Another Cinderella Story: A Swift Pitch

            I swept off my feet by the pitcher of my high school’s baseball team. The Hawks weren’t great and barely won. It was surprising that the coach still had a job. Renn Bryant was a star baseball player who cared a lot about school. He was the whole package: amazingly handsome, star baseball player, straight-A student, and a huge heart. Who wouldn’t want all of that?

            The sad thing is he didn’t know I existed. I was just some nerd he could push around and use for easy A’s. He never really used me for cheating but I was routinely his tutor. For someone who cared a lot about school, he was dumber than a sack of rocks. I worked with him every day for three weeks just for AP language. Sometimes I thought it was because he just wanted to be with me. His friends never let me believe that it was anything more than work.

            It was three months before we even thought about exchanging numbers. And of course, I couldn’t tell anyone that I had his number. He didn’t want his friends to know. I guess I didn’t want my friends to know either. It’s better to have happiness hidden inside, I guess. I mean, it’s not like we texted every second of every day.

            It started out by texting me when he needed help with a math problem and then it grew to talking about tutoring times and random other things. Our relationship bloomed from texting. It is how I told him that my step-mother works me to the bone, how I told him that I tried to kill myself, how I told him that school is the only thing I look forward to every day. I told him about my step-sisters Ally and Amy. He told me about all the stress that has been put on him because of a baseball scholarship and how he has to get into Indiana University or he can’t go to college at all. It’s like we were meant to be together.

               I thought about that for exactly two days before everything exploded. Renn’s best friends Tyler and Jason got ahold of his phone and read the messages between us. It got out that I was suicidal and had to talk to the student counselor of the school. Humiliated, crushed, and upset, I never felt so betrayed.

            Renn called me six times after the disaster but I didn’t answer. I didn’t reply to any of his text messages or emails. I didn’t answer the door when he came knocking. He broke my heart, more or less, even though we weren’t dating.

            He came to my house one last time when I was alone. “Kala, I know you’re in there. Please, can we talk?” He asked.

            “What else do you possibly have to say?” I asked.

            “Please, just let me in.”

            I opened the door and motioned to the couch. “There’s nothing more you can say to fix this.”

            “I didn’t know Jason and Tyler were going to read text messages. They claimed they were calling the coach about practice.” He said.

            “Really? Where were their phones? And it’s pure curiosity to read messages of friend’s.”

            “I didn’t do this, Kala. You have to believe me that this was not my fault. I had no idea that they’ve been looking into the relationships I start.”

            “I honestly don’t know what you’re doing here in the first place. It’s not like we were close. Just another girl used.” I said.

            “That’s not true and you know it’s not true. I told you everything in confidence and you did the same. It was not my mission to have everyone think you’re suicidal.”

            “Oh, it was your mission to make me look more like a freak than usual,” I said. “You should go. I have nothing left to say.”

            I watched as he left in his blue Chevy truck, never to return. I couldn’t believe that he thought I would believe his story about his friends. It’s well known that those three stick together and will do anything to hurt another person.

            The night of the biggest baseball game of the season, I planned on staying home and catching up on some TiVo, but my step-mother had a different idea. They wanted to watch my high school team “win” the finals. What intrigued me the most, however, was seeing Renn run off the field, leaving some other guy to do the pitching.

            “What is he doing?” Ally asked.

            “I honestly have no idea.” I said.

            I got over the fact that Renn was ruining his, after all, I’m not in it anymore, and continued to watch the game. It was almost the seventh inning when there was a knock. Of course, I thought it was the pizza guy.

            “Kala, don’t shut the door.” Renn said after I opened the door.

            “What are you doing here, Renn? You could be getting a scholarship to college and—”

            He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It felt amazing. “I should’ve done this a while ago.” He said and kissed me again.

            After that day, we were inseparable. We went off to IU together. I watched as he became a superstar baseball pitcher and he watched as I made myself into something Ally and Amy were never going to be: an author. And we lived happily ever after.