October, 2001

"I hate you."

August wipes dirt from his eyes and glares at his father.

He throws his glove through the shattered window. When he turns, he stumbles. Muggy July air compacts anger to a tight, hard knot in his chest.

"Do you hear me? I hate you!"

"I hear you," his father says. "Now get back in the car."

"Go to hell," he says. And he runs from his disappointment.

Tree limbs whip his face. Thorns catch his cheeks and tears stream from the corners of his eyes. His father should be happy. Why is he never happy? August is close, so close, to the Little League World Series, because his All-Star team has just won state. After the game he thought his father would be proud, until he broke the team trophy against the side of the car because dammit, how do you expect to be great if you can't even hit a home run, when all he really wants is to be good enough.

He runs from the car at the stoplight, across cracked concrete and jumbled backyards, deep into the woods. Legs burning, he cuts left past an ancient oak tree. He slides down a riverbank of mud and clambers up the far side.

He falls. His face hits the dirt. His knees give way, and years begin to blur by him. When he scrambles to his feet he's fourteen, running off the bus from a girlfriend who just broke his heart in front of his friends. She had a beautiful smile but she was the meanest person in the tenth grade. He didn't see it.

Why do I never see it in time?

Heartache burns his veins.

August passes another oak tree, this one taller, stronger, older. He presses his hand to his chest. Beneath his palm his heart throbs, and he trips, grits his teeth. Keeps running further into the woods. The riverbank disappears and trees close behind his back. He rounds the curve of a rocky outcropping, pretends he's sliding into third base, but his ankle wrenches. At the force of the fall his vision goes black.

When his eyes open, he's sixteen. He's lying on the ground in the middle of nowhere. This isn't the place he chose, but rather the place that found him. His mother's words run behind his eyelids. Since the last game of the season, when a baseball hit him just above the temple, she's been worried all the time.

The doctor told them if the ball had struck any lower, August would be dead. Now there are hospital bills to pay. Colleges have stopped calling. His chances of getting recruited before senior year grow smaller and smaller each day. He's been out of the hospital for three weeks and he can't shake the sick feeling in his stomach. Dizziness rakes through him as he stands. Black dots drift across his vision. Afternoon light falls, sharp and unrelenting, on his face.

I'm breaking inside. I'm breaking outside.

I'm broken.

At last, he reaches the clearing. He's eighteen now. State finals are in three weeks. He still plays baseball but his father's not breaking trophies anymore because he's a vice president and he's never home. He doesn't come to baseball games, doesn't even drive the same battered convertible. August has convinced himself this absence doesn't have the power to hurt him.

Almost. But not quite.

Around him his haven remains the same; cold, serene, and quiet. Tree branches stand black against the winter sky. Frost lingers on the surface of the stream, coats the dead stumps rising around the edge of the clearing. August finds the tree house, third to the left. Nails stick through the half-rotted wood above. Folding chairs, covered in bird litter, linger in the same spaces he and his ex-girlfriend had left them in one Friday afternoon.

He climbs, grey afternoon light hollow around him. Broken glass is everywhere in the tree house. Sharp pieces dig into his palms like teeth. Up here, among dried blood spatters and crumpled beer cans, August is himself again. In this moment he is safe. He is alone, and his safety rests in his solitude. The haven moves, breathes, curves, and folds around him. Out here he could be anyone. Out here he could be free. He clenches his hand around the ledge of the tree house, leaning out into the air. His legs dangle, shoelaces slapping his ankles, and he pulls back.

He has one more game that matters – one more game to win – and then he's free.