Present DayThe metallic pop of bat meeting ball greeted Abby as she stepped out of her car into the wind, and while not visible from the parking lot, she detected the play by sound alone. Off-speed pitch, hit flaccidly to the shortstop, a routine grounder to first base. The PA announcer confirmed as much above the half-hearted thrum of fans. "And that's a ground out from Jenkins to short. Gladstone on the play to wrap the top of the fourth. The Eagles lead the Wildcats, 6-3."
Abby stretched the drive out of her neck and rolled another flight from her shoulders. Her job kept her on the road two hundred days a year, living out of suitcases and hotels, zigzagging across state lines in search of baseball's next messiah. Today that search had lured her through the Columbia River Gorge, winding up the bends and hills to a high ridge where Insley University sat with Mount Hood looming behind.
Like the other scouts who'd made the trek, Abby had come to watch Kayson Cannon-a promising shortstop on an unprecedented hitting streak. But unlike the other scouts, walking across the parking lot electrified the hair on the back of her neck and, despite the wind, sparked a fire in her chest. She stopped to gather her breath because this wasn't just a scouting trip. This was her homecoming.
She'd never intended to come back. Just as she never intended to veer from the baseball diamond that afternoon, bypassing the game for the smaller, empty ballpark a short distance away. Abby couldn't say for sure if muscle memory, nostalgia, or self-loathing brought her there-probably some horrible combination of all three-but she stopped at the backstop of the softball field like it had always been the destination. One that had eluded her for nearly a decade.
Abby braced herself on the chain-link fence. The place had hardly changed. She recognized the same dips and bald spots in the grass. The same maroon paint peeling off the dugouts. And the smell-dirt, the not-so-distant river below, and something scholarly, like stale books from the library. One inhale transported her back, tightened invisible cleats on her feet, sprouted sweat beneath her nonexistent jersey, and miraculously restored her knees to scarless and springy. She'd played and scouted on a hundred different fields, in a dozen different countries, but would go to her grave certain that this beaten down diamond was the most beautiful.
But then a gust punched through the gorge, rustling her dark hair and flapping the championship banner on display in the outfield. The one she'd never seen before. A last straw she couldn't bear. Another hit echoed from the baseball field, and Abby turned her back on the memories before they swallowed her whole.
Rather than stand with the other scouts, Abby plopped down into the bleachers. She preferred to be inconspicuous. It allowed her to see how the fans reacted to a prospect-intel she considered just as valuable as radar guns and sabermetrics when it concerned who her employer might invest millions in.
"Didn't think you were going to make it." A shaggy-haired man with chewing tobacco bulging his lower lip slid in next to her. Tanner worked for the competition, but Abby enjoyed his camaraderie on the road. Unlike the older, crusty men who still took notes with pencil and paper, fumbled with their cellphones, and refused to lug a laptop, he thought nothing peculiar about her femininity.
"I miss anything good?" Abby asked him.
He grinned. "Thirty-eight hits for the kid."
"The streak continues."
"Shhhh." Tanner brought a finger to his lips and narrowed his brow at her. "You know better than that."
Abby rolled her eyes at him and the nearby fans who flicked her glares. She'd encroached on one of the game's many superstitions. Don't step on the foul line. Don't cross the bats. Don't say "streak" or "no-hitter" unless you wanted to cruelly end it right then and there.
"I don't believe in that shit," she said.
Tanner chuckled. "Oh, come on. We all believe in it a little."
The Wildcats' hitter knocked a line drive to left field, spurring light cheers from the opposing team while he rounded first. Abby set her gaze firmly on the action, despite Tanner blabbering beside her.
"You've never seen a bad case of the yips?" he asked above the PA announcer. "Or gotten in a slump so bad you swore you were cursed?"
Abby shoved a hand into her sweatshirt pocket, fingers trembling until they brushed the plastic coin in her pocket. The one she clutched when the air got too thin or her mouth too dry as if pleading for the elixir she'd left behind. As if reminding her of the bridges she'd burned, the missteps and meltdowns, the reasons she'd never allowed herself to return.
"There's no such thing as curses," she said, though the words wobbled.
