Cat Sebastian

This story is for the people of fanfic Twitter, Sirius Black, my mom, and James Buchanan Barnes.

He was afraid that if he spoke, all that would come out would be a confession, fifteen years’ worth of I miss you.

But Everett still had the same smattering of freckles on his nose, and that too made Tommy want to cry.

I’m not the same player I was a few months ago

. And I know that sounds dumb—it was only a batting slump, not a tornado or whatever. But something broke, and I got put together different, and I think that’s maybe what those girls are talking about. You get jilted, you get fired—maybe those things change you.

even after a disaster, there’s still tomorrow.

“Who gets to decide what losing even is? I mean, I know that who wins and who loses is pretty cut-and-dried in baseball. But this is a game where hitting the ball a third of the time is a job well done, and hitting it half the time is practically unheard of. With everything else, it’s even more confusing. I mean, I’m never going to get married and have kids. Some people will look at that and feel bad for me, right? But if I did get married, it would mean something went wrong. So the fact that I’m not married with a family of my own is a good thing, you know? It’s a win. It means that I’m still able to be myself.”

I’m saying that things happen. And it doesn’t have to mean anything except what it means to you. Nobody else gets to decide.”