"This is it . The Arcade . " Noah stretched his arms out wide after we got out of his mom's car . A huge, castle-like building stood before us . It was legitimately named 'The Arcade' on the highest part of the building .
Mary drove away to go do her work, leaving me with an energetic Noah . He had on his baseball backpack that held some bats, gloves, snacks, and money for lunch .
I kept two feet between us so he wouldn't accidentally hit me with his aluminum bat .
Advertisement"Let's play mini golf first . It's around the right side . There are four courses to choose from . " He explained as we walk around . "Easy . Moderate . Hard . And hell . We'll do the easy one first to see where you stand . "
I stand at the bottom . I've never held a golf club in my life . Especially not a putter . Nonetheless, I accepted the putter and tiny ball Noah handed me after paying for them .
Each course had only nine holes . Noah had me try all thirty-six holes and patiently taught me the tricks to getting the hole-in-one for each hole . Soon enough I had it figured out . It really was fun once you get the hang of it .
After we turned in the putters, Noah dragged me through the Arcade and taught me all his favorite games . "These are the essentials . " He told me . "If you don't know how to do these, then the other boys at school will make fun of you . And if they do that, I'll have to go around starting fights to protect you . Then mom will get mad at the both of us . See the connection?"
I nodded slowly . I really didn't, but Noah would know better than me . I never played games with friends or done anything outside of school grounds . And my mom was mad at everything all the time, so it made sense that his mom would be mad about fighting .
After the mini golf lessons, and losing every game we played against each other, we made our way to the snack bar .
Noah ordered a pizza to share and two sodas . He placed his bag down and we sat on opposite sides of the table and started to dig in .
"The cages is where I would take you next, but you seem to have a slight aversion to baseball right now . You have a glove, yet you didn't want baseball clothes to play in . It's strange, ya know . " Noah confronted .
I kept eating, not wanting to talk about it . I don't know what's wrong with me either . I should be able to play freely now without my mom holding me back, but it makes me anxious . Hypothetically speaking, it's not like she'll catch me playing and try to kill me again . But still . The fear is there .
"What do you like more: hitting, pitching, or fielding?" Noah changed tactics .
I frowned, but lifted one finger .
"Hitting?" He nodded . "Most do . But for me, I like fielding . Sudden sprints to catch an out of reach fly ball . Diving for hard grounders . The satisfaction of snatching a line drive out of the air . "
I looked at him with a blank face . I couldn't exactly relate . At my middle school we only had a batting cage and not an actual field . All I got to do was practice batting and occasionally throw the ball around with a classmate . I wasn't even officially on the team since there's no way my mom was going to sign the parent release statement .
"It's fine . " Noah waved his hand back and forth as if trying to disperse my negative aura . "Let's see if you can try batting here with me . No pressure . If you don't want to try, we can also just take a look to kill time . "
Chapter end
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