All Chapters of The Home Run King Only Swings for Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

The boos from forty thousand people started three seconds after I stood up.Bottom of the ninth, down by one, bases loaded, two outs. All Leo needed was a single hit and we'd take the lead.My seat was at the far end of the dugout, closest to the tunnel. The first row of the infield stands was right above me.He'd already stepped into the batter's box and was raising his right hand, about to flash the signal that only the two of us understood.That was when every single comment across my vision turned red.[This is the one! One swing and his right wrist is done for!][Stop him! Stop him now!]My head buzzed.If we lost this game, we still had next week's Wild Card Game.But if that hand gave out here, there wouldn't be another game after this.Just before his fingers touched the wristband, I stood up.I held out two fingers, pressed them hard against my own wrist, and pushed down.It was our signal in reverse. Stop. Don't swing. Keep the bat on your shoulder.Across the sea of people,

Chapter 2

That night, my name shot to the top of every trending list online.Someone forced Leo's season-long decline and the date I joined the team into a side-by-side graphic.The headline read: "Jinx Spotted: The Home Run King Falls from Grace."The image was shared hundreds of thousands of times overnight. The top comment, with thirty thousand likes, read: "Get her out of this city."My phone buzzed all night. Unknown numbers, anonymous accounts, every vile thing imaginable.The worst part wasn't being hated. It was knowing the truth and not being able to say a single word.Two months ago, I thought I'd stumbled into the luckiest break of my life.On the first day of spring training, I stood outside the rehab room clutching a new ID badge that still smelled of plastic. It read Nora Kelly.That was also the first time the comments that had followed me all my life, invisible to everyone else, went wild over a single person.The comments had been there for as long as I could remember.They were

Chapter 3

That entire week, Leo suddenly started avoiding me.He stopped coming to the rehab room.I started to wonder whether I'd pushed too hard when I stopped him that day and driven him away in the process.When we crossed paths in the hallway, he turned his face away and walked right past me, like I was a stranger.I stood there watching him go, and suddenly wanted to laugh.At the start of the season, this was the guy who showed up at the rehab room every other day.One day it was a sore shoulder, the next a tight wrist, the day after that he flat-out claimed he'd slept wrong and had a stiff neck.I knew he was faking it, of course. The man was built like a tank. But every time I told him to lie down on the treatment table, he was perfectly obedient.I'd once complained offhand that the coffee the team ordered was sickeningly sweet. The next morning, a different cup appeared on my workstation.Double espresso, no sugar. Exactly the way I liked it.Whenever I pulled a night shift, a sandwic

Chapter 4

The next morning, I called Martin.He was silent for so long I thought he'd hung up."You're Leo's doctor now." He spoke first, sounding old and tired."Then you've already seen his right wrist."My hand tightened around the phone.Martin told me that in the last game of the previous season, Leo crashed into the outfield wall chasing a foul ball.The X-rays came back that night. The fracture line across his wrist bone was unmistakable.He reported it to the team by the book and recommended that Leo stop playing immediately for at least three months.I asked him what the diagnosis said at the time.He said it called for a three-month shutdown and a complete ban on any rotational force through the wrist.He said he signed it, and it was uploaded into the team's system that same day.But two weeks later, Martin was replaced, and the report disappeared from the system with him.The only copy left in the entire organization was the paper file buried at the bottom of the records room.A chil

Chapter 5

I took a step back, tears springing to my eyes."So Martin was right. All you wanted from the beginning was some green newcomer too scared to ask questions."Do you have any idea what these six months have been like for me? I thought I earned my way onto this team, step by step, on my own."Leo Adams, you tell me why it had to be me."He stood with his head down, saying nothing.I turned to leave, but he grabbed my wrist.It was his right hand, gripping so hard that even through the bandage I could feel the heat beneath it.Instinctively, I tried to pry his fingers open, afraid he'd snap the bone himself.He didn't let go.His voice was wrecked. "Three years ago, there was a pitcher in the minors with a Grade III elbow injury. Everyone said his career was over."The kid was on my old farm team. I watched them carry him off the field."And the rehab plan that brought him back had one name on it. Nora Kelly."I froze.I'd spent two full months writing that plan. After I sent it out, I ne

