It was hot, which made him angry, and he was scared, which made him furious.

Aaron brushed those feelings aside, chalking all that up as irritation. The cold pit bubbling in the hollows of his stomach was just a byproduct of nerves. It wasn’t anger; Aaron didn’t get angry.

He took a few practice swings with the aluminum baseball bat. He didn’t know much about baseball and wasn’t sure how it was supposed to help, but he knew enough to know it was a thing people did. It also gave him a chance to sneak a glance at his team’s dugout along the third base line.

Katelyn was there. She was talking with Roger and laughing at something he’d just said. Of course. Aaron sighed inwardly. There was nothing wrong with Roger. Not really. He was just hard to measure yourself against. Better looking, more successful, much more charismatic, and very witty. A far cry from the awkward catastrophe in the shape of a man that was Aaron Abrams, or so Aaron felt.

The problem wasn’t really Roger, it was Aaron. Or, more precisely, his stupid crush on Katelyn. Was it jealousy that was making him grip the bat a little tighter? Surely not.

It’s not helping that I’m almost certainly about to make an ass out of myself in front of her. And Roger. And every other damned person from the office, Aaron thought.

He swung the bat again — with a little more force than necessary — and it whistled through the air.

Aaron hadn’t wanted anything to do with the interoffice softball league and it was baffling how he’d even wound up there. Team sports — and sports in general — had never really been his thing and he was even more hesitant of sports involving throwing and catching a ball.

Throwing wasn’t so bad; it was catching a ball that caused him problems. Some deep, evolutionary, lizard part of his brain insisted any ball coming at him was a threat. That inevitably led to either lashing out wildly or getting all jammed up trying to control the impulse.

When someone from the office hurt their back, a pressure campaign swung into action to push Aaron into joining. He’d fended the vultures off for most of a week until Katelyn had asked him if he’d be playing at lunch one day. Maybe it wasn’t so baffling how he’d wound up there, after all.

Why they wanted him to play in the first place was baffling, though. Quite a few people were weirdly invested in these games, but Aaron wasn’t the athletic type, especially lately. He had broad shoulders, but he wasn’t particularly tall. He’d also let himself get into pretty bad shape over the past year, putting on at least fifty pounds. The only exercise he got these days was riding his bike to work.

Yet here he was.

Aaron shouldered the bat and looked out over the field, eyeing the pitcher, then the sky. Sizing up the pitcher and checking the position of the sun seemed like the kind of thing an experienced batter might do.

What the hell am I even doing? he thought. I don’t know baseball… I’m just trying not to make a damned fool of myself.

Something out in right field caught his eye — an old black man was sitting on an ancient folding lawn chair just past the foul line. It had thick vinyl straps in earthy shades of orange and brown that screamed the 70s.

Aaron nearly tripped over his own feet, assailed by the most powerful sense of déjà vu he’d ever experienced. It wasn’t for anything he was about to do or say; it was focused entirely on the man sitting in a janky little chair. Aaron couldn’t think of how he might know him; the old man didn’t actually look familiar, he just felt familiar.

Similar feelings of unattached déjà vu weren’t entirely unfamiliar to Aaron; he’d been having a lot of similarly odd moments lately, though never as powerful. He’d mostly attributed it to his fitful sleep patterns lately, caused by especially vivid dreams that he couldn’t quite remember but lingered on him like a haze. He’d considered going to the doctor over it, but he didn’t have the disposable income for luxuries like mental health care. He’d even stopped taking meds a little over a year ago to cut costs.

Aaron drifted to the batter’s box, taking his time the last few steps so the feeling would pass. It didn’t, exactly, but it quickly faded into the background of his thoughts and stopped being disorienting.

When he stepped across the white line in the dirt, a frozen knot appeared in Aaron’s stomach. He was about to risk abject humiliation in front of his coworkers and it was compounded by the sense the old man was staring at him.

He’s just watching the game, Aaron, stop being such a paranoid goon.

Now that he was aware of it, Aaron couldn’t shake the feeling the old man was — and had been — watching him. He took a few measuring swings, a deep breath in through his nose, and turned his focus to the pitcher out on the mound.

Keep your cool, don’t panic, he thought. It’s slow-pitch softball. You’re supposed to be able to get a hit.

The first pitch came, nice and easy; Aaron thought he had a chance to nail it. Right before it got to the plate, his eyes darted to the old man and the ball sailed right past him. He shook his head and tried to laugh it off, plastering on a smirk and shrugging like the whole thing was no big deal. Icy tendrils from the knot in his stomach started crawling toward his spine.

On the second pitch, he grounded out to first.

