The morning I’m supposed to meet up with Hector to work on pitching, Mom knocks on my bedroom door.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come in?” she asks, already opening the door. I don’t know why she bothers asking. She always opens the door anyway.

I’m lying on my bed, holding a baseball in my hand. Mom sits down next to me.

“I was wondering…,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to play tennis.”

Okay. I wait for her to explain where I come into this.

“I checked with the rec center, and they still have some spots open for tennis lessons. Is that something you would want to do with me?”

“Tennis?” I sit up so I can see Mom better. She’s tapping her fingers on her lap, and it looks like she got a manicure recently. She really wants to play tennis? With me?

“Yes, tennis,” she says. “Leila Mahoney and her mom just signed up. I think it would be nice for you to try another sport, since…”

That’s the other thing we never talk about. How baseball sign-ups came and went last winter. How every time Mom or Dad offered to take me, I shrugged it off.

Every time I’d make up a reason, they’d just do that thing where they’d give each other a look, like I wasn’t in the room with them. They let me call the shots. Maybe they shouldn’t have.

I overheard them talking about it with Miss Ella after one of my sessions. “These things take time,” Miss Ella said to them.

Maybe enough time has passed.

I tuck the baseball behind me so Mom can’t see.

“I’m not really friends with Leila,” I finally say.

Mom’s smile goes away. “That doesn’t mean you can’t become friends with her. Don’t you miss spending time with other girls your age?”

In my head, I see me and Katie Miller jumping on her trampoline. And that one time we snuck outside during a sleepover and blasted her brother Andrew with a squirt gun through the open window. His pajama pants were so soaked it looked like he’d wet the bed. And then Katie and I were laughing so hard we almost wet our pants.

“No,” I say.

“Quinnen…”

I shake my head. Tennis players always wear all white and look so clean and preppy. “Can you really see me playing tennis?” Ever since I was five, I’ve always done a sport. Baseball in the spring, soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter. I’m not very good at soccer or basketball, but I like being on a team, and Dad likes that I play. But tennis?

Tennis is a Haley kind of sport. And since Mom can’t ask Haley to play with her, she’s asking me.

“I thought it would be nice if we could find something to do together. Just the two of us.” Mom stands up, shaking her head. “But if you don’t want to…”

“Sorry,” I say.

Mom closes the door tightly behind her.

I grab my glove from under the bed. No matter how much I wear it, the leather won’t stretch out to fit my bigger hand.

—

“So why are you meeting up with Hector?” Brandon asks as we drive across town to the park. Dad’s been letting him borrow the truck to get around town. Maybe he thinks he can sell it for extra on eBay once Brandon becomes famous.

“I told you, it’s a secret.” I pretend to zip my lips.

“I bet I can weasel your secret out of Casey,” he says, turning at the end of the street.

“No way. Casey doesn’t even know. I didn’t tell him.”

“Wow. Keeping secrets from your boyfriend, huh?”

“Are you crazy? Casey is not my boyfriend.”

“Right. Sorry. My bad.” He’s smiling. What does he have to smile about? Brandon is so like Haley in that way: always hassling me about Casey. He never lets go of it, even though he has absolutely no proof.

He pulls into the parking lot at the new park in town. It’s got a track, a playground, two ball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts, a basketball court—you name it, it’s here.

I spot Hector waiting over on the bench. He even brought a few bats.

Brandon unlocks the door. “Well, you come get me when you’re ready to go. I’ll be over by the track, getting my workout on.” He flexes his biceps. Good grief.

I head over to Hector. My too-small glove is on my left hand. It feels weird. And not just because it’s too small. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve had a glove on outside at the park.

Someone must have just mowed the fields. There are all these chopped-up bits of grass around the edges.

“Hey, Hector.”

He shields his eyes, even though he’s wearing sunglasses, and waves at me. “You want to throw the ball around a little first?”

“Sure.”

We jog into the outfield. Hector runs backward until he’s about as far away from me as the distance from third base to home plate. He throws the ball at me—hard and fast—and I reach my glove out for it. The ball smacks into my mitt. Ouch. I want to shake my hand, but I don’t. I don’t want Hector to think he has to ease up with me.

I throw the ball back to him. It comes up short and he has to dive to catch it.

“Sorry!” I shout.

“No te preocupes.”

“What?”

“No worries.” He throws the ball to me again. This time, it doesn’t sting so hard. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it.

Soon we’re playing catch, throwing the ball back and forth so many times I lose track. My right shoulder is starting to hurt, but I don’t care. It’s the good kind of hurt, the kind of hurt I’ve missed.

After I throw the ball to Hector for what feels like the hundredth time, he jogs back to me. “You ready to pitch?” he asks once he’s close.

I look over at the pitcher’s mound. Someone must have raked the base paths and dusted off the top of the mound earlier this morning. It’s so clean and perfect.

“Okay.”

I walk over to my old spot. I’m not wearing my cleats, just my sneakers. But I pretend I’m wearing my cleats. Pretend I’m digging them in the littlest bit. Holding my ground.

Hector crouches down behind home plate, where Katie always squatted.

I grip the ball tight in my hand. I’m pitching, I tell myself. I’m really pitching. It’s been eleven months, almost an entire year.

I release the ball. It bounces in the dirt in front of Hector.

“Not bad,” he says, throwing the ball back to me.

Yes, bad, I hear. The voice comes from somewhere deep inside me. I heard that voice last summer. Believed that voice when it told me: This is your chance, Quinnen. Do it now. That stupid, stupid voice.

