best at hide-and-seek. The reason was, she was patient. Other people might find a good hiding spot, but the second the person who was it passed by, they’d run for base, revealing themselves, and usually get caught. Not Amanda. I still have no idea where she’d hide, but she could outwait anyone. Probably it was because of softball. She was used to waiting her turn at bat, waiting for someone to hit the ball so she could get them out. So Amanda waited. And waited. She waited in whatever hiding place it was she found, and just when everyone had been caught and I was ready to give up, Amanda would come flying out of nowhere and make it to base. She snuck up on you.
That’s how it was, falling in love with her.
Or maybe realizing I’d been in love with her all along.
She snuck up. One day, we were friends, doing homework or texting, talking, ranting, playing catch. The next day, I was waking up at five in the morning, waiting until it was late enough to text her to see if she was awake, waiting to see her blue Civic picking me up for school.
Her dad had gotten her the car for her sixteenth birthday, in December, which was two months before my birthday. I’d avoided the question of whether I’d get a car when I turned sixteen. Matt had, and I bet if I was nice to Dad, I would too. But if I got one, I couldn’t go with Amanda.
I knew I’d never act on it, though. Saying I liked her as more than a friend would kill our friendship. Probably she wouldn’t feel the same way. Or if she did, we’d date a month or so, then break up. Then we wouldn’t be friends anymore.
Part of me said maybe we could beat the odds. After all, we’d beaten the odds with our friendship, which had outlasted everyone else’s playground relationships.
But I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I couldn’t lose anyone else right now.
Besides, she probably didn’t feel the same way.
Even if she did magically know each day if I wanted to drive through McDonald’s or Starbucks, and even if she had memorized my order at each place. But a friend might know that stuff too.
That day, we had taken a trip through McDonald’s drive-through (number three Egg White Delight McMuffin combo with a Coke and an extra hash brown) when Amanda mentioned sort of casually, “Coach says there’s going to be a scout from UCF at our game tonight.”
“That’s great.” There were often scouts at their games.
“Coach says she’s there for me.”
We were only sophomores, so it wasn’t time to sign yet, but that didn’t stop colleges from looking at the best girl catcher in the county. I knew Amanda wanted to stay in state to be near Tim and Casey.
“That’s so great!” I said, and I meant it, although for sure no one was recruiting me. Softball was Amanda’s life. I wanted to make the varsity teams because it was fun and it would look good on college applications—especially if I was captain. Everyone liked me, but I knew I was too short to go farther than high school.
“Think you could go and, like, yell nice things about me, maybe bring some friends?”
“You won’t need it, but sure.”
So that night, I recruited Brian and Darien and a few of the other guys, as well as my mother, and we all went to see Amanda.
I was right that she didn’t need us, though I’d have gone anyway. Softball wasn’t usually a big draw in high school, but our baseball team was having a losing season, and everyone knew how good the girls were, particularly because of Amanda. Also, we were playing Kenwood High, our biggest rival.
At the top of the eighth, the score was tied at three, and Kenwood, the visiting team, was up. Amanda had had a good game, getting on base once and one RBI, but it wasn’t her best game. Now Kenwood had two girls on base with two outs and one strike.
Kendra, the pitcher, pitched a curve ball, which the batter missed.
And Amanda dropped the ball. It rolled away from her.
The coach at third screamed at the runner to go, go, go! She started running. Amanda scrambled for the ball, got it, and tagged the runner out at home.
At least, that’s what I saw.
What Mom saw.
What all my friends saw.
What a stand full of fans screaming Amanda’s name saw.
But the home plate ump saw the Kenwood runner safe at home.