He walked back to the fenced-in bench to much commiseration from his colleagues. Platitudes were exchanged, backs were slapped, and Aaron tried to force the cold lump in his guts to melt away. At least the heat wasn’t bothering him as much this year and he wasn’t sweaty for all the pats on the back.

“You’ll get ‘em next time, slugger,” Roger kindly assured him, which annoyed Aaron just, like, so much.

After he took a seat on the bench, Aaron glanced surreptitiously toward right field. Even with a couple hundred feet between them, he was pretty sure the old man was watching him, not the next batter.

There was nothing particularly threatening about the guy — being old and thin wasn’t exactly conducive to generating an aura of menace — but Aaron found him unsettling nonetheless. Why was he so familiar? And why was he paying so much attention to Aaron?

It’s an old dude watching a softball game on a Saturday afternoon. You’re just being self-conscious and imagining things.

It became harder to accept that as the game went on.

Since he was the least experienced, Aaron had been placed out in right field, where he was least likely to make a game-losing mistake. That also put him much closer to the old man, who stayed right in his field of vision pretty much the entire time. Every time Aaron looked that way, the stranger was looking right back at him, a mysterious smile on his face.

After several innings of discreet observation, Aaron finally put a label on that smile — it was wistful. He didn’t know why the hell this old man would be wistful when looking at him and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

When Aaron’s turn in the batting order started to get closer, the lingering annoyance from his last at-bat began to percolate again. It wasn’t anger — he didn’t get angry — but frustration was mounting. His coworkers offered him words of encouragement when he got up to go to the plate, but they barely registered.

Game face on. Get your head in the game. Other sports-related aphorisms!

Aaron stepped back into the batter’s box.

The first pitch came in low and lazy. Aaron thought he might get a single or double out of it, but misjudged the timing and swung early. The cold pit in his stomach burst open and started crawling up his spine, again.

He took a few dry swings before the next pitch, working out the nerves and trying to focus.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Keep your eye on the ball, he told himself. Don’t worry about the people from the office. Do not pay attention to that old man.

Aaron’s coworkers were cheering for him but, for all he knew that was true, it felt like they were laughing at him. He kept the frown from forming on his face.

The second pitch came. Danger! Threat! Aaron’s amygdala screeched. It’s coming right for you! Swat it away before you die! His entire body was tense, ready to respond. The ball was moving fast and coming in higher than the last pitch.

Too high to be a strike, Aaron thought.

He could be wrong, but kept a tight rein on his body anyway, forcing himself to be still. He even turned his eyes down to the plate. A risk, but one that paid off when the pitch was called a ball.

The third pitch was deceptively slow. Aaron swung early again and earned another strike. He stepped out of the batter’s box for some more dry swings and inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to suck some of the warm air in to counter the cold in his stomach.

Down by one, a runner on second base. Two outs, two strikes, and one ball. You just need a double to tie it up.

That was what Aaron wanted to focus on — the game. Not the people in the bleachers watching him and definitely not the strangely familiar old man lounging past right field. The old man whose gaze Aaron could almost feel.

Maybe he’s a chubby chaser and he’s checking me out, Aaron thought. A little cringey, but I could live with that.

Aaron turned his attention to the mound. The pitcher was in his starting stance, holding the large ball near his chest. Right before he started to windmill his arm for the pitch, he had the gall to smirk at Aaron.

The frigid knot in Aaron’s innards shuddered and clawed its way further up his spine. His frustration mounted and he squeezed the handle of the bat so tightly he almost thought he heard the aluminum groan under the pressure. That was impossible, of course, but that kind of strength would be very useful in this situation.

Aaron needed to get a hit. He had to get a hit and get on base. He had to; his pride was on the line.

The fourth pitch came, a real bullet with more speed and less arc than previous pitches. It was headed straight across the plate. Aaron saw where it was going, knew when it would reach him, and when he’d need to swing to connect.

He stopped fighting the searing cold pulsing in his core. It spread into his limbs and rushed up to his skull. His entire body tingled and he felt faintly nauseous. He embraced the discomfort, pictured it flowing through his body and into the bat.

It was time. He swung.

A rapid succession of surprisingly loud noises followed: a loud ping; a resounding crack; and, finally, a crash.

The bat hit with the ball — ping! — then hit Aaron’s back on the followthrough and broke — crack! — as the ball screamed down the first base line and blasted through a parked car’s window — crash!

Even Aaron knew what a line drive was; this wasn’t that. The ball had moved too fast, been too level, and smashed through that window with too much force.

