“You wanna go to the Bandits game with us?” Casey asked when I picked up the phone the morning after we got back from the Adirondacks.

“Of course.”

“How about Haley?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t tell him that Haley hadn’t spoken a word to me since the night she and Zack broke up. Even though it rained for two days straight and we were all stuck in the house. Not even during the thirteen-hour car ride home. Every time I tried to talk to her—to apologize—all she did was ignore me.

“More food money for us!” Casey said. “See you in half an hour.”

I was rooting around for my Bandits shirt when the doorbell rang. Nobody ever used the doorbell except people selling stuff or asking for donations. I went to the window to see who it was. Standing on the doorstep was Zack with a bouquet of sunflowers. Haley’s favorite. Mom and Dad were in town picking up groceries, so it was just me and Haley at home.

“Haley!” I shouted.

No answer.

The doorbell rang again.

I ran downstairs and opened the door. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I miss her,” Zack said. “Is she around?”

I nodded and let him inside. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to let in strangers and Zack still felt like a stranger, but I needed to make things better with Haley. Maybe this could be the start.

I ran back upstairs, knocked on Haley’s door, and waited. Nothing. “Come on, Haley. It’s important.”

Still nothing. I turned the doorknob; she hadn’t locked it. She was lying on her bed, listening to music with her headphones on. She pulled them off the second she saw me.

“Zack’s here,” I said. That got her up. “He’s downstairs,” I whispered. “He brought flowers.”

She ran over to the mirror, rubbed her face a bit, and adjusted her T-shirt.

“You look fine,” I said to her.

She went downstairs. I could hear her and Zack talking in the kitchen. She sounded like nothing was the matter, like the breakup was no big deal. I grabbed my glove and ball from off my bureau and went outside. I knew what Mom would say: Haley deserved privacy.

I ran out into the backyard and threw some killer pop-ups. It was so sunny I had to squint to see the ball. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. I’d have to make sure to bring my cap for the game. I threw the ball higher and higher, and every time, I caught it.

Maybe things would be okay now, I thought. If Haley and Zack got back together, Haley would forgive me. She’d have to, right?

It was almost time for Casey’s mom to come pick me up, so I went inside to get my Bandits cap. The sunflowers were in a vase on the kitchen counter, but Haley and Zack were nowhere in sight. I ran upstairs. That’s when I heard them. They were in Haley’s room.

They must have heard me coming up the stairs because Haley opened the door right as I was walking down the hallway.

“Zack and I are going to drive into Chicago and go to Millennium Park,” Haley said. “They’re putting on a free concert.” Her whole face looked so different than it had the past few days. It wasn’t just that she was smiling. Even though she and Zack had broken up, she still smiled sometimes. It was her eyes. They sparkled.

“Cool,” I said. She was talking to me. She could have left a note for Mom and Dad, or called them. But she was talking to me instead.

“You okay hanging out here until Mom and Dad get back?”

“I’m going to the Bandits game with Casey. He and his mom will be here any second.”

“Fun,” Zack said. “I’ve always wanted to go to a Bandits game. We should all go sometime. Like a double date. Casey’s a guy, right?”

Haley cracked up while I pretended to vomit. “Casey is not my boyfriend.”

“Okay,” Zack said. “Just putting it out there.”

Haley tugged on the sleeve of Zack’s hoodie. “Let’s go,” she said.

I grabbed my hat and followed them outside to wait for Mrs. Sanders.

I sat down on the front porch steps with my glove. Haley and Zack got into Zack’s car, but they didn’t leave right away. Zack was busy saying something to Haley. He rolled down the car window. “You want us to wait with you?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. Really.” I smiled and waved.

“Okay.” He gave me the thumbs-up sign, backed the car out of the driveway, and drove away.

Haley must have called Mom and Dad to ask their permission, but just in case, I scribbled down a note about where both of us were and left it on the kitchen counter under the sunflowers. When I finished, Mrs. Sanders was pulling her van into our driveway. “Who’s ready to see the Bandits kick some Flyers butt?” she asked as I got into the backseat with Casey.

“Mom,” Casey said. “It’s not cool when you say it.”

“Well, excuse me.” Mrs. Sanders smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “Alert the media. I am not cool.”

I smiled. The whole car ride, I thought about double-dating with Haley and Zack. I didn’t think Casey understood why I had to look out the window to keep from giggling.

—

The Bandits were down, 4–2, in the bottom of the eighth with two outs and a runner on second when the third baseman, Ryan Gregory, stepped up to the plate and, at that moment, Mrs. Sanders’s cell phone rang.

“Come on, Bandits. You’ve got this!” I shouted.

“All we need is a home run to tie it up,” Casey said. “This is our guy.”

“I know. But he’s in a slump. He hasn’t hit a homer in two weeks.” I clasped my hands together like I was praying. “Come on, Ryan! You can do it.”

Someone closer to the field level started chanting, “Let’s go, Bandits,” and then we were all saying it. Louder and louder.

Mrs. Sanders had her phone pressed hard to one ear and her finger to the other ear. She was biting her lip and looking out at the game, but not like she was watching.

Ryan swung at the first pitch, and the ball smacked into the catcher’s mitt.

“Strike one!” the umpire yelled.

Mrs. Sanders put her phone down on her lap. “I’m so sorry, but we need to go now.”

“But the tying run’s at the plate!” Casey was super-whiny when he said it, the kind of whiny Mom and Dad never let me and Haley get away with.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Sanders said again. She put her hand on my shoulder. “We need to get you home.”

The whole walk back to the car, Casey yammered on and on about how his mom had promised we could go out for ice cream after the game and how it wasn’t fair that we weren’t going. All I could think of was that I was in trouble. Mom and Dad must not have seen my note and didn’t know where I was, and they’d had to call Haley, and Haley told them I was at the game.

I should’ve waited for them to get home before I left. They said I could still go to my baseball tournament, but they hadn’t said anything about Bandits games. Maybe my punishment was going to be no Bandits games for a week, but then I went.

When Mrs. Sanders pulled into my driveway, Casey was still complaining about the broken ice-cream promise. I told them both good-bye, and Mrs. Sanders said something to me that didn’t make any sense: “We love you, sweetie.”

I went in through the front door.

“Mom?”

The house was so quiet I could hear the sprinkler outside. Chk-chk-chk-chk.

I walked into the kitchen. The sunflowers were still there. My note was still tucked under the vase. “Mom? Dad?”

Through the window, I saw the backs of their heads on the porch swing. You’re in for it now, QD. I went out the back door, ready for my punishment.

Dad started talking first. “Hey, honey,” he said, and then he took a shaky breath, the kind dads don’t take. I realized I didn’t have my glove. I must have left it in the van. My hand felt empty and wrong. “Your…your sister and Zack were in an accident on their way into the city.”

I clenched my hand into a fist and stared back at Dad. “Are they okay?”

Dad slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Is she in the hospital? Can I go see her?”

But Dad kept shaking his head.

“Haley…died,” Mom said. There was this little warble in her voice, like she had swallowed wrong. “Another car on the highway lost control, and it hit her side of the car.” I kept looking at her. “They said it happened so fast she didn’t feel anything.”

If Haley died, they would be crying. I would be crying. And I wasn’t. They weren’t.

I looked at Dad and then at Mom and then at Dad again. This time, I saw the tissue folded in Dad’s hand. The corner of Mom’s eye that kept twitching. The salt crusties on Dad’s cheeks.

No.

“I think I left my glove in Mrs. Sanders’s van.”

“Quinnbear,” Dad said, reaching his arms out toward me.

This time he was crying.