The next day was the big day. The one year anniversary of everything.

My parents and I sat on a pew with the Mirandas. The mass was all in Spanish for the mostly hispanic community that attended the church. The Mirandas had been coming here since they came into the country as newlyweds. This was where the boys were baptized.

We stood up when everybody did and they began to sign an hymn. My hand brushed Santi's and we laced our pinkies. Less notorious that way. His voice was deep and strong, not precisely in tune but he didn't care and neither did it. I closed my eyes and let it envelop me. I prayed in the only language I knew that Seb would be happy for us, that he didn't worry about us and rested in peace.

Their mom cried during the ceremony as the priest read Sebastian's name and asked the congregation to pray for him. It was the only part I understood and the one that mattered the most. When the service was done, we traveled in separate cars to the cemetery. My parents had bought an enormous bouquet of blue carnations. It sat next to me on the backseat and I stroked some of the petals.

"This is so terrible," my mom said from the passenger's seat. "I'm so glad they didn't do this alone."

My dad nodded.

Our parents never talked about it much, but they were like family, more than just neighbors. We'd been at the hospital even as the news were broken to the Mirandas. We cried with them. It was my parents, actually, who had enough strength to make the funeral arrangements. The Mirandas never forgot the gesture.

All I remembered doing was holding Santi's limp hand and wishing he'd cry. He hadn't, at all. Not back then.

We got to the cemetery and I held the bouquet with one arm. When I found Santi I grabbed his hand, not caring for the funny look dad shot at me.

"How are you doing?" I looked up at him as he tried to pull the knot of his tie just a tad looser. From afar we probably looked like the two little dolls atop a wedding cake. Me, with the flowers and a white and baby blue dress. Him with his pressed white shirt and blue tie. We all had a touch of the color, it had been Seb's favorite.

"I'm okay." He amended himself. "Better."

We followed our parents to Seb's grave. It was bright and warm today, even considering that the season had grown chillier in central Florida. We passed a young mother and her child, carrying a flag carefully folded into a triangle.

"Do you think this will get any easier?" I asked, breathless as if I'd run all the way here from church.

"Probably not."

We stopped abruptly a few paces before his grave. Santi and I let each other's hands go to see what made our parents freeze. And then we saw a woman as she laid flowers by Seb's headstone. She was maybe in her late 30s, with short, unkept hair and a look to her face as if she hadn't sleep for several days in a row. I tried to remember her, see if I'd seen her anywhere. I came up blank. Why would a stranger lay flowers on my best friend's grave?

"Who are you?" I found myself asking.

My question broke the spell. The woman looked up at us, stricken with fear as though we would try to hurt her. "I'm so sorry," she said with a trembling voice.

I looked at Santi, but he was just as confused.

Barbara stunned all of us by saying, in the most menacing and vicious voice I'd ever heard from here, from deep in her chest, her soul. "Get the hell out of here, "Don't you ever show your face in front of my family ever again."

"Barbara, please," Domingo said, resting his hand on her shoulder gently but securely. "Let's not do this in front of the kids."

"Papa, what's going on?" Santiago asked him.

As they wouldn't reply to him, it was my dad who turned and said, "This is the wife of the driver."

The woman flinched. "I'm so sorry."

I tried to shake off the warring emotions in my head. The grief and the anger that this woman's husband had such little care for his and others' lives that he got on his car, drunk out of his fucking mind, and still thought it was a good idea to turn it on and drive. I was angry that he was dead and I couldn't give him a piece of my mind. And I was sad that this woman probably felt exactly the same way as I did. Desolated, lost, confused about why, why?

I broke rank and stepped in between my parents. She watched me with fearful eyes as I approached and bent down over the grave. I grabbed her flowers, a colorful bunch that no doubt she bought at the entrance of the cemetery, and replaced them with my flowers.

I gave hers back. "Thank you, but no thank you. Best place these on your husband's grave."

She bit her lips, eyes filling with tears. "He doesn't deserve them."

I nodded. "But you're the only one who cares about his memory. We sure as hell don't."

I felt arms around me and caught my mom's perfume. She told the woman with a quiet strength in her voice that denoted finality, "Please leave now."

Finally she picked up the flowers I returned and turned our back to us. I watched her disappear between the graves and realized I'd been breathing with a limited supply of oxygen. I drew in a big gulp of air and turned around, only to drown in Barbara's arms.

Today was the big day, I reminded myself. The anniversary since Sebastian Miranda was stolen from us. The anniversary of the district game he would have won for us, if they'd taken a different road that night. If they hadn't crossed paths with a careless man.

We were up against the Holy Trinity High School Knights. They were the big contenders for the trophy and we were seen as the underdogs. But we'd made Seb a promise and today I reaffirmed it. We would win this for him. And for ourselves. We would prove we could fight on even after he was gone.

We drove back home in silence and I went up to my room to change. I got a text message from Ellen asking if I was ready for the game and I replied back with an aww yiss.

When we got to the school we found that the bleachers were completely packed. The cheerleaders were doing a practice routine in front of the audience. Jessica did a particularly flashy flip that made some of our boys cat call.

Dad clapped for their attention as we approached the dugout. "Alright kids, I hope you've enjoyed the show because now it's time for our own spectacle."

Chris jumped up. "We're ready."

"That's what I like to hear."

