His friend’s voice was frantic on the other end of the line.

Oliver had only heard him that upset one other time, when they had climbed a nasty old chain-link fence in Bywater and Micah had sliced his palm open on a jagged link at the top. The cut clearly needed stitches—there had been blood soaking Micah’s clothes, all down the front of his new Saints T-shirt. The blood was on Oliver, too, but somehow he remained calm, got Micah to pedal on his bike back through the neighborhood toward home. Then came Micah’s grandmother and a trip to the hospital, and it was all fixed.

Oliver wasn’t so sure any phone call or hospital could fix this. He could hear something sizzling and popping in the background, and his friend could barely breathe as he wheezed into the cell phone.

“Ollie? Ollie, oh shit, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. . . .”