"Right. Tell that to the Red Sox and the Cubs."
They watched the next batter hit a skipping grounder to Kayson. Abby trained her eyes on his feet, clocking his reaction time to discern whether he saw the ball or heard it first. In that short millisecond, in the twitch of his shoulders, she knew it was sound. His footsteps landed light but mechanical. Rigid but perfect form. As his throw sliced across the field to the first baseman, a smile broke across his face. Not a cocky, victorious smile, but something airy. Like he belonged in that exact moment. A love for the game that Abby searched for in stadiums and creaking bleachers. Of course it was here. It was always going to be here.
Tanner nudged her as the inning ended. "You played here, right?"
Abby nodded, still clutching that coin in her pocket. "Yeah. A long time ago."
"That's exciting." Tanner beamed. Abby imagined he was the kind of guy who still showed up to bother his high school coach once a year. "Any of your old squad still around?"
"I don't know," Abby lied. She knew exactly where everyone landed after that last game. Another reason she'd dreaded this trip, and the same reason she took it.
"I'm going to go," she said.
Tanner's mouth fell. "You just got here. Kayson's got another at bat coming up."
"Yeah, I know. I just can't."
She couldn't manage a solid excuse. All she knew was that it was too soon or too late or maybe the timing would simply never be right. But before she could run away once more, she heard her. A voice that cut straight through the game and the anxious rhythm filling her ears.
"Abby?"
She didn't dare turn. She didn't move or breathe as heavy footsteps thudded down the bleachers. It was too late to run now. Instead, she clutched the coin in her pocket, closed her eyes, and surrendered.
Eight Years Earlier
Junior Year
Professor Cruz asked her to lunch after two weeks of staring each other down. Abby didn't doubt she was the worst student in her class, hadn't wanted to take it in the first place, but they'd been hurtling toward this encounter since she arrived at Insley University. Longer than that. They'd been building toward this meeting her entire life.
That first day, Abby had arrived late and slipped into a desk at the top of the slanted rows, maintaining as much space as possible.
"And we'll take a deeper dive into the varying levels of scrutiny applied to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, so that by test time, you're able to apply those to hypothetical . . ."
Professor Cruz trailed as her eyes landed on Abby. Despite the distance separating them and never having met before, the exchange radiated reunion rather than discovery. The pause dragged so long that a student in front spoke up.
"Professor, are you okay?"
A few students shifted to find what distracted her. Their beady eyes made Abby squirm, but she didn't dare look away first.
"Right. What was I saying?" The professor pivoted from her audience and fiddled with the clicker to jump ahead a few slides on the projector. "Right, let's start with strict scrutiny."
After class, Abby scrambled to the exit, not prepared for anything beyond a shared stare. The professor didn't seem to be either, as no new text messages came. It almost prompted Abby to drop the class altogether, but curiosity won out. For the next few weeks, while everyone else studied Gender and the Law, Abby studied Isla Cruz.
She analyzed the way she gestured, the way she paced, and the way she spoke. Abby thought they might look alike, but it was hard to know for sure. She'd only seen photos before. Isla's hair was more chocolate than Abby's black waves, her skin lighter but warm. She was slender, where Abby was wide hipped and broad shouldered, taller, muscles teeming on her frame despite six months of disuse.
For those first few weeks, at the end of every class, Abby disappeared, putting a safe distance between them. Until one day Isla followed her into the hall.
"Hey, Abby, can you wait a minute?"
She shut her eyes as students streamed past on either side of her. She considered merging in and pretending she hadn't heard her, but they couldn't play strangers forever.
Abby turned. "Hey."
Isla's eyes scaled her up and down. Abby might've found it off-putting if she wasn't doing the same.
"Do you want to get lunch?"
Rather than converge at one of the campus dining halls, they went into town. Insley University lay just outside of Hood River, a community of fewer than ten thousand, its heart a medley of small restaurants, mom-and-pop shops, and breweries. Tourists flocked for hikes and windsurfing, panoramic views of the river and mountains, wineries hidden in sprawling orchards among the hills.
Copyright © 2026 by Samantha Saldivar. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
