Game Time

Just a short story I wrote. would love some feedback :)

Game Time

Hot. It’s so hot. And my leg itches. This isn’t working. I open my eyes and peek over to my left at AC. Her eyes are still closed, her legs crossed, and her hands are resting palms up on her knees. Looks like meditating before the game is working for her. I look up at the Texas sky, faded blue and full of huge cotton clouds. Perfect softball weather. I’m laying on my back and I stretch my arms up over my head in the grass. Meditating to clear our minds before the game was AC’s idea, and being the team captain and older than the rest of us sophomores, we had to obey.

I look to my right at Candice. She is sprawled out on her back, her glove over her face. “This is stupid.” She mutters this from under the glove, and AC opens one eye and shoots her a look. “Shut up and meditate Ice. Focus on clearing your mind. This is a big game.” I snicker at the thought of what we must look like, eleven of us in our blue uniforms and knee high socks sprawled out in the outfield, meditating. “Crap, I smeared my eye black!” I look over at Bailey, and they eye black on her cheeks is now smeared completely across her face. Cat sits up, rolls her eyes, and makes an effort to fix it. This has become a tradition for the two of them before every game. “Okay, I’m hungry.” Another muffled complaint from beneath Candice’s glove. This time AC opens both eyes, wads up her batting gloves, and chunks them at Candice. “Ow! B***h!” Candice pulls the glove off of her face and hurls it at AC, who simply catches it, lays it in the grass, and continues meditating.

I hold my feet in the air and adjust my socks, and think that maybe I do feel pretty relaxed. It’s nice just laying here in the grass as a team. I hear a gate open, and rather than sitting up I bend my neck back and get an upside down view of a large pair of black cleats stepping through the gate and onto our field. They’re here. Aledo. Our biggest rivals. I sit up and look at my teammates, who have also noticed the entrance of our adversaries and are all sitting up in the grass, as if ready to spring into action at any moment. The Aledo girls tower over us. They definitely have us beat when it comes to size. Those who are tall and husky make up for with mass what the few smaller Aledo girls lack. Those who are not quite as large make up for what they lack in size with attitude. They file through the gate with their equipment, using this as an opportunity to glare at us. They would have the audacity to enter the field on our home side. As if that’s going to scare us.

I scoot over next to Jordan, who’s glaring at Lindy, the opposing short stop and Jordan’s own personal rival. “That b***h is just mad cuz she knows I’m faster than her,” she says. I laugh because I know how she feels. As I’m thinking about how I can relate, my reason for relating steps through the gate. Whitney. All six feet, two inches of her. At least that’s what I estimate her height to be. I know she towers over me, and I’m 5’8”. Her eyes instantly find me, and a tiny, arrogant smile lifts the corners of her lips. I sneer back. I know I’m her target, and welcome the challenge. I refuse to be intimidated by someone bigger and older. We aren’t the only ones talking tough to each other. As they walk towards the visitors’ dugout, I hear Whitney talking about “that Dennie b***h.” That would be me.

Our team begins to stand up and put our shoes on. There will be no more successful meditation while we are on the same field as them. We stretch and run and go through our routine of warm-ups. The stands steadily fill until they reach maximum capacity, and people begin backing their pick-up trucks up to the outfield fence to watch from the tailgate. We are the biggest event in town. As we line up on the field, the announcer introduces both teams and plays the national anthem. I can feel my heart racing under my hand as I pay my respects to the flag, and I look in the stands and find my boyfriend, Matt. I smile. Just him being there relaxes me. He stands in the front row, sporting the Joshua softball shirt I gave him and cowboy boots. God I love him. I look over at the other team, and catch several of them sneering at me. I guess as the pitcher I should be used to it. I look back to the flag at the center field wall as the song ends and take a deep breath. It’s game time.

Reviews

[Stephen Brayton]

Came upon this when searching for sports fiction -- thinking of trying it.
Nice effort; I like the characters and the subtle tensions.
I'd like to know who won the game ... next chapter?

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good story. Sports allow us to act real. In most activities we must act right. In the game of baseball. No rules except to win. I like the description in this story. A very good ending to a excellent story. Thank you.
Coyote

[Hello, Goodbye]

solid stuff

[Jim Parson]

Nice, well written story. I can't say it's one of my favorites of yours, simply because it initiates no emotion like most of your pieces do. It's not a story that really stirs anything in your reader. You start to build a little tension as game time grows nearer and the other team arrives, but then it starts to fade in the last paragraph and it disappears all together when you threw in the thing about Matt, which has no bearing or importance to this story. Pretty much the only thing a reader can take away from this is wow, you write really, really well. Which you do.

Here's one suggestion for you. When I was working on the final edit of my book, my editor pointed out to me that I was doing this and I was really surprised to see how often I used it. That's the use of "begin to". You don't do it anywhere near as often as I did, but you should keep an eye out for it. Did you "begin to" or did you just do it?
"Our team begins to stand up and put our shoes on."
"...and people begin backing their pick-up trucks up to the outfield fence to watch from the tailgate."

One typo:
"I look over at Bailey, and they eye black on her cheeks is now smeared completely across her face." The instead of they.

[Sherbs Dreaming Tree Of..]

Wow this is beautiful :)