The whole ride back from my game, Haley talked, talked, talked with Zack. About music. About books. About the kids from their camp. And all these inside jokes, too. It was like I wasn’t even in the car. And worse, it felt like she was doing it on purpose.

When we were still in Zack’s driveway after dropping him off, Haley turned to me. “Do you want to move up to the front seat?”

I wasn’t going to sit next to someone who had missed my big hit and then pretended it was no big deal.

“No.” I didn’t think such a small word could sound so mean, but coming out of my mouth right then, it did.

“Fine,” Haley said, backing out of Zack’s driveway. “Suit yourself.” She turned up the music—some dumb playlist that Zack had made for her—and for the rest of the ride home, she didn’t say anything else to me. I picked at my glove and stared out the window.

When we got home, Haley went out to the back porch and I went straight up to my room. Through the open window, I could hear her downstairs, talking on the phone to one of her friends. Ever since Mom upgraded her cell phone plan at the beginning of the summer, it seemed like all she did was talk to her friends. I had friends, too, but I didn’t need to talk to them all day long on the phone. I had time for my family, too.

I changed out of my Panthers uniform and into shorts and my favorite Bandits T-shirt and went downstairs to the kitchen to get a Popsicle. Haley was still outside yammering on the phone. Does her new phone have some kind of super battery that lasts forever? I wondered.

I took the Popsicle upstairs and slurped it, sitting on my bed. I’d never gotten around to making my bed, and the sheets were all rumpled, sort of like a nest. My nest. As I sucked on the Popsicle, I started thinking about this thing Dad always said when he was talking about a client who was hard to please. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” At least, I think that’s what he said.

Brain freeze took over, and I gnawed on the Popsicle stick. I guessed I could’ve eaten it a little slower.

Maybe being anti-Zack wasn’t really helping things at all. I knew that when Haley and Mom were fighting, it never helped when Mom tried to tell Haley what not to do. It just made Haley want to do it more.

It was like they were two different teams. Team Mom versus Team Haley. And, as everyone knows, only one team can ever win in a two-team battle.

What if I try to join Haley’s team? I wondered. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

I took the Popsicle stick downstairs and threw it in the kitchen trash.

Haley was finally off the phone and sitting on the living room couch with the TV on.

I sat down on the leather chair next to the couch. “What are you watching?”

“So now you’re going to talk to me?” Haley didn’t even sound like herself anymore. She sounded like one of the mean girls on an MTV show.

I took in a deep breath. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. “Yup.”

The commercial ended, and the reality show Haley had been watching came back on. The contestants were supposed to make a dress out of stuff you find in a hardware store. I wouldn’t know where to start, and that was before the host of the show said they weren’t supposed to use things like tablecloths. It looked impossible.

Haley’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket and laughed as she read a text message.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“None of your business.” Her fingers flew across the little keyboard on her phone. If there was a class in texting, Haley would get an A++.

It was as if I wasn’t in the room with her—not really—even though I was only five feet away. I wasn’t in the backseat anymore, but still I was invisible.

Used to be that Haley and I would hang out in the living room with the TV on. We’d totally plan on watching something, but then Haley would start telling me about some crazy thing that had happened in her math class or how she’d accidentally hit the gym teacher during volleyball, and then I’d tell her about our basketball game at recess or how Mrs. McCurdy’d had a piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe for all of social studies, and then, before we knew it, the TV show was over and we’d missed the whole thing.

The TV show was just the background for us, the real deal, the Haley and Quinnen show.

But now it wasn’t only the TV that had faded into the background. It was me, too.

By the time they got to the runway part at the end of the episode, I wasn’t sure if Haley even cared who was going to win or if she’d bothered to look up from her phone enough to know any of the contestants’ names.

The people who made this show sure knew how to ramp up suspense. Right after the runway, they cut to commercial before showing who was going to win the challenge.

During a toothpaste commercial, I decided to try again. “Hey, Haley?”

“Yeah?” She slid her phone back into her pocket. Finally.

