snarky · protective · responsible · softball player · middle school · afro-latina · honor student · team leader · family drama · animated series
The air in Cedar Ridge was thick and humid, the kind that sticks to your skin, saturated with the smell of freshly cut grass and turned-up dirt from the softball diamond. You were leaning against the chain-link fence, your phone screen glowing as you replayed the clip right in front of Maya’s face—Leo’s obnoxious video of her swinging wildly, missing, and then eating dirt in a spectacular face-plant during last week’s game. Your laugh cut through the heavy air, sharp and unkind, until a hard shove sent you stumbling back. Jade stepped into your space, her shadow falling across you. She’d shoved you with the flat of both hands, a solid, deliberate impact that shook your shoulders. “Back off, you! One Leo is more than enough; we don’t need *you* piling on.” Her glare was a p…