I’m trying to tell that voice to can it when I hear another voice—no, voices. People laughing.

The sound comes from over by the parking lot. And there’s more. Bats clinking against each other. Baseballs thumping in gloves. Someone popping bubble gum. I turn back to see who it is.

The Panthers. At least, some of them. Katie Miller and Joe and Tommy and a bunch of kids I don’t know. New Panthers.

That voice in my head is right. I don’t belong here. Not anymore.

With the ball still in my hand, the glove on, I take off, running toward Brandon and the track, running to anywhere that isn’t the ball field.

“Quinnen!” Hector yells after me. It doesn’t take long for him to catch up with me, by the bleachers around the track. I’m panting, but he’s barely out of breath.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Why’d you run?”

All I can do is shake my head. He would never understand. He would never do what I did.

“Quinnen, it’s okay. You can tell me.”

They’re far away now, but I can still hear them. Hear Coach Napoli yelling out instructions for drills. Hear the balls pinging off the bat. I think I can even hear Katie Miller. Is she the only girl on the team now? Or does she have a new friend who’s replaced me? I’m sure she does.

I have to squint to look at Hector. “That’s my team,” I say. “My old team, the Panthers.”

“Panthers.” He says it back to me slowly.

Panthers forever. Katie and I wrote it on our arms with a Sharpie last year. Mom didn’t think it would ever wash off, but it did. It’s long gone from my arm now.

If I practice and practice with Hector, if I can be good enough again, would they take me back? After what I did?

“We can try again. Another day,” Hector says.

I slide the ball back into my glove and sit down on the hot metal bleacher. Hector sits next to me. Neither of us says another word as we watch Brandon jog around the track. Around and around and around.

—

That night, I’m lying on my back on my bedroom floor, softly tossing a baseball up in the air and catching it with my glove. Thwump. Thwump. Thwump. The catching is easy. It’s the pitching that’s hard.

My radio is tuned in to After Midnight, and the volume is turned down low enough so only I can hear it. “This is After Midnight, with your host, Marcus Allen Andre. Remember, you can always call in with your requests.” A song with a jazzy saxophone starts playing.

There’s a knock at my door. It’s awfully late for Mom or Dad to be knocking.

When I open the door, I find Brandon on the other side. “Hey, squirt,” he says.

That’s got to be the grossest thing one person could ever call another person. Unless you’re talking water guns, most things that squirt are disgusting.

“I’m busy,” I say.

“You are so not busy.” Brandon barges into my room holding an unopened sleeve of Oreos. “I thought you might want a cookie or two.”

I can’t exactly say no to a cookie, even if it’s Brandon doing the offering. “Fine.”

He rips open the sleeve, hands me the top three cookies, and heads over to my desk. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a slob?” He pushes some of my piles to the side.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a turd?” I say. “Oh, wait!”

Brandon chuckles. “You got me there. I’ll get you back for that later. I’m the king of pranks.”

With a mouthful of cookie, I say, “Foh freally?”

“The other day, me and José—you know, the shortstop—we put Saran Wrap on the toilet seats in the locker room.”

I swallow. “No way!”

“It’s hard to do. You gotta get it real smooth, ’cause if they see any ripples, they’ll know something’s there. It’s kind of an art.”

“Kind of?”

“I’m not going to lie. It gets them every time.”

I don’t understand why he’s in here. Why he knocked on my door, why he brought cookies, why he’s telling me a funny story. He’s been living in my house for a little over a month, but the whole time it’s been like he couldn’t care less about me.

“Did you get in trouble for it?” I ask.

“Well, you see, they don’t know it’s me and José. It’s not like they bring in a detective to find out who did it.”

“But then you don’t get the credit!”

“Eh, I get enough credit.”

I have to laugh. No matter what it is, Brandon always has to be the best at it.

Just then, the song ends. I reach over to turn my radio off, but not before Marcus Allen Andre comes on and announces the show.

“You’re listening to After Midnight?” Brandon’s eyebrows are raised.

“No,” I say. “It was set there. It’s…”

“Dude, it’s the radio in your room. Who else listens to it?”

There’s no lie that will cover it, so I pop in the last cookie.

“It’s okay. I mean…actually, my girlfriend listens to that radio show, too.”

“She does?”

“Yeah. She likes all those cheesy requests, and something about the announcer’s voice helps her sleep when she’s stressed out.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket, flips through a few things, and holds it out to show me. “That’s her—Amy.”

I try not to get any chocolate on the phone when I take it from him. On the screen is a picture of Brandon wearing a suit with his arm around a girl. She has long curly black hair and glasses, and she’s all dressed up, too. She’s pretty, but not the kind of girl I pictured Brandon with. She looks nice. “Where does she live?”

“Her vet school’s in Colorado. We met at Stanford. She was on the women’s softball team.” He takes the phone back from me. “I should probably give her a call. She’s got a big test coming up, and she’s freaking out.”

“Thanks for the cookies,” I say as Brandon heads for the door.

“No prob,” he says. “You know, you’re really lucky that Hector’s putting aside the time to help you with pitching. My boy misses his family back in the Dominican like crazy. I think it’s helping him feel more comfortable here, hanging out with you. Like you’re his substitute little sister or something.”

I don’t know what to say.

“Well, I gotta go call my girl. Night, Quinnen.”

“Night, Brandon.”

He closes the door a little too loudly, and when he gets back in his room, he’s so loud on the phone with Amy that I can barely hear After Midnight.

But that’s okay. Tonight, I don’t mind.