I sat on the bleachers next to Ellen, soaked inside a red raincoat similar to how it was on the inside. Sweat vs. rain, though. The first friendly between Metro High's Alligators should have started half an hour ago against the Trinity High's Knights, but their reps had asked if it was possible to delay the start of the game until the rain ebbed down a bit. I guessed they hadn't wanted their precious little stars to catch a cold.

How does a person catch a cold in the middle of a hot monsoon typical of Central Florida, I wouldn't know.

My right leg bounced almost to the rhythm of the fat drops hitting the metal bleachers. Our team was in the dugout, which offered them only a little protection, given that the wooden slats of the roof were not hermetically sealed. I should be down there, sitting next to my dad discussing the plays we would open the game with. Instead, I was some 15ft behind them, staring intently at the back of my dad's head.

"You almost look like you're rooting for the other team, with the way you're death-staring at our bench," Ellen said. I grunted something foul. She shook her head at me. "You just need to keep trying."

"I don't know what else to try at this point, other than screaming his head off."

"That'd be a start." She leaned forward. Her raincoat was a bright yellow, covered with cute drawings of smiling rainbows, clouds and umbrellas. She looked like a little kid and had zero fucks to give about it.

At first glance you'd wonder what in the hell made us best friends. She's short, and I'm tall. She's a brainiac and I'm all brawn. She's a stellar Korean-American, set for ivy league and an incredible career in journalism, and I'm some redhead Irish-American whose mind is set on getting what she cannot possibly have — a baseball career. She likes cute and I like functional. We have nothing in common. Except, precisely this zero fucks given attitude to life. She'll get what she wants and I'll get mine, and we push each other to that purpose.

"It definitely would be better than this thing you're doing of sitting back and sulking."

"I'm not sulking," I said, stopping my bouncing leg with my hand. "I'm stewing."

"Same difference."

I rolled my eyes. "He won't even hear about it. Every time I try, he changes topic or runs away. Yesterday he spent all night hanging out with Domingo in his garage just to avoid me."

"What did you do?"

I flashed her a grin. "I watched them fix a car all night while pitching my plan to him over and over."

"Atta girl."

A crackle came from the speakers and Mr. Harris' voice resounded throughout Metro's baseball field. "Attention, ladies and gentlemen. The game will commence in five minutes."

"Finally," Ellie and I chorused.

"Any bets?" she asked me as she pulled out a notepad to take notes for the school newspaper.

"Oh, we'll lose." I shrugged at the look she gave me. "We don't have a team yet, haven't had one for a year."

"That's true, I guess. We did lose miserably last season."

After Sebastian died the rest of the team had fallen apart at the seams. It was as if they forgot how to catch a ball or throw it, they just hadn't seemed to find the sense in playing a game that he wasn't part of anymore. Santiago hadn't been playing at all. I honestly hadn't seen him touch a bat since last week in his backyard. Before his summer in his home country, he probably hadn't even looked at one since the accident.

The rain slowed down to an annoying mist. The pitch was a muddy mess, but at least we'd be able to use that as an excuse for the loss we'd surely get so as to not bring our morale down to the pits. The two coaches approached and shook hands and then with the umpire. They tossed a coin to decide who'd be on offense first. Trinity started at bat.

"We're fucked," I declared. The older lady two seats from me tossed me a nasty look. The bleachers were mostly empty and it was not my fault she'd chosen to sit so close to me.

"How many runs do you think they'll score this inning?"

I pondered my friend's question. "I'd say a conservative three, but that's not the problem. McCann is not a terrible pitcher, so it will take the full batting lineup a couple of innings to get a feel for his style. After that it'll be slaughter."

I was right on the money. By the top of the fifth inning they were 11 to our big fat 0.

Ellen had at some point given up making detailed notes or recording video on her cell because she was just that embarrassed for our performance. I was too, and I couldn't help on two occasions screaming a lot of vitriol at our own bench. This was worse than I'd anticipated.

"What is my dad doing?" I asked her, flailing my arms around. "Does he think that just because it's a friendly the result won't matter? The first game sets the pace for our season!"

"Carpe diem, my friend." Ellie gave me such a strong pat in the back that it made me cough. "Go seize the motherfucking game."

I shot up to my feet. She was right. My dad may be a stubborn bull but so was I, and I'd had enough of sitting by and letting the game stretch into a tragedy. It was going to be called soon, making a season comeback from such opening humiliation all the more difficult.

I splashed puddles of water on my way downstairs. No one blocked my entrance to the dugout, and sixteen pairs of eyes turned to me. I stood in front of my dad, hands on my hips.

"Are you going to listen to me now?"

His eyebrows went up; the movement pushed his cap farther up his hairline. "Excuse me?"

"The first game is crucial for the team's spirit, and you're choosing to throw it."

He folded his arms. "I am not choosing to throw it."

"Well, if it's not that then the alternative is that they simply suck."

This caught the boys' attention even more. The farthest ones from us better positioned themselves to see their coach's reaction. Even in the dimly lit dugout I could tell that my dad's color was rising dangerously close to his hair color. But I suspected I looked similar.

"Go back to your seat, Peyton. We will speak about this at home."

"No, we won't, because you'll run away from me again, so I'll say what I have to say in front of everybody because you've let me no other choice." I only caught Anthony's thumb up before taking a deep breath to continue. "This current team sucks, yes. But that's because we've all been wrapped up in our grief and no one's managed to give us a wake up call.

