I stood in Trev’s front hallway, waiting for him to get his stuff together.
Gran handed him his skullcap. “Remember. I’m picking you up at three.”
“Okay, Gran.” Trev grabbed his bag.
“I like seeing you boys.” Gran pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Together.”
“See ya, Gran,” I said as I opened the door.
“Bye!” Her hand flapped up and down as she waved.
Trev pulled the door shut behind him.
“She’s picking you up at three?” I asked as we walked down his driveway. I wasn’t surprised that Trev was bowing out early. What surprised me was how easily he’d agreed to come with me. Still, it didn’t leave a lot of time for practice.
“There’s this thing at the church.”
I made a face. “Can’t you get out of it?”
“No,” Trev snapped.
We walked the rest of the way to the YMCA in silence.
I kind of wanted to tell him about my argument with Mom and the tripsy and all that, but it was mostly too confusing to explain. Besides, Trev didn’t worry about stuff the way I did. Or at least he didn’t talk about it.
Willow was waiting in the gym when we arrived.
“Sorry we’re late,” I said.
“No problem. I was a bit early.” She took a ball from the rack next to her and shot it from the three-point line.
Trev whistled as the ball swished through the net. “Nice shot,” he said, stripping off the warm-up pants he’d worn over his shorts.
“You have a good shot, too.” Willow smiled — not at me, but at Trev. “It just takes practice.”
And that’s what we did — for almost an hour with hardly any breaks. It was good.
Willow came up with a bunch of new drills, and Trev seemed to get into it. Total understatement. Trev got so into practice that he increased his game by at least 300 percent. He never played that well in front of the coaches. Was he trying to impress Willow?
I pushed that question to the back of my brain, refusing to admit that the answer might be right there in front of me.
There wasn’t much time to chat while we played, and that was good, too. Who knows what I might have babbled about, with Willow nodding and smiling at me? At both of us, actually.
We were playing Around the World when Trev’s gran came to pick him up. She invited me to come along, but I said no.
“How about you, Willow?” asked Trev.
“No, sorry,” said Willow as she pushed back a clump of hair. “I’m going out with my cousin. But thanks for asking.”
As Trev and Gran left, I went to the bench for a drink of water. When I was done, I threw the bottle in my backpack and turned toward the changerooms. “So I guess I’ll see you Monday,” I said to Willow.
“Are you kidding, Hudson?” Willow took another shot that sailed through the net. “You still need to work on your pull-up jump shot.”
“But I thought you had to go.”
“I have a little more time,” she said with a smile.
“O” — a hard pass hit me in the stomach, making my voice crack — “kay.”
And that’s how I ended up playing one-on-one against Willow.
•••
“You don’t have to wait with me, you know,” Willow said as we sat on the curb waiting for the bus to the mall. Her cousin was meeting her there.
“I know.” I picked up a handful of stones and watched as they dropped through my fingers, one by one.
A bus went by. I started to cough. “Sor … sorry.”
“Got your puffer?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t needed it during our practice.
I took off my backpack and started feeling around inside it. After a few seconds of no luck, I started pawing through it faster and faster, worry strangling out what little air I had left. I’d used it the night before, and I didn’t remember packing it with my gym clothes.
Willow stood up and kicked some leaves.
I stayed where I was, searching through the outer pockets of my backpack.
“So, what did you end up doing yesterday after school?” Willow asked. “You took off so fast, I didn’t have a chance to ask.”
My fingers closed around the plastic actuator of my inhaler. I was about to pull it out of my bag when I noticed Willow looking at me through eyes that seemed wider and rounder than usual.
She took a step back, reminding me of all the kids who had given me a wide clearance in the hallway after my asthma attack at basketball — as if I might suddenly come crashing down on them like some old, rotten tree.
Discreetly, I palmed the inhaler and stood up. “Yesterday? Nothing … just dumb … dumb family stuff.”
“Everyone okay?” Willow fiddled with a ring she’d put on when we’d finished playing.
I nodded. “I don’t have much family.” I wheezed. “Not like you. Is your cousin cool?”
