“Fuck.” I push myself up, pulling my bike with me. My forearm burns, covered in dirt and tiny pieces of gravel, the blood starting to seep out in thin lines and splotches. Fantastic. Because I didn’t look like enough of a freak show with my mutilated face. My mom’s going to lose her shit when she sees this. She’s already convinced I’m going off the rails. That I’m being hasty quitting the team. Things will get better, she says. Which is probably true, but what she doesn’t understand is that baseball isn’t going to wait for me. That the idea of a baseball flying in my direction is fucking terrifying now. That even before I took a line drive to the face, I flinched every time Zander lobbed the ball back at me in practice. I knew as soon as I left the ophthalmologist’s office a month ago that I probably shouldn’t play, but I’ve let my parents’ optimism keep pushing me forward. Until the hit. I knew that hit was the end of more than just our chance at regionals.

My phone is buzzing in my pocket and there are only three possibilities:

1. The guys, ready to trash me about baseball

2. Ellis, my cousin and best friend, making sure I survived

3. Dad, checking in about River Depot

When I finally pull up to the house and take my phone out, it turns out I was three for three.

Zander: WTF Emerson!!!

Stevens: Come on man, get your ass back here

MISSED CALL: Dad

Ellis: You alive?

Still have all your beautiful teeth?

Your face needs all the help it can get at this point.

I laugh out loud, because Ellis is obsessed with the current status of my face. A few days ago he tried to put concealer on my eye, and he’s already looked up the area’s best cosmetic surgeon, in case—his words, not mine—my face doesn’t “pull together” soon. It’s not really that bad. The swelling is gone and in another week the bruises will hopefully be gone completely. There’s a healing cut on the outside of my cheekbone, but the little white strips across it look kind of badass. Like I was in a fight or something. By the time I throw another bandage on my arm, the look will be complete.

When I pull into the driveway, Dad’s giant red truck is in front of our massive garage. Most people would just call it a pole barn, but to me it’s always been the garage. Except it’s the kind of garage where you winter fifty canoes, a hundred kayaks, and piles and piles of life jackets. Even now, with the season getting started, a third of the space is still covered in red, blue, and green boats.