Free Found by Harlan Coben

Maybe he’ll start to think the rest of the guys are right about you.”
    I said nothing.
    “You see what I’m saying?”
    “I think so. It sounds like blackmail. Help Troy or look like the guy who set him up.”
    “That’s putting it too strongly,” Brandon said. “More like, help Troy and look like the kind of teammate other guys want to play with. Look like the kind of teammate other guys respect and look up to and want to be around. Look like the kind of teammate who stands up for his captain, even when it’s hard.”
    “Wow,” I said.
    “What?”
    “No wonder you’re always elected class president.”
    Brandon smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “Help him, Mickey. Help yourself. Help your team.”
    And because I’m a complete idiot, I told him that I would.

CHAPTER 14
    Ema did not take it well.
    “Are you out of your mind?” Ema asked.
    We were entering the lobby of the hospital, heading up to Spoon’s room.
    “If you’d just listen a second—”
    “Oh, I heard you. You want to help Troy Taylor! Troy Freakin’ Taylor!” She spread her arms. “What, are there no serial killers who need our help?”
    “Forget it. I’ll do it on my own, okay?”
    “No, not okay. We work together. That’s part of this. And we have more pressing problems, thank you very much.”
    “You mean your”—I tried to say it without sounding sarcastic—“boyfriend?”
    “Are you being sarcastic?”
    Like I said, I tried.
    “It’d be a waste of time anyway,” Ema said.
    “Why?”
    “Because you know Troy’s guilty.”
    “A lot of people don’t think so.”
    “Like who? Brandon? Look, Brandon is a nice guy, but he’s always been under Troy’s spell.”
    “I may need to do it,” I said.
    “Need?”
    “To help me.”
    “Help you how?”
    “To help get my teammates to see me in a new light.”
    She blinked. “Are you serious?”
    “They hate me, Ema. All of them.”
    “And you think helping Troy will do what exactly? Make all the jocks think you’re cool?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Because if you want to be cool, your best bet is to jettison the uncool people around you.”
    “Will you stop it?”
    We got into the elevator.
    “I still don’t understand,” Ema said. