“Are you ready to go?” My moms question rings throughout our silent house.

“Yes,” I say and I grab for my Arizona bottle sitting on the counter. I lug my backpack onto my shoulder and grab the door, shutting it behind me as I walk into the garage. My brother’s sitting in the front seat drumming his fingers along to whatever song was playing on the radio. I stumble as I reach for the car door. I regain my balance and jump in. I shift my bags of my lap, phone in hand as my mom backs out of the driveway. Everything blurs past, the stores, the lights, even the cars. I’m only half listening to what my mom and brother are talking about. Soon we are on Canal, pulling into the drop off spot in front of the school.

The breeze felt wonderful against my skin as I hefted my bat bag out of the trunk. I drop my bat bag on the ground with a clunk. Slowly, I made my way towards school, or as we call it prison. I wrestled my bag to my locker, it was a slow go because it would hit my heel every two or three feet. Finally I reached my locker. Dropping my bat bag next to my locker, I proceeded to get my books and binders for the my first two hours. I hung up my pink, under armor, drawstring bag, and shut my locker door.
“Hey Amanda, you ready to play today?” Kylie asked me.
“Heck yeah. I hope the softball field isn't flooded.” I said as I reached for my bat bag and headed for the main steps. Once I had finally lugged my bat bag up the stairs, which you would think was that heavy with only a helmet, glove, facemask, and four bats and batting gloves, and put it in the athletic storage room. Everything about today told me it was going to be slow going. Well I was right, the day went by at snail speed. I mean I know today was going to be slow, but this is like death march slow. I coasted through the rest of the day. The entire time I was thinking about softball. What the signs were. Fake bunt..... touch belt, okay. Wait what was safety squeeze? Oh.... right!!! It was elbow. Of course! I barely remember anything that happened during class. Classes just kept going fast and painstaking slow.

Soon it was 6th hour but not soon enough. I was hungry but not for food. I was hungry for adrenaline. For the rush of one thing and one thing only. SOFTBALL. Today was our first game that we would actually get to play. Considering the crappy weather we’ve been having.

“Okay, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good day.” Mr. Tower, my honors comp/lit teacher, was letting us pack up early. And just like that the bell rang. That wondrous sound that we’ve all come to hate, had become beautiful to me. I rush out the doors and to my locker. I grab my drawstring bag and head up to the storage room. And what do you know, Everyone was packed around this little room, trying to get their gear. Finally, I somehow manage to get my gear out of the room. I rush to the bathrooms to change. After I come out in my dawgs softball uniform, I head downstairs pulling my gear and begin the painfully long journey to our field. Sadly the freshmen softball field is up behind Costco, next to the rugby fields. Thankfully my friends dad saw Addy and I, who were trudging up the hill our arms on fire from pulling our bags behind. He put the tailgate down and told us to hop on. The rest of the team had beaten us since we had to go to Addy’s car to grab her bat bag. But it didn't matter to us. We hopped off, yelling thank you to him as he drove away. We put our bags down and grabbed our cleats out of our bags. The sickening crunch sound my cleats made on the pavement made me cringe but was soon replaced by the familiar sound of metal crushing little pebbles and dirt. The grass was bright green, probably from all the rain. I looked into the sky. Overhead it was a brilliant sky blue but off in the distance you could begin to see dark rain clouds. I only hoped it would wait until we were all done to start raining. We had a double header, or two games in a row. But of course our first game would be against the best team: Hudsonville. But we weren't going to be intimidated. We all had been playing together since we were young. We could do this. I knew we could. And soon I heard the words I've been waiting for since tryouts.

“PLAY BALL!”