Chapter 6

In the end, I chose to ignore that warning.At ten the next morning, the plan was approved.The notice was a single sheet of paper taped to the rehab room door. They'd even misspelled my name by one letter.Just like that, all my access was suspended.I unclipped my badge and placed it in the drawer, so gently, as if I were afraid of breaking something.Colleagues walked past me without a single glance.From that moment on, I was no longer the team's doctor in any official capacity. I wasn't even authorized to touch his wrist.Chloe's team took over Leo's training.The first day's program sheet spelled it out in black and white: increased-load wrist power training.I read it line by line. Every single line drove force straight into that fracture.I grabbed the sheet and rushed to the office. They stopped me at the door."You're not authorized anymore," they said.I stood on the other side of the training room glass, watching him lift the barbell again and again, watching a dark stain s

Chapter 7

I dragged that one second of footage back and forth dozens of times.I'd been standing on the sidelines every single day for six months, and I'd never once isolated the half-second after his follow-through.Then I pulled up his game footage from ten years ago.The younger version of him always gave his wrist that one extra turn at the end of a swing, like punctuating his own power.It was a move he'd trained into his body when he was young to squeeze more distance out of each hit. He'd never changed it.I put the two clips side by side on the screen.One showed him ten years ago; the other, last month.The same follow-through, the same wrist turn. A decade apart, completely unchanged.The only thing that had changed was the hand.Ten years ago it was fine, so the motion was just a habit.Now that it was fractured, that old trademark had become a blade cutting into him with every game.I pulled up every home run from this season, all nineteen of them, half the number he'd had at the sam

Chapter 8

More than a hundred media outlets showed up for the press conference the next day.Cameras and microphones lined the front in rows. The flashes hadn't started yet, but the air was already taut with tension.Everyone assumed he was there to address the jinx controversy.He stepped onto the stage and, in front of every camera, rolled up his right sleeve.When the ugly old injury came into view, the room drew a collective gasp and shutters rattled in a burst."This entire season, I've been playing injured, hiding it from everyone."Our previous doctor, Martin, reported my injury by the book. I'm the one who had him replaced. I'm the one who had that report pulled from the system. Today, in front of everyone, I owe him an apology."The shutters were so rapid they sounded like rain.He paused. "There's one more thing I need to set straight."That night with the bases loaded, our team doctor, Nora Kelly, was the one who told me to keep the bat on my shoulder. She was the only person in the e

Chapter 9

For two weeks, the rehab room became our battlefield.The goal was to let his body's rotation carry the bat through without forcing his wrist to turn at the end.The concept fit in two sentences. Execution was another matter entirely.The hardest thing to change wasn't the motion. It was the muscle memory he'd built over a decade.On day one, he took two hundred dry swings without a ball and failed to check his follow-through even once.I recorded every follow-through, went home and reviewed them frame by frame at night, then made adjustments the next day.By day three, he could finally keep his wrist from rolling over, but the ball wouldn't carry.By day five, the ball finally carried, but his wrist rolled over again.We inched forward one day at a time.We were often the last two to turn off the lights in the training facility.He'd swing, I'd call stop, and he'd look at me with that pained expression. "Nora, you're worse than the devil."I shot him a look. "You want to keep this han

Chapter 10

The World Series. Bottom of the ninth.Bases loaded, two outs, down by one. Identical to that night.Before the game, in the locker room, he held out his right hand, palm up.I wrapped the wristband around it, loop by loop. When I finished, he turned his hand over and squeezed mine.I stood at the mouth of the tunnel. This time, my palms were dry.The moment the PA announced his name, all forty thousand people rose to their feet and roared his name.Leo walked into the batter's box, step by step, and looked back to flash me that gesture.Two fingers, tapping the wristband on his right wrist, the one I'd just put on for him this morning.Then, steady as ever, he pointed at me.The comments across my vision, silent through the entire night, finally scrolled out two lines.[We're not calling this one.][See for yourself.]I smiled, raised my chin, and gave him a firm nod.Swing.I trust you, and I trust that hand.A month earlier, I'd stopped him from hitting a home run.Tonight, I was gi

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