Eventually he calls out, “Maybe you can help me with these.”

He’s putting orange cones down in a pattern—around the three-point line, at the free throw line, and at a few other places in between. “I’d like you to set these cones up the same way on the other side of the court,” he says.

So that’s what I do. Pete’s probably watching me—setting everything up so he can play. Meanwhile, Mr. Tomski gets the players in a circle and takes them through some stretches. They’re all wearing white practice uniforms with HORNETS written across them in orange letters and a picture on the back that looks more like a friendly bee. It’s a dumb mascot, but I still feel jealous of those kids, because they belong together, and I don’t. It’s like, ever since I left New York, I’m on the outside looking in. That’s why you need a best friend. With Jake around, I was on the inside.

For the next two hours, I chase balls and move the cones around. Mr. Tomski gives me a clipboard, which has a piece of paper on it with all the boys’ names. Whenever they run a drill, Mr. Tomski wants me to put a mark next to the name of the boy who took the shot. An X if he misses the shot, and a check if he makes it. I feel sneaky, writing down these marks, because it’s just for the coach—the kids don’t get to see them. But it also makes me feel like I have some kind of power.

Pete is the best player on the court. He comes first in every race and ends up with the most checks by his name. Even the net acts different when Pete makes a shot—the ball spins back and almost seems to bounce into his hand. If he does miss, he scowls and shakes his head like he’s mad at somebody—like somebody made him miss. In fact, he even blames me. One of my jobs is to stand under the basket and get rebounds, then pass the ball back out so kids can work on their jump shots. Anyway, Pete doesn’t like the way I pass him the ball. He’s left-handed, so he wants me to throw the ball to his left hand. But three or four kids are shooting at once, I’m just trying to keep up.

“Come on, Ben!” he says. “I’m waiting.”

For some reason this reminds me of Jake. Sometimes, when we were hanging out, I used to wonder why I liked him. I mean, would I like him if I just met him, if he wasn’t already my friend? Jake is one of those kids . . . Even in school, he asks for a lot of attention. I don’t really like attention. Whenever he got a test back, if he got something wrong, Jake would say, “Oh, come on!” Like, loud enough for the teacher to hear. Not like he was really mad but just kind of pretending to be mad, so the teachers had to say something. And they always fell for it, they always said, “What is it now, Jake?” Pete’s kind of the same way. It’s like, whenever he misses, he has to let everybody know that something’s gone wrong, this isn’t supposed to happen. It’s like he thinks, How could this happen to me?