Gemotions

"You're going to be a goalie now," the baseball coach said, his voice flat. Michael, the star pitcher, felt his blood run cold. Goalie was a position for the benchwarmers, not the ace. The unspoken implication: he was being punished.

He caught the ball during the drills, his movements slow, his focus vague. Every pitch, he didn’t even try to catch it, letting the ball dribble past him. He watched the batter sprint to first with a smirk.

Later, he purposefully let the opposing team score, making a show of clumsiness. Every run was a drop of poison, spreading through the coach's carefully constructed plan.