But she stood her ground as Kathleen said, “I did not call you off!”
Sarah was still looking at Cassie, as if Cassie in that moment was the one friend on the team she had. And maybe Cassie was.
“She said, ‘Mine,’ ” Sarah said. “That’s why I stopped.”
Kathleen said, “That’s a lie.”
Now Sarah said, “Yes you did, yes you did, yes you did,” her words all running together.
“Girls,” Cassie’s dad, trying to keep his own voice calm, “this needs to end.”
“You mean until she loses us our next game?” Kathleen said. “She’s the one who called ‘mine.’ ”
Then why, Cassie thought, did Kathleen keep running?
“I didn’t say anything,” Kathleen said.
Now Sarah Milligan was the one yelling, and starting to cry at the same time.
“YES YOU DID, YES YOU DID, YES YOU DID!”
She couldn’t stop the words from coming out of her this way, the way she couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face.
“YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!”
She wasn’t addressing the whole team now.
Just Cassie.
But when Cassie hesitated just enough, not even knowing what she was supposed to say, not knowing what the right answer was, Sarah was on the run again. She didn’t run in the direction of her parents, waiting behind the bench with the other Red Sox parents. She just took off across the outfield at Highland Park, only stopping long enough to open the door in center field. Then she ran again, in the direction of town.
Cassie ran after her.
TEN
Cassie was fast, but Sarah Milligan was faster.
Cassie wasn’t sure what Sarah’s parents planned to do about their daughter taking off this way, or how concerned they were, or if they’d already gotten into their car. She didn’t know if this happened a lot with Sarah. But Cassie wasn’t waiting to find out.
Maybe Sarah took off all the time, and always ended up in the same place. Maybe this was a routine for her too. But Cassie didn’t care.
She ran, even though Sarah had a good lead on her.
Sarah crossed the kids’ playground at Highland Park, cut across the big field where the Walton High School team played its games, then through the soccer field next to the duck pond. If Sarah had started to get tired, or slow down, Cassie didn’t see it, because as far as Cassie could tell, she hadn’t made up any ground, and might have lost some.
At their second-to-last practice before the season had started, Sarah had run down another ball that Cassie had thought was uncatchable when Brooke hit it. But when Sarah did catch it, Cassie’s dad said, “That girl can run all day.”
Cassie hoped that wasn’t actually true.
If Cassie could just catch her, she could tell Sarah what she should have told her on the field, even in front of their teammates:
That she believed her.
• • •
Sarah was running in the direction of downtown Walton.
When she got there, she finally stopped, as if she weren’t sure where she wanted to go next.
She had run past the bookstore, and Rosie’s Café, and Fierro’s, and Cold Stone. By the time she did stop in front of a clothing store called Family Britches, Cassie was a block behind, but didn’t call out to her. Cassie had never seen Sarah look back, so she couldn’t know that Cassie had been chasing her since Highland Park. But Cassie was afraid that if she did call Sarah’s name, the girl might just take off again.
Sarah had her hands on her hips, staring across Main Street, as if she were deciding where she was headed next. Or maybe she was the one who’d finally gotten tired, and was just catching her breath.
Cassie stopped running, getting her own breath under control, until she was a few feet behind her.
She made sure to keep her voice under control too.
“Sarah,” she said.
Sarah wheeled around, eyes wide, and Cassie really was afraid she might bolt all over again. But before she could, Cassie smiled at her and said, “Please don’t make me chase you again.”
“What do you want?”
“To talk to you.”
“Why?” Sarah said. “Nobody believes me.”
“I do,” Cassie said.
Sarah frowned. “Then why didn’t you say so back at the field?”
“I didn’t get the chance before you turned into Usain Bolt.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you were the one who stopped and she was the one who kept running,” Cassie said. “If you called her off the ball, it should have been the other way around.”
“I know,” Sarah said, almost as if she were in pain.
Cassie was afraid Sarah might start crying again, and watched now as she took in deep gulps of air as if doing everything she could not to cry.
“But what difference does it make?” Sarah said. “Even if you do believe me, nobody else on the team does. And now they’re not going to want me on the team more than ever.”
She was right, and Cassie knew it. Not all of their teammates were going to think that way. Enough of them were, though.
But Cassie wasn’t going to tell that to Sarah.
“We can’t do anything about that right this minute,” Cassie said. “And a lot of things get said after you lose a game like that.”
Actually, Cassie couldn’t even remember what it was like to lose a game like that, because it had been so long.
Sarah didn’t respond at first, so Cassie kept going. “For now, the first thing we have to do is let your mom and dad know where you are. Do you have your phone with you?”
“It’s in my bat bag back at the field.”
“Do you know their number?”
Cassie knew it was a dumb comment as soon as she’d made it. Sarah picked right up on it.
“You think I don’t?”
“No,” Cassie said. “But there’s plenty of numbers I don’t remember. It’s why they invented contacts.”
Sarah slowly recited the number.
Cassie had her phone with her, having grabbed it from her own bat bag as soon as the game had ended. She tapped out the number, and when Mrs. Milligan answered on the first
