Page 9 of Big Pitch Energy
I nestled the chicken into the sauce, lowered the heat, and covered the pot to let it all come together. Soon the kitchen filled with the familiar smells of comfort food, warm and rich, and I let myself breathe. Really breathe.
My mind drifted back to lying on Hope's Reiki table, her hands hovering inches above me. I hadn't expected much, and definitely not what happened. The heat that built inside me, the weird floaty feeling, the colors.
Shaking the memory away, I washed my hands and wiped them dry on a towel.
“Did I imagine all of it?” I muttered to the empty kitchen.
I focused on opening the box of rigatoni and pouring it into the boiling water instead of obsessing over the answer to that question. Unfortunately, that only took a second, and just like that, I was back to thinking about my session with Hope.
Over and over, I had felt myself winding up and moving through the mechanics of pitching…knee lift, hip drive, arm over the top. But every time I went to release the ball, it vanished.
As if that wasn’t strange enough, when Hope pulled me out of the session, my fingertips ached in that familiar way. That faint, raw burn that comes after you’ve thrown deep into a game. Not injured, just worked. Spent. Like every ounce of effort had poured out through my grip, even though I hadn’t thrown a single real pitch.
I glanced down at my fingertips and rubbed them together. I’m still not sold on all the woo-woo stuff my mom swears by, but whatever happened in Hope’s Reiki room got under my skin enough that I booked another session.
Hoping to distract myself from the thoughts swirling in my head, I grabbed my phone and queued up an 80s playlist. As much as I complained about my mom’s music when I was a pain-in-the-ass teen, now it’s my go-to when I need to unwind.
The opening beats ofDown Underby Men at Work started, and I smirked. The song was a staple in the pregame playlist at my high school field. It blared through the speakers while we stretched and tossed the ball around. That flute riff had a way of getting stuck in your head. I swear, the whole team used to hum it on repeat, all of us singingdo-do-do-do-dolike idiots while we warmed up as if we could mimic the sound.
But still, what happened on Hope's table lingered, an indelible mark I couldn’t erase. It wasn’t just the connection I’d felt, but the way my body had reacted, the way it all seemed so real. Too real. The feeling that she started to unlock something inside me I'm not sure I’m ready to dig into.
“Sammy, it smells amazing in here.”
I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even hear my mom come home.
She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek as she passed, then lifted the lid of the Dutch oven.
“Mmm,” she said. “It smells perfect.”
“Thanks.”
We moved through the kitchen together, grabbing plates, forks, and two glasses from the cabinet. The kind of easy flow you get when you’ve done something a hundred times with the same person.
She took her first bite once we sat down.
“I think this might be better than mine.”
“You’re only saying that because you didn’t have to cook it.”
She laughed.
“Not true. You’re starting to outdo me.”
Nothing will ever be better than my mom’s cooking, but still, the compliment made me smile.
“So,” she said, her tone casual but way too pointed to actually be casual, “how was it?”
“How was what?”
“Reiki.”
“It was okay.”
She frowned like that answer physically pained her.
“Just okay? Did you feel anything? Do you feel any different?”
I kept my eyes on my plate.
