‘Uh. Yeah.’ She raises a sceptical eyebrow. ‘We’re on a lacrosse field. It’s not a school trip. We’re not just here to grab concessions, take photos, and hit the road.’

Without any further explanation, she heads off to the garage, leaving me outside with just the field, so many questions, and a singular memory.

May came around the ranch house from where they kept the horses. She had on worn jeans and a pink equestrian jacket. Stomping over wearing the chunkiest boots, she eyed all five of us, myself and four friends from Prosperity and Eagle Rock, with exasperation. Even at ten years old, she had an attitude like a barbed whip, an attitude that I felt the full force of when her analytical gaze fell on me, and the corner of her mouth twitched sassily.

I shifted my stick from hand to hand. ‘We were gonna play, if you are.’

May’s brow furrowed. She tightened her ponytail, which, back then, had been a big poof of curls that she hadn’t yet managed to tame, and grabbed her matching hot pink lacrosse stick from where it leaned against the fence. An insistent snap of her fingers in Michael’s direction got her the ball. She tossed it up in the air and caught it and, in her boots, marched towards the face-off circle her parents had drawn in the field.

‘I’ll play.’ She pointed to the spot across from her. ‘Draw, Colt.’

I was doubtful. May was a whole foot shorter than me, and definitely more than a couple pounds lighter. I thought I’d tip her over, but what I didn’t realize at the time was that May Velasco didn’t just have the uncanny ability to lead a team. She had the ability to lead herself, and that allowed her to push the limits of what everyone else thought was possible. Including me, I learned when she planted her booted feet across from my sneakered ones, met my eyes, and propped the back of her stick’s head against mine. That was the first time I ever played her in lacrosse, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

‘Colt!’

May’s voice, from the centre of the field, snaps my wandering mind to attention. She waves my way. ‘Well? Right into it!’