Becca Fitzpatrick - Hush Hush

I got a piece of it, sending it flying into the dirt on the wrong side of the foul line.

"That's a strike!" Miss Sully called from her position between first and second bases.

Elliot hollered from the dugout, "That had a lot of spin on it-send her a clean one!" It took me a moment to realize he was talking to Marcie and not me.

Again the ball left Marcie's hand, arching through the dismal sky. I swung, a pure miss.

"Strike two," Anthony Amowitz said through the catcher's mask.

I gave him a hard look.

Stepping away from the plate, I took a few more practice swings. I almost missed Elliot coming up behind me. He reached his arms around me and positioned his hands on the bat, flush with mine.

"Let me show you," he said in my ear. "Like this. Feel that? Relax. Now pivot your hips-it's all in the hips."

I could feel my face heat up with the eyes of the entire class on us. "I think I've got it, thanks."

"Get a room!" Marcie called to us. The infield laughed.

"If you'd throw her a decent pitch," Elliot called back, "she'd hit the ball."

"My pitch is on."

"Her swing is on." Elliot dropped his voice, speaking to me alone. "You lose eye contact the minute she lets go of the ball. Her pitches aren't clean, so you're going to have to work to get them."

"We're holding up the game here, people!" Miss Sully called out.

Just then, something in the parking lot beyond the dugout drew my attention. I thought I'd heard my name called. I turned, but even as I did, I knew my name hadn't been said out loud. It had been spoken quietly to my mind.

Nora.

Patch wore a faded blue baseball cap and had his fingers hooked in the chain-link fence, leaning against it. No coat, despite the weather. Just head-to-toe black. His eyes were opaque and inaccessible as he watched me, but I suspected there was a lot going on behind them.

Another string of words crept into my mind.

Batting lessons? Nice… touch.

I drew a steadying breath and told myself I'd imagined the words. Because the alternative was considering that Patch held the power to channel thoughts into my mind. Which couldn't be. It just couldn't. Unless I was delusional. That scared me more than the idea that he'd breached normal communication methods and could, at will, speak to me without ever opening his mouth.

"Grey! Head in the game!"

I blinked, jerking to life just in time to see the ball rolling through the air toward me. I started to swing, then heard another trickle of words.

Not…yet.

I held back, waiting for the ball to come to me. As it descended, I stepped toward the front of the plate. I swung with everything I had.

A huge crack sounded, and the bat vibrated in my hands. The ball drove at Marcie, who fell flat on her backside. Squeezing between shortstop and second base, the ball bounced in the out-field grass.

"Run!" my team shouted from the dugout. "Run, Nora!"

I ran.

"Drop the bat!" they screamed.

I flung it aside.

"Stay on first base!"

I didn't.

Stepping on a corner of first base, I rounded it, sprinting toward second. Left field had the ball now, in position to throw me out. I put my head down, pumped my arms, and tried to remember how the pros on ESPN slid into base. Feetfirst? Headfirst? Stop, drop, and roll?

The ball sailed toward the second baseman, spinning white somewhere in my peripheral vision. An excited chanting of the word "Slide!" came from the dugout, but I still hadn't made up my mind which was hitting the dirt first-my shoes or my hands.

The second baseman snagged the ball out of the air. I dove headfirst, arms outstretched. The glove came out of nowhere, swooping down on me. It collided with my face, smelling strongly of leather. My body crumpled on the dirt, leaving me with a mouthful of grit and sand dissolving under my tongue.

"She's out!" cried Miss Sully.

I tumbled sideways, surveying myself for injuries. My thighs burned a strange mix of hot and cold, and when I raised my sweats, to say it looked like two cats had been set free on my thighs would be an understatement. Limping to the dugout, I collapsed on the bench.

"Cute," Elliot said.

"The stunt I pulled or my torn-up leg?" Tucking my knee against my chest, I gently brushed as much of the dirt away as I could.

Elliot bent sideways and blew on my knee. Several of the larger bits of dirt fell to the ground.

A moment of awkward silence followed.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

Standing, I demonstrated that while my leg was a mess of scratches and dirt, I still had the use of it.

"I can take you the nurse's office if you want. Get you bandaged," he said.

"Really, I'm fine." I glanced at the fence where I'd last seen Patch. He was no longer there.

"Was that your boyfriend standing by the fence?" Elliot asked.

I was surprised that Elliot had noticed Patch. He'd had his back to him. "No," I said. "Just a friend. Actually, not even that. He's my bio partner."

"You're blushing."

"Probably windburn."

Patch's voice still echoed in my head. My heart pumped faster, but if anything, my blood ran colder. Had he talked directly to my thoughts? Was there some inexplicable link between us that allowed it to happen? Or was I losing my mind?

Elliot didn't look fully convinced. "You sure nothing's going on between the two of you? I don't want to chase after an unavailable girl."

"Nothing." Nothing I was going to allow, anyway.

Wait What did Elliot say?

"Sorry?" I said.

He smiled. "Delphic Seaport reopens Saturday night, and Jules and I are thinking about driving out. Weather's not supposed to be too bad. Maybe you and Vee want to come?"

I took a moment to think over his offer. I was pretty sure that if I turned Elliot down, Vee would kill me. Besides, going out with Elliot seemed like a good way to escape my uncomfortable attraction to Patch.

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

It was saturday night, and Dorothea and I were in the kitchen. She had just popped a casserole into the oven and was sizing up a list of tasks my mom had hanging from a magnet on the fridge.

"Your mother called. She won't arrive home until late Sunday night," Dorothea said as she scrubbed Ajax into our kitchen sink with a vigor that made my own elbow ache. "She left a message on the machine. She wants you to give her a call. You've been calling every night before bed?"

I sat on a stool, eating a buttered bagel. I'd just taken a huge bite, and now Dorothea was looking at me like she wanted an answer. "Mm-hmm," I said, nodding.

"A letter from school came today." She flicked her chin at the stack of mail on the counter. "Maybe you know why?"

I gave my best innocent shrug and said, "No clue." But I had a pretty good idea what this was about. Twelve months ago I'd opened the front door to find the police on the doorstep. We have some bad news, they said. My dad's funeral was a week later. Every Monday afternoon since then, I'd shown up at my scheduled time slot with Dr. Hendrickson, school psychologist. I'd missed the last two sessions, and if I didn't make amends this week, I was going to get in trouble. Most likely the letter was a warning.

"You have plans tonight? You and Vee have something up your sleeves? Maybe a movie here at the house?"

"Maybe. Honestly, Dorth, I can clean the sink later. Come sit and… have the other half of my bagel."

Dorothea's gray bun was coming undone as she scrubbed. "I am going to a conference tomorrow," she said. "In Portland. Dr. Melissa Sanchez will speak. She says you think your way to a sexier you. Hormones are powerful drugs. Unless we tell them what we want, they backfire. They work against us." Dorothea turned, pointing the Ajax can at me for emphasis. "Now I wake in the morning and take red lipstick to my mirror. 'I am sexy, I write.