When she turned her head toward me, I remembered that spot on her neck and how she couldn’t answer me on the way to the game about if Zack was her boyfriend or not. “Is Zack…is he your boyfriend now?”

“You sound like Mom,” Haley said with a little snort.

Ouch.

I was still waiting for an answer.

She reached up to scratch the spot on her neck. “I don’t know, Quinnen. You’d think that’s an easy question to answer, but it’s not. I like Zack and he likes me, but…”

“But what?” I didn’t understand how it could be so complicated.

“It’s not easy to talk about these things.”

“With Zack? But you talk to Zack all the time! Like every day. And you text him all the time, too.” Why couldn’t she just ask him if he was her boyfriend or not? It was a simple yes-or-no question, right?

“Quinnen, you just don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?” I said. The commercials had ended. The show was back on. But I didn’t care who won the challenge anymore. All I wanted was an answer from Haley, a real answer from my sister. The kind I always used to get.

“He’s from another town. There are other people he knows who…who I don’t even know about. His world is totally new to me. It’s complicated.” Her voice was getting high and she looked a little—almost like she was going to cry.

Other people, I thought. “Other girls?”

“Forget it.” Haley bit her lower lip and turned up the TV volume. “You’ll never understand.”

But I did. At least, I thought I understood. Zack made her sad and angry, but sometimes happy, too. Maybe it was Haley who didn’t understand.

Haley had guy friends, and she’d had sort of a boyfriend at school last year, Jacob, but it was different. Jacob had never come over for dinner at our house. And he didn’t call Haley all of the time, either. Only some of the time. Plus I knew Jacob. He was on the math team, and his younger brother Ben was in my grade.

But I didn’t know Zack. And right then it felt like Haley didn’t, either.

I knew that when the show ended she wasn’t going to answer my question.

We weren’t going to be on the same team. There was no way I could be on Team Haley and Zack. No way.

I could tell that already.

Not this summer.

—

“Baaaatter up!” Dad shouted from behind me.

I stepped up to the plate and tried to focus on the pitching machine in front of me, the one that’d be shooting out balls any second. After dinner, Dad had offered to take me to the batting cages. Mom and Haley stayed behind at the house, which was fine. The last thing I wanted was Haley tagging along.

Shwoop. The ball came shooting out. I swung hard, the bat ringing in my hands as the ball shot back. A single, at least. Maybe a double?

“Nice one,” Dad said.

“Thanks.” I choked up on the bat, gearing up for the next pitch.

Ping!

“It’s out of the park! There’s some serious lift on that thing! It’s still going! Oh man, it just blew through a cloud. And did it…? Oh man, it did! Yiiikes. Well, what’s one less seagull, anyway? This is one for the record books, folks!”

“Dad!” I was laughing so hard I missed the next two pitches completely.

“Sorry, Quinnbear. I couldn’t resist.”

Dad managed to keep his fake announcing under control for the next fifteen minutes so I could get in some real hitting practice. I let him hop into the batting cage for the last few minutes so he could hit, too.

It wasn’t until we were in the truck headed home that the sinking feeling came back. I wished we could’ve stayed in the batting cages all night. Just me and my dad.

“Haley said you had a pretty key hit in the game today,” Dad said. “I wish Mom and I could’ve been there for it. Next summer, I swear, kiddo. Next summer, this client will be history, and I’ll have more time to spend with you and your sister.”

I stared out the window at the sun, which was finally setting.

“Quinnen?”

“She wasn’t even there for it.”

“What do you mean?”

Tears crept into my eyes. I blinked hard and fast. Focused on picking at some falling-off foam inside my batting helmet. “She wasn’t watching when it happened. She and Zack…” I didn’t know what I was supposed to tell Dad and not supposed to tell him.

“She was in the bathroom,” I finally said. Even though I knew it was a lie. “She missed my hit.” My game-winning hit.

“I’m sure she felt really bad about missing it, kiddo.”

He reached over to pat my shoulder.

“Yeah.” I stared at the little pile of gray foam in my batting helmet. “Right.”