I lifted my notebook and cleared my throat, before rattling off the lineup for the game, batting order and the positions in the field. I could tell they were keyed up because so was I, the same jittery energy was running through my veins.

"Are we going to keep our promise?" I asked them.

A round of chorus greeted me. "Yeah!"

"Let's do this!" I screamed.

It was the longest fucking game and it was fraying my nerves. We'd lost to the Knights on a friendly before the start of the season, but ever since we'd been undefeated. We'd evolved. But so had they. Every pitch they batted off McCann, we caught or made up for with outs. Every pitch their ace threw, we hit or fouled or got outed on.

Including Santiago.

I grabbed him when he returned form a failed turn at bat. Thinking he might have the Yips again left me cold.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, tentatively. As if he were a fragile doll that would break at my touch.

He positively snarled at me. "Their fucking pitcher has a quirk, and I'll find it."

I saw him crouch down for the rest of the inning, not taking his eye off of the pitcher not even for the flies. I tried to observe him, too, see if there was anything special about his windup or in the way he held the ball. Dad was trying to decipher their signals at the same time, and he was the one who actually found something.

We were at the bottom of the eighth inning when he grabbed Santi and I by our shoulders. "Look at him now. He'll shake his head no. Three times he'll decline the catcher's signs before throwing a changeup. He's done that the whole game."

I looked at him in awe. "How did you notice?"

Dad winked at me. "Experience."

"Three times," Santi repeated, pensive. "It's my last at bat next. If I wait for the first two pitches to go by, get strikes, and then miss the changeup, we're done for."

I swallowed.

"Pretty much," dad said in a way too chirpy way that made both of us glare at him. "No pressure, son."

I blanched. "Dad, you're not helping!"

He turned around to the entire team and explained the situation, further increasing the pressure on Santi's shoulders. I wanted to hold his hand and tell him that it was okay if he failed. I'd love him all the same. But the problem was that that would be a lie. Yes, I'd love him all the same, but it wouldn't be fine. I didn't want him to fail. I wanted him to succeed and shine and go to where he'd never thought himself capable.

I didn't care that I was in front of the entire team and my dad, I grabbed Santi's shoulders and forced him to my eye level.

"You can do this," I told him. "You can do this. Say it, too."

He swallowed with difficulty. "I can do this."

"Fuck yeah, you can. You got this."

Chris walked up to us and patted his friend's back. "I believe in you, too."

Anthony piped in. "There was never any doubt. You're the man."

A few others joined, and even McCann stood up in front of his catcher and offered him a fist bump. Good enough.

Santi rubbed his sweaty hair and I repeated, enunciating every word with care. "You. Can. Do. This."

He nodded at me. When his turn at bat came and the cheering from our side of the crowd became deafening, I wondered if instead of helping him I'd put too much pressure on him to bear. I hoped he knew I was with him to bear it, too. That if we lost, I'd be pissed for him, not at him.

And then I filled my lungs with air and screamed, "Bring it home, Santiago!"

Santi froze and turned to me as he almost reached the plate. And then I saw the unexpected.

He smiled. Wide. Bright. Confident.

I joined my hands in prayer as he swung his bat twice. Dad stood next to me, hands on his hips, but I heard him muttering a prayer to God as well. I turned slightly and saw that all our boys looked engaged in a similar activity. Wow, we'd all become very devout all of a sudden.

I heard a clang and turned back to the game with my heart racing in my mouth. The umpire cried a foul. After the ball returned to the pitcher he shook his head once. Twice. Thrice.

I grabbed my dad's hands. "This is it."

He squeezed back. "This is it, honey bunny."

I didn't even react about the nickname. Santi swung his bat and I closed my eyes.

I didn't hear anything for what felt like eternity, until someone gasped. I opened my eyes, not knowing where to focus. I developed tunnel vision on my favorite boy. His bat was limp on his side as he looked up. I tried to follow where, but I couldn't see anything in the dark sky above him. Or in the grass. The sand. I saw the catcher stand up and the pitcher turn around. There was confusion. Where was the ball?

"There!" someone screamed, maybe from the crowd.

The word had no meaning to me, until Chris came running out of the dugout and pointed up.

There.

The ball flew so far up that it was almost imperceptible anymore. The center and left field players moved slowly in its direction. I started to repeat the word please like a mantra, and my dad joined. Then Chris. Then the entire team.

And yet the ball flew.

It flew clear off the field.

We erupted even before the crowd did. I jumped and hung myself from my dad's neck, hugging him like I hadn't in forever. With blurry eyes I saw Santi take off for the first base in a run, as though there was any possible way that the ball would come back and fall in a Knights' glove. Chris fell to his knees and held his head in his hands, positively wailing. When Santi finally touched home and the tally changed to 1 in our favor, he ran to us and fell in the arms of 21 people.

We won. By that one run only.

We ran to the field screaming and jumping on each other, and when I found him I fastened myself to him and refused to share him. We laughed, free and open and from our bellies, for the first time in a year. These tears were finally of joy. We kept our promise.

"I told you, you could," I said as he twirled me around.

His forehead rested on mine, his eyes closing. "Not without you, Pey."

And right there, on the mound in front of the entire stadium, he kissed me. And I was so overjoyed that I didn't realize my dad was there and saw everything.

And that I was effectively kicked out of the team.