Everyone on the field — the players, the audience in the bleachers, even the oddly familiar old man — were on their feet, staring along the path of the ball. After a few seconds, all those faces turned and landed on Aaron. He felt the weight of their eyes fall on him like a stone wall. He’d never had a problem with crowds, but at that moment he wanted to disappear. Some people might have been proud of that home run, but Aaron felt like he was a freak on display at some rancid old carnival.

A fierce argument erupted in Aaron’s thoughts.

I hit that ball harder than possible. But that can’t be true because that would be, by definition, impossible.

And yet… I did it — I swung so hard the bat broke and the ball flew across the field like a cannonball.

Just adrenaline, though. Nothing else. Nothing weird.

That’s almost certainly true; how could it not be? But even still…

But even still, no matter how implausible it was, Aaron had hit the ball harder than he’d ever seen anyone hit a ball. No matter what he told himself, it was weird. Maybe it was just wishful thinking; that made the most sense.

But even still…

Dozens of people were staring at Aaron in stunned silence. That was real. It suggested they thought his home run wasn’t a standard line drive, too, but something so shocking they had stared in silence for… however long it had been. Forever, maybe.

He wanted to be home, away from all those eyes.

Aaron stooped to pick up the end of his broken bat and walked back to the dugout. The only sound was his footsteps crunching on the dirt of the baseball diamond. He couldn’t get a read on the emotions behind his coworkers’ stares. Were they horrified? Impressed? In a way, Aaron suddenly found himself almost enjoying the attention. There was something both exhilarating and sickening about it.

I really, really need to get the hell home.

“Sorry about the bat,” he said, dropping the pieces on the ground and not addressing anyone in particular. “I think I hurt my shoulder. I’m just a few blocks away, so I’m going to walk home and put some ice on it.”

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Aaron swallowed hard, picked up his tote bag, and added, “Good game, everyone.”

He turned and walked across the park, right through the diamond and the outfield. It had been less than a minute since Aaron’s home run and people were coming out of their stupor. He could hear bits of conversation starting as he walked. He tuned them out; he tuned everything out. He was halfway through the outfield when he remembered that everything in life had pain-in-the-ass consequences.

Instead of continuing on towards home, Aaron turned and walked along the sidewalk. When he reached the car with the broken window, he rifled through his bag for a pen and paper. Before he could find either, he got an unwelcome surprise — the old man had walked up and leaned against the car, ugly lawn chair folded under one arm.

“How’d you know it was my car?” he asked.

Aaron blinked at him. “What?”

“You nailed my car. Well, my rental. How’d you know it was mine?”

Aaron looked from the car to the stranger, not fully processing what he was hearing.

“It’s your car?”

The old man nodded. “For the moment. So… how’d you know it was mine?”

He fixed Aaron with an intense, searching look, as if waiting for a specific answer and intent on finding the lie in it. Aaron didn’t know what the old man expected, but his unease grew. He just wanted to leave.

He held out a page from his notepad to the familiar stranger. “This has my contact information, get in touch and I’ll try to reimburse you for the window.”

The old man took the page and examined it. “You didn’t include your name.”

Aaron realized he hadn’t and felt like an idiot. For about half a second. Then he felt a wave of profound relief as he suddenly realized he didn’t want this strangely familiar stranger to know anything about who he was.

Good thing I used my personal email, which is just a stupid gamer tag I’ve had for years, he thought.

“Get in touch and I’ll do my best to reimburse you,” Aaron repeated.

“I don’t care about the money, son,” the old man said with a dismissive wave. “Tell me how you knew it was my car. You knew me on sight, I could see it on you. How is it you recognized me? Maybe some odd dreams?”

Even though the stranger spoke in friendly tones and everything about him suggested he was a relaxed, kindly old man, there was an intensity to those questions. More than ever, Aaron didn’t want this stranger — or anyone else — to know who he was. He wanted to go home; he always felt better at home.

“Get in touch,” Aaron said, turning to walk away.

The old man didn’t try to stop him leaving and Aaron picked up speed as he walked away from the park. When he was near the corner, Aaron glanced back over his shoulder. The familiar stranger was still by the car, watching him.

What if he goes and talks to people from the office? Aaron wondered. Will they blab? Give a complete stranger my name and who knows what other information?

Hopefully not, but there was nothing Aaron could do about it without going back to the ballpark.

Aaron crossed the street. As soon as a building blocked him from view from the park, Aaron broke into a jog. His apartment was only two blocks from the park, but he ran for more than twenty, taking unnecessary turns and doubling back several times. He looked, but never saw any sign that he was being followed.

You are being one paranoid android, he told himself.

When he finally slipped into the alley behind his building and ducked into the back door, he was so preoccupied trying not to dwell on the afternoon’s events that he didn’t even notice he was neither sweating nor out of breath.