"Well," I paused to point at the pitch. "This is going to be a wake up call. It's either going to make us or break us. But if you don't do anything at all to even try to put up a fight, I can guarantee you that it's going to break us."

There was a low murmur of agreement from the bench. My dad looked at them, half angry and half pleading.

It was Santiago who broke the silence. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Looking ahead at McCann's pitch, he said, "You know her, Cliff. She won't go away until she has her say. And she's far from done."

My lips pursed. He was by far smarter than my dad for understanding my nature and not trying to evade it.

My dad exhaled his frustration. "What do you want?"

"You need to switch the lineup entirely. The reason why the team sucks is because you're not using the individuals for the good of the whole."

My dad had an unexpected reaction then. He laughed.

"So you're telling me, in front of my team, that you can do my job better?"

"Dad, don't put words in my mouth." I gave him and the gigglers my best demon from hell look. It shut them up. No one crossed me when I had this look. "All I'm saying is that you don't have an ace player to build a team around anymore, so you have to turn each guy into his own ace. For example, Anthony has an impeccable ability to catch the ball no matter where it falls and you have him on centerfield, when you should be taking advantage of that and his physique for shortstop."

Anthony put a hand on his chest. "You've been looking at my physique?"

"Shut up," I told him. I faced my dad again. "He'd be an excellent second batter, too. With his agility he'd have no problems getting to base. Then you could have Chris, who probably amassed the most experience in amount of games played, and could hit or bunt and get to base too. And finally Santiago would be fourth and could bring everybody home."

My dad leaned back and just stared at me. He didn't say anything for the longest time. Behind me the third out was called and our nine returned to the bench. Chris clapped me in the back with his catcher's glove and asked me what I was doing there.

Coach stood up and approached me. "And if this doesn't work, will you take responsibility?"

I shrugged. "If by that you mean publicly saying that my idea sucked, sure. But that won't happen because it's going to work."

Santiago stood up. Without waiting for anyone's reaction, he walked toward the umpire and asked for a time out. He returned to the dugout and stood next to me.

"I'd like to hear what the rest of her plan is."

My lungs swelled with oxygen, and then I explained my general idea to all of them. I'd switch a few key positions on the defense, but the biggest change would be in the batting lineup. I blurred the lines between varsity and JV with no mercy, and the guys seemed to like it. All but my dad. It was a gamble, to go over the coach you were trying to impress, and even more so when he was your dad. I could tell that as soon as we got home there would be a lot of screams in the house tonight.

"Okay, let's try it," was all he said before our first batter went out to the field. McCann. As much as I hated him, he had a .260 batting average even through the few games we had during our sucky last season. The odds for him to make it to first base were usually pretty good. He watched the first couple of pitches go by and swung for the third, missing it by a mile. At the end of his turn our bases were still empty, but he'd sure tried to get on it.

He tossed his hat on the floor and kicked it. Chris picked it up, since he was going third and was going to wear it. Dad was in the coach's box, giving signals to Anthony as he stepped into position. He came back to the dugout, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"So, we didn't get on base but McCann didn't totally suck," I told him. Dad gave me something very similar to a resting bitch face. "He made the pitcher throw three more times than usual."

Dad rubbed his chin. "You think he's getting tired?"

I shrugged. "Too early to tell, but that kind of asshole first batter is an asset."

The clang of a hit made us look back at the game. Anthony took off like a man possessed and stepped on first base before the Trinity players managed to control the ball inside the diamond. For the first time during the game our side cheered.

Chris stepped onto the home plate and got in position. He was a leftie, and usually that threw right handed pitchers for a bit of a loop. Sure enough, he bunted and the trajectory of the ball was so hard for their pitcher to read as it bounced on the mud that he made a mistake trying to intercept it. We had two bases full now.

Santiago stepped onto the plate and swung his bat a couple of times, the way he always did.

I felt a rush of vertigo all of a sudden. As if the ground had been removed from under my feet and I was free falling. My heart beat so fast that I feared it would take off and leave my chest. A hush fell over our bench, over the entire stadium. Mr. Harris even forgot to announce the name of the batter. Santiago was a perfect statue under the lights, staring at the pitcher as if it were only the two of them. My vision blurred. All I could focus on was his face, obscured by the hat. Passive, intent.

He did not react to the first pitch. Or the second. I didn't even see what kind of balls the pitcher threw, if they were both the same. My dad hadn't moved to the coach's box. He was leaving it all up to Santi, I didn't know if because he trusted him or if it was because he was also paralyzed by the moment.

The pitcher wound up and the ball flew home.

Clang.

Santiago's body twisted with the motion. It looked for a moment like there was no ball at all, as if he were just practicing his swing. The catcher reacted but I couldn't see the ball. His glove was closed and he was looking at it, but I hadn't seen the ball bounce down from the bat.

The clang. It had been so loud.

The Trinity pitcher twisted around to look behind him, holding his cap. I stood up on the edge of the dugout, following his line of vision.

There, in the sky. It was the ball.

I gasped. I might have I jumped.

Santiago dropped the bat and left home, his eyes trained on the disappearing ball.

That was when I found my lungs again, and boy was I glad that they worked. I swallowed in a deep breath and screamed.

"Bring it home, Santiago!"