full uniform, she resembled a goddess. Her long legs stretched out of those red shorts. Off the field, she laughed and posed and teemed with personality. I knew the camera loved her as much as she loved it. Gil showed me more footage one day after practice, and her star power blew me away. Her beauty and strength powered through the lens, and her smile was so brilliant that it crowded everything and everyone else out. Still, she couldn’t carry the show by herself.
She pitched every inning of every game, seeming never to tire. She wanted the ball as much as she wanted to hit when the game was on the line. My mother came to every home game, and on occasion my father was there. As was the case with Willow, everyone seemed to be drawn to Ray “Swisher” Eaves, a legendary hoop player back in his day. In one of his yearbook photos, he’s smiling and holding a basketball under his arm, his long black hair flowing down his neck, like that of a warrior prince.
We blitzed through the play-offs, and I had a great couple of games, making some nifty plays on the field. I slapped at the ball and beat out my share of dribblers, which allowed Willow to drive me home time and time again.
All that time, the police continued to search for Dakota. Did we talk about him? We must have. I’m almost certain that we did. I think that Willow and I thought alike on the matter: that Dakota had run off somewhere and wouldn’t be returning. But I’m merely guessing at this. Neither of us really believed that something bad could happen to a kid like Dakota. The common view was that he was too beautiful, too strong and proud, and was blessed with so many positive attributes. A boy like that didn’t just die. None of us thought we would ever die. We were young and had our entire lives in front of us.
Of course, I knew the real Dakota and hated him for what he’d done to me. Personally, I was glad he was gone, even though I’d convinced myself that I was equally to blame for what had happened that night.
The state championship game arrived. Of all the teams to face, it stunned me to go up against Chance Academy. All the girls appeared excited as we warmed up along the foul lines. The unspoken truth was that it was the rich kids versus the poor townies—except for Willow. Before the game started, Willow spent more time socializing with the opposing team than with the team she played for, although that didn’t really surprise me. She had gone to school with many of those kids and lived in the same neighborhood.
As I played catch with Lisa Powers, I looked up in the stands and saw practically my entire hometown sitting there. My mom, included. But where was my dad? I should have expected he wouldn’t show up. Gil roamed the field during warm-ups, videotaping everything. Drew stood with his friends in the back row, and they were whooping and whistling and punching each other’s arms. Wads of tobacco protruded from their lips. When I looked over at Willow, I saw Coach Hicks standing with her on the practice mound, whispering in her ear, his arm around her shoulder. It struck me as odd. Was he giving her a last-minute pep talk? Then I saw Julian standing by the right-field fence, on the Shepherd’s Bay side. He wore a gray wool cap and inhaled vape smoke. He looked so alone that for a moment it made me sad for him. Didn’t he have any of his own friends at that school?
I don’t recall much of the game. It went by in a blur, and the next thing I remember, we were dancing on the pitcher’s mound and celebrating our championship. Gil circled around us like a vulture, filming it all. The crowd thundered with applause. I heard Drew shouting out my name and whistling through his oil-stained fingers. It momentarily made me feel guilty for cheating on him. A scary thought hit me as I turned to look at him. Could he have found out about my and Dakota’s night together and killed Dakota? He hunted deer and moose and had lots of guns in his house, and he shot most weekends in a gravel pit outside of town. And although he had a long fuse, he had a very