We worked away in silence, and for, like, the first time ever, I didn’t feel I had to talk. Just being with him was all I needed right then. Maybe that’s what he needed too. Was this what being best friends was really like? I wondered. If so, I was okay with the quiet.

Eventually Oren broke the silence. “Hey, Evie?” His eyes were down as he fiddled with the papers.

“Yeah?”

“Are you ever going to sign my cast?”

I glanced at the still-unmarked cast on his right arm. “I don’t know what to write,” I admitted.

“You?” he asked as he gawked at me, eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “You don’t know what to say?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s different. Whatever I write on your cast will be there forever.”

“Well, not forever,” he said. “I’ll get it off eventually.” The face he made told me “eventually” was not soon enough.

“Still. Everyone will see it. I don’t want to write something I’ll regret. Or worse, that makes you regret we’re friends.”

“Evie,” he said.

“All right!” I reached for my pencil case and pulled out a fine-tip green marker. Then I thought better of it and traded it for a thick brown one. Brown? No. Nobody wants brown writing on their cast. I traded the brown for purple as I thought about what to write. What had Nate’s friends written on his cast? Mostly silly stuff that didn’t make sense to anyone but him. Inside jokes, I guess.

“Are you stalling?” Oren asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “But we don’t have any inside jokes yet.”

“What?”

“My brother’s friends signed his cast with random inside jokes. But we don’t have any.”

“Do you not want to sign it?”

“I do!” I said. “I just…let me think about it some more, okay?”

“Fine,” he huffed and then turned his gaze to the picture again. “I think we should fill in the sky with blue. Maybe some curly white clouds too.”

“All right,” I said. “But I’ll need to cut some more blue strips. I don’t have any ready.”

“I wish I could help more,” he said, holding up his cast. “You’re doing most of the work. And…I think…” He looked more closely at the picture.

“What?” I asked.

“I want you in it too.”

I blinked at him as he pointed down at the picture.

“Maybe like…a bird? Or the sun? A rabbit maybe? Something special that’s separate from the tree but represents you.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Oren, no…I…I shouldn’t be in it. This is for your family.”

He shook his head as he looked at me seriously. “I want you in the picture. I want to be able to look at this and see you in it because you are my friend and you helped me.” Did he mean that I helped with the picture or that I helped him?

Maybe both.

“Okay,” I said. “If you’re sure. A bird would be cool. What kind?”