“Yeah, she’s cool. Do you have any cousins?”
“Nah. My uncle doesn’t have kids. And my dad, well, you know …”
“Yeah, I know. How come your mom never remarried?”
“My mom?” I coughed, mentally gagging on the impossible image of my mom holding hands with a man. Kissing a man. The idea of her letting someone else interfere with her perfectly planned and boring life.
“It’s hard to see your parents with someone else.” Willow frowned, reading into my reaction. “But you get used to it after a while.”
I wanted to tell Willow that she had it wrong. It wasn’t the thought of Mom with another man that was so shocking. It was the thought of her with anyone. My dad had disappeared so long ago that I didn’t remember them together. I didn’t have any memories of her with anyone. Ever. She didn’t even have a lot of friends.
But I didn’t say any of this to Willow. I didn’t want to look or sound stupid in front of her — not again — so I kept quiet and focused on breathing. One. Two. Three …
“The cousin I’m meeting now is actually the daughter of my stepdad’s brother.” Willow hesitated. “Or, wait, maybe she’s my stepdad’s cousin’s daughter.”
“There must be a lot of them if you can’t keep track.”
Willow laughed. “Yeah, I guess. We’re all just one big, happy family. It doesn’t really matter who’s related to who. Or how.”
“Huh.” Every time I exhaled, I could hear the faint whistle of air exiting my lungs — or trying to. But I was determined not to use my inhaler in front of Willow.
“Family is what you make it.” Willow spoke in a deep voice with a Spanish accent. “Family is everything!”
“Your dad?” I guessed at the origin of the accent, hoping I wasn’t missing something obvious. Did someone on TV speak like that?
Willow nodded.
We fell into silence as a truck drove past the bus stop.
Exhaust filled my nose, and my chest squeezed shut as I stepped away from the road.
“So …” Willow fiddled with the zipper of her fleece track jacket. “Have you heard about the Halloween dance?”
I shook my head, even though I’d seen the posters. They were kind of hard to miss — werewolves, vampires and zombies, surrounded by black-and-orange block lettering with lots of exclamation marks. Plus, they were plastered all over the school.
“I was wondering —”
Another truck zoomed by and Willow stopped talking.
“Uh-huh?” I managed to mumble, keeping my mouth closed.
Willow moved the zipper up and down, up and down. “You okay to practice again this week?”
I rubbed my hand over my chest and spoke slowly. “Not sure it’ll make much difference.”
“Of course it will. You just need the right attitude.”
“Attitude?” I kept taking small gulps of air, hoping she wouldn’t notice my distress. Would her bus ever get here?
“Confidence and determination.”
“I am determined. It’s just that …” I tried to take a deep breath, and then, with stars floating in front of my eyes, I let it spill — the truth, or at least some version of it. “Look at me. I’m a freakin’ giant.”
“What’s wrong with being tall?” Willow’s eyebrows shot up like the arm of a referee. I should’ve taken the misconduct penalty and gone straight to the box. Instead, words kept coming out of my mouth until I ended up with a game suspension.
“Everything,” I wheezed, forgetting that Willow knew nothing about my hockey disaster. “What is it good for, except reaching the top shelf? Average is better.”
“Thanks a lot.” I felt the air frost as Willow spit the words at me.
My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I’d just said. Or what Willow thought I had just said. Why hadn’t I just kept my big mouth shut? “I-I didn’t mean —” I stuttered.
“Whatever.” Willow’s bright face was suddenly as dark as Darth Vader’s. “No one can control how tall they are, and I’m tired of being teased about it. So I’m not cute and petite? Big deal.”
“But —”
Willow cut me off. “This is me,” she said as her bus finally pulled up to the stop, showering us with more exhaust.
She jumped on board as soon as the door swung open. She didn’t look back.
“See you Monday …” I watched the bus pull away as Willow walked down the aisle, looking for a seat.
Then I leaned against the shelter and took a long pull from my inhaler.
As my lungs filled with air, the rest of me filled with regret. What had I just done?