Without further ado, I bring you the story.

Not at his head, exactly, but they were traveling at over eighty miles an hour, and required a bit of concentration.

WHACK!

He sent another ball flying into the net at the far side of the batting cage. He loved the feeling of the bat connecting to the ball. He could tell, just by the way that the bat vibrated, whether it was a nice solid hit like that one, or a pop fly like the one after that.

WHACK!

Another homerun, or so he imagined. He had no idea how fast the ball was traveling when it left contact with the bat, but occasionally he could get the net to hit the chain link fence almost two feet behind it. He was the only one he knew that could do that.

WHACK…ting!

There it was. A ball hit the fence, letting him know with the rattling ‘ting’ that resulted. He smiled, but there was no time to exult as another ball was already coming his way. He was so lost in the physical movement of the bat that the twenty minutes he’d paid for were over before he was ready. He stood there for almost a minute a before someone clearing her throat behind him brought him to himself.

“You going to stand there all day, Babe?”

“Um…what?” Jay flushed bright red at the assumed intimacy of the greeting.

“You know, as in Bambino…the original home run king?”

“He was also the strike-out king, you know,” Jay responded, regaining some of his composure.

The blonde girl chuckled at him as she tucked her long hair up under a baseball cap. Jay just stood there watching.

“You mind moving out?” she said when she was finally done.

“Oh, sorry,” Jay said, moving out of the way for her. He was about to move off when he noticed her ramping up the speed of the balls to ninety-five miles an hour. Jay stopped, shock suffusing his features for a moment. He’s tried to hit balls going that fast in the past, and while he was occasionally successful, he didn’t do it for fun. The problem was that his reaction time just wasn’t good enough for it.

If there had been a real pitcher out there throwing the baseballs, then it wouldn’t have been as much of an issue. The brief wind-up would have telegraphed the ball a fraction of a second before it actually released, allowing him to prep his swing for the release.

With the auto-pitcher, the only alert you had was the whump when the ball was launched in your direction.

CRACK!!

The sound of the bat hitting the balls was almost like a gunshot, and Jay heard the tink from the fence almost immediately after. He hadn’t even recovered from the first hit when the crack of a second went off. This one caromed off the net roof.

Three more went into the roof and then there was another solid hit, and the ball went into the far fence. Jay started watching how she moved, examining her form like he would one of the other players during batting practice at the school.

He kept it up for a little while, before his thoughts began to drift into other avenues that her curves seemed to trap him in.

“You know, I can feel your eyes on my butt,” she said to him, breaking him out of his reverie. Blushing furiously, he refocused on how she was moving when she was hitting the ball.

Through the rest of her twenty minutes, she hit an average of one in five of the balls right down the center, with another two in five being fouls of one sort or another.

“You know, you might do a little better if you placed your feet a little further apart and swung the bat with your entire body.”

“It feels too weird when I do that.”

“That’s because you’re too used to doing it your way.”

“Whatever…”

“What did I say?”

“It’s more the fact that you’re obviously trying to pick me up or something because you liked the look of my ass in these jeans.”

“I won’t deny that I liked the view, but there are two reasons that you should listen to me on this.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. The first is that I’ve got a girlfriend and she is the jealous type.”

The girl smirked at this, “What’s the second?”

“I’m the captain of the baseball team,” I said, gesturing toward her baseball cap where a chipmunk was displayed prominently. There are a lot of people who think that we have a really stupid mascot, my best friend among them, but me, I like being a chipmunk. Besides, the school actually got permission from Disney years ago to use the likeness of Chip.

“Oh…you’re Jay Sims aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Katie is your girlfriend.”

“Yep.”

“I’m Katie’s cousin, Melanie.”

“The one from out of state? So, you’re going to be coming to school with us? Hope to see you there.”

“Not likely. Katie never really liked me.”

“It doesn’t seem that way. She did tell me you were coming here after all.”

“She thinks I stole a previous boyfriend. Look, you seem like a good guy, Jay, but I have more time here, and I want to get back to my practice.”

Jay stepped into the cage with her and dialed down the speed to seventy.

“What are you doing?” she said with a shout.

“Giving you the time to try it my way. Use your whole body in the swing.”

Melanie trie the first couple of times, but completely missed the ball. She was awkward and couldn’t quite get into it.

“Look, anyone who can hit a ninety-five mile an hour fast ball should be able to kill a seventy.”

Melanie grumbled at him but tried again. She missed the next three but then she caught a piece of the fourth one, and she was off to the races after that. Hit after hit went into the net. She began to smile and then giggled a bit.

The next set Jay dialed up to eighty. She had to work at it a little harder, but she again hit ball after ball into the far net. He punched it up to nintey halfway through, and she missed a couple, but still hit most of them into the net.

“You know, you might actually be better at bat than I am.”

“Not that it matters. Apparently your district doesn’t allow girls on the boy’s team.”

“Huh, but isn’t there a girls…”

“Softball? No thanks. I like baseball.”

“Sorry,” Jay began, but Melanie interrupted him.

“Not your fault, Jay. Look, maybe I will see you at school, but would you mind leaving me in peace? I kind of like to take out my frustration on the balls.”

Knowing exactly where she was coming from, Jay walked away, but not before he saw her dialing the speed back up to the max of nintey-five.

He could hear the crack of the bat as she hit the balls while he walked out to his car. It happened more often than the last time she’d run it up that high, but nowhere near every hit.

He smiled and shook his head before getting in his car to drive home.

He drove home slowly not wanting to lose the feeling of peace that he’d gained by hitting balls. His parent’s marriage had always been a bit tumultuous, but recently the screaming matches never ended. Burying his head in his school work, or in practice, was the only way that he could really cope.

With the baseball season not yet started in earnest, Jay had to find other pursuits. Katie was one of those interests, but she was at one or another of her ‘activities’ as she called them, and so had left him to fend for himself for the day.

He slipped inside and rushed upstairs, hoping that he wasn’t seen. There was a lull in the shouting, but it quickly started up again before he got to his room. His parents talked a good game about love and marriage to everyone else, but they choked when the pressures of life piled on.

With his headphones on, and some rock music blasting away, Jay settled down to work. He was going over the math problems for his calculus class for the third time when his door opened.

“Jason Harold Sims, didn’t you hear me calling you down to dinner?”

Jay quickly took of the headphones so he could hear what his mother had to say.

“What, Mom?”

She smiled at him halfheartedly. “Time for dinner, Jay.”

“Ok, I’ll be down in a minute.”

His mom winced when the front door was slammed and the sound of a car starting told me that dad would be missing another meal with them tonight.

Jay was relieved.

It’s not that he hated his father, or was even afraid of him, more that he was tired of all the bickering. They ate a lackluster dinner and Jay went up to his room to go to bed. He was lying in the darkness, waiting, hoping, when his phone began to vibrate.

“Hello?”

“Jay!!! You’re still up!”

“Hey, Baby.”

They talked for a few minutes, talking about their days, leaving out all of the difficult things. Katie didn’t like to deal with the difficult things.

“I’ve got to get some sleep, Katie. I’ve got to be to the school early tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Coach wants to talk to me about something. Some issue that the district is telling him.”

“Anything I should know?”

“Not really…oh, while I’m thinking about it, I met Melanie today.”

There was silence on the other end of the. Jay sat there waiting for a response for a while before finally he’d had enough and just needed a response. “Katie?”

“What did you think of her?”

“She’s a great hitter.”

“Huh?”

“She was at the batting cages. Doing a little batting practice I think.”

Katie began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“She’s always had a really butch idea of femininity.”

“Why do you dislike her so much. She said something about stealing your boyfriend?”

Katie began laughing. “She said that? No, I hate her because she thinks she’s better than everyone else. She has to be better at sports, better at dancing, better at music, you know, just better.”

“Where is this venom coming from?”

“She beat me at a beauty contest.”

“What?” Jay couldn’t help it. He laughed at her.

“It’s not funny. I had been in a number of other pageants. I was working on my skills and trying to work my way into the top position. The next one was mine. That summer, Melanie was stuck with us, and my mother thought it would be a good idea if the two of us did a beauty pageant together. It would be a good experience for the little tom-boy.”

“She won?”

“Don’t get ahead of the story, Jay.”

“Look, I don’t have time. I get it. She never did any of that stuff, won her first pageant, and you feel slighted. Don’t you think it is more your mom’s fault than Melanie’s that she was in the pageant?”

“Bu…”

“Look, be nice to your cousin. She’s not a bad person.”

“I’ll think about it. Night, Sweetie.”

“Night, Jay.”

He was even more confused to see Melanie in the coach’s office when he arrived.

“Hey, Melanie. What’s up, coach?”

"Hey, Babe."

Jay laughed, "So, should I call you Dot or something?"

"Dot?"

"My mom loves A League of Their Own. That was the only female player I could think of off the top of my head."

The coach chuckled at that, realizing that she'd been calling him Babe Ruth, not an endearment of some sort. “Well, I see introductions are going to be unnecessary. Where do you know Melanie from, if I might ask?”

“I’m Katie’s cousin?”

“Cheerleader Katie?”

“Or dancer Katie, or flautist Katie, that Katie.”

The coach chuckled before continuing.

“I’d like you to dress out, Jay. We’re going to give a private tryout for Melanie here. Her dad used to be on the team and he thinks she’s good enough. The district, in it’s wisdom, is trying to tell me that I can’t allow a girl on the team, since they just won’t be able to compete on the same level as one of the guys.”

“Coach Peters,” Melanie started only to be interrupted by him raising a hand.

