The thing about it is, I don’t blame him for hating me. I don’t blame him for never wanting to be around me or talk to me. I get it. If I had never been conceived, Mom would still be alive. It’s my fault she’s not here. I’ve always gotten it.

But right now I need to share Carli with someone who won’t laugh. Even though we have no history of talking about girls, and I’m pretty sure the conversation will be awkward as hell, I want to sit on my father’s bed, like one of his patients, and talk about what I feel in my heart.

The slit underneath his door turns black, and the TV silences.

I lower my fist. It’s all good. I’ll go out back, lie under the trees, and talk to Mom, like I always do.

CARLI

I’m sitting in the gym after school on Wednesday, half reading a magazine and half watching my team run through plays. Even though I can’t practice, Coach Hill still wants me here because I’m the captain, the leader of the team. I swear every time she reminds me of that, which is every chance she gets, an alarm goes off in my head. An alarm that’s been sounding since Saturday. A reminder to tell her and the team that I don’t want to play anymore. That I’m not coming back to play after the surgery tomorrow.

With my Spanish book open to hide my magazine tucked inside, I’m reading an article about how numbers can provide clues to your life’s direction. The girl in the picture beside the article looks crazy-confident, like she knows exactly where her life is headed, and I’m trying to get a little bit of that.

Coach Hill blows her whistle, long and hard.

“Carli, watch out!” a few of my teammates shout.

I look up in time to miss a ball flying toward my head. It bangs loudly against the bleachers behind me.

“My bad,” Vanessa, my backup, says with a way-too-sorry look on her face. I didn’t see what happened, but I’m guessing she missed another one of Jordan’s hard passes. It’s really not her fault, though. Coach Hill plays me so much that Vanessa hardly ever touches the court. And now, with the playoffs so close, everyone’s putting on the pressure for her to step up.

“Why don’t you go ahead and take her out for the rest of the season?” Jordan, our point guard, yells at Vanessa. The bestie can be a little overprotective. She’s standing with her hands interlaced on top of her head—deep dimples in her milky brown cheeks even when she’s mad.

If you only knew, I think before saying, “I’m fine,” and get up to get the ball.

“Well, hurry up, then,” Jordan says, and jokingly gives me the middle finger.