“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.

I smile, happy she’s playing with me. We’ve been kind of distant this week. She’s been complaining that I’ve been too quiet, that I’ve been keeping something from her. But there’s no way I can tell her about quitting the team. And I can’t tell her about my parents, either. Telling her would make it too real.

At least we’ve had Rex to talk about. She’s convinced the kiss was at least partially for me. You see, he broke up with his girl hours after catching me.

Jordan knows because she has a cousin who has a best friend who has a boyfriend who plays basketball for Woodside who said that Rex broke up with his girl on the bus and everyone heard. Said she cursed Rex out so bad for leaving her that he had to hold his phone out of the window so he wouldn’t have to listen to it all. Sounds crazy, I know. Why not just hang up in her face? Maybe because he’s too sweet.

As I walk to get the ball, which bounced two rows down and rolled to the opposite side of the bleachers where the band always sits, I reach to touch the hospital menu in my back pocket, to make sure it’s still there. I’ve been secretly carrying it everywhere with me since Saturday. Gonna write my number on the back and give it to Jordan to give it to Rex when he plays at our school Monday. I don’t even have to tell you how bad I wish I could go (holding-my-pee-until-the-end-of-the-movie bad). But I’ll be at home recovering from surgery.

After I retrieve the ball, I overhead pass it back to Jordan as hard as I can.

Jordan catches the ball and immediately drives down the lane for a layup, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth and the wristband on her left arm pulled up over her elbow.

“You ain’t Michael!” I jokingly shout.

She makes the layup. “Oh, I’m not?” she asks, and walks the ball way out beyond the three-point line. She shoots and it drops.

“Oooooooo,” the team says in unison. But I’m not even surprised.