“They, not me. I figure that anyone who can hit a nintey-five mile an hour baseball like you did last night deserves a shot.”

Jay laughed and Melanie just blushed.

“Something you want to share, Mr. Sims?”

“I kind of gave her a couple of pointers on form last night before you arrived.”

“I did point out she was a bit awkward in her swing but all the basics were there. That was you?”

“Yeah. She was swinging with her arms, so most of the time the bat was out of position when the ball crossed the plate.”

“Most of the time?” the coach asked, looking at Jay pointedly.

“She only got a solid hit on about one in five.”

“Maybe I should fire my batting coach then.”

“Why?” Jay was curious at the comment, as their batting coach had played in the major leagues and was giving something back to his original mentor.

“Because she was hitting one in two by the time I got there.”

Jay was shocked to say the least. He’d heard of improvement, but never that quickly. Especially never because of a few pointers he’d given.

“See, and here if I hadn't called you on staring at my butt you might never have helped me improve my swing.”

Jay flushed with embarrassment but wasn’t about to let her get the upper hand this time, “Nah, making you swing your body just helped me to get a better view.”

Melanie went bright red and tried to hide her face in her hair. The coach and Jay laughed good naturedly at her.

“Go get dressed you two and we will start to run Melanie ragged.”

“You’re a sprinter, Jay. You and I both know that. As pitcher, you don’t even need to run much during the game. Melanie is long distance. I’m sure the cross-country team would love her, but she wants to join us, god knows why.”

“Coach, you’re not telling me you don’t want her, are you. I can push her harder…”

“Never, ever, suggest such a thing, Jay. I may think that this is the wrong thing for her to do, being the only girl on a team full of hormone-flooded teenage boys, but I would never suggest hazing. You should know that. I don't allow it on my team, and I have kicked people off it jus tthat reason. You know that even better than I do.”

Jay hung his head in shame. He knew the coach wasn’t that way, and more he’d been shocked at the hint of impropriety that seemed to hang on his coaches words.

“Look, Jay, I’m sorry. This is stressful for me. She’s good. Really good. Half the team is in worse condition than she is, and here I’m probably going to have to tell her that it’s not good enough.”

“I’ll do it, coach.”

“It’s my responsibility, Jay.”

“No, it’s not. I’m the one who has to cut a member of the team.”

“She wasn’t ever a member…”

“If this were a fair tryout, she would be. You just said she’s better than half of the other members of the varsity team. I’ll tell her on the way back to the showers.”

At the coaches wide eyes, Jay chuckled. “Coach Peters, I never took you for a dirty old man. No, separate showers, in separate locker-rooms.”

“Ok, Jay. Melanie, bring it in!”

Melanie finished the next circuit of the track and jogged to a stop.

“Thanks, Melanie, I’ve seen enough. Jay will escort you back to the school.” After finishing speaking the coach walked off back to the school shaking his head. He'd known this would worked out, but if Jay had just fought for her instead of going with the party line...

Jay watched the coach leave. He seemed to be burdened by an added weight. Jay was brought out of his thoughts by Melanie speaking to him, “So, you’re my chaperone now?”

“Hardly, I’m the team captain.”

“So, I’m in?”

Jay saw all of the hope and joy that belonging to a team could bring to a person. He’d had to tell players in the past that they’d been cut for this or the other thing. He’d never had to tell a player who was obviously fit to be on the team that they were being cut because of something out of their control.

“In a fair world, you’d be on the team in a second. You’re a better hitter than I am, you’ve got a faster sprint than most of the team, you’re got the capabilities to play basically any position other than pitcher, for which you just seem to be lacking in the arm strength.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Melanie, I’m telling you that the coach wants you on the team, but I have to cut you because the district won’t allow it.”

“You don’t want me hogging the spotlight away from you. You and Katie are perfect for each other.”

Melanie stormed off without allowing Jay to explain.

“But I want you on my team.” He was conflicted. Melanie was so real to him, more real than his girlfriend. Jay watched her back as she stormed toward the school angrily.

Jay took a long shower to try and clear his head. It didn’t help. The beginning of his day went by in a daze, as he tried to figure out exactly why he was so conflicted.

Katie and Jay had no common interests. It was almost as if she’d settled for the second jock down on the totem pole. You can’t be the girlfriend of the Football Captain? Be the Baseball Captain’s girlfriend. That is where the simplicity ended. She dragged him wherever she wanted to go, and when she was done with him, he was left to his own devices.

He liked her, and he loved kissing her. The things she could do with her tongue…but he didn’t love her.

He thought about it for a while and realized that he couldn’t actually pinpoint anything about her that he liked, even. It was almost as if this relationship was like his parents and traveling more on momentum and what they’d once thought they meant to each other more than what they now meant to each other.

Was that what it boiled down to? Did Jay only want to stay with Katie because that would somehow keep his parents together? If he worked things out with his girlfriend, then anyone could?

Melanie on the other hand...as he'd thought before, there was no one as real to him as Melanie was. They had at least one interest in common, and it was something that he devoted his life to. Before he'd begun playing, he never watched a game. Now, it was all he could think about. Well, that and Katie. And Melanie if he were being honest. Both of the cousins were now invading his thoughts, and they seemed incompatible there. Sure, they both had blond hair, and were both smokin' hot, but there the similarities seemed to end. No, that's not true. Both of them took his words to mean something other than he meant them to. At least Katie cast him in a better light, while Melanie had just taken them to mean he was a misogynistic jerk.

Jay heard the bell ringing and realized that he’d missed the first two periods of the day in his reverie and next he’d see one of the objects of his inner monologue in their first class together of the day: AP Biology.

“Jay, my man!”

“Doooogie!!!” Jay chanted at him.

The two friends sat next to each other and were lab partners ever since the teacher had caught Katie and Jay kissing during a movie about mitosis.

They chatted quietly until the bell rang and Mr. Henry called the class to order.

“As you all know you’re getting your DNA profiles back today. Most of you have absolutely normal profiles. Some of you, however, have profiles that are a little out of the ordinary. We’ll be using some of those profiles, with your permissions, in class to better understand the DNA profile. When I call your name, come to the front of the class and get your profiles.”

Doogie watched as they called each one of the students up one at a time, while Jay and he joked about what might be in those tests.

“Jay Sims?”

Jay was still smiling until he noticed how somber Mr. Henry was. Doogie watched the smile fade until it was completely gone when he got to the front of the class. Mr. Henry spoke quietly to him, and jay was shaking his head. Jay’d gone white as a ghost, and turned toward his seat. Mr. Henry called out after him, “I’m sorry.”

“Jay, my man, what’s up?”

“Nothing, Doogie.”

“Seriously, you’re scaring me, dude.”

Jay winced at Doogie’s words.

“What is it?”

“Just drop it, Doogie.”

Doogie stopped talking about it, but didn’t stop worrying about it. His dad had recently been diagnosed with Huntington’s, and that was one of the reasons that Doogie already had a DNA profile before the class had started. He was negative for the marker, thank god, but that doesn’t change that there are some scary things that can come up in a DNA test.

When Mr. Henry let them separate to talk about their results, Doogie waited until Katie came over and was showing Jay her profile. Doogie snagged the folder…the only folder that Mr. Henry had handed out, and looked inside. The first thing he noted was the Karyotype 46,XX. Confused, he looked at the name line and saw Jay Sims there. There was a second sheet. It said Jay Sims as well, and had the same profile. Mr. Henry had run the test twice…and both times it had come up XX.

“What are you doing?” Jay shouted at him.

“Nothing. I wasn’t doing anything.”

Nothing made sense, was what he was really thinking. Jay was a guy. Doogie should know. He was on the baseball team, and he knew that Jay showered with the rest of them. He knew Jay was a guy…but his test…

Doogie stewed about it for the rest of the class. It got out and he made his decision of what to do about it when they were passing one of the bathrooms.

He shoved Jay into it.

“What are you doing, Man?”

“I could ask you the same thing? Jay. What’s going on?”

“You pushed me in here.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. I mean come on, dude. You’re a girl? Seriously?”

“There’s got to be some mistake, Doogie.”

“They ran the test twice. Unless you’re saying it was a contaminated sample.”

“Mr. Henry watched me give the second sample. There’s still got to be some mistake. Do I look like a girl to you.”

“Truthfully?”

Jay slugged him in the arm.

“Exactly like one. The six o’clock shadow at ten in the morning sells it completely.”

“Crap, I forgot to shave this morning. I was in such a rush to meet with coach this morning…”

“You met with coach? What about?”

“Nothing import…oh, shit. Oh crap, No, this can’t be happening. No, no no no no.”

“What’s up, Jay? Tell me.”

“I’ve got to talk to coach. He’s got to figure something out before this get’s out of hand.”

“Before what gets out of hand. Talk to me, man?”

The sound of voices faded from the bathroom. The person in the stall waited for another thirty seconds after they’d faded before peaking his head out. He’d come in here to shoot up, so he’d kept his feet out of view. This was the only place he felt safe, really, or as safe as he could feel while still at school. He didn't have to worry about the football team finding him and shoving him in a locker, or trowing him in the cafeteria dumpster.

And his sanctuary had just become his power. This was a better high than he’d ever experienced from a drug. One of the gods on Olympus had a flaw, just like that Achilles dude. And he alone had the arrow that would take the smug bastard out.

The person snickered at the thought.

No, not bastard. He had the arrow that would take the bitch out. He was laughing to himself as he left the bathroom and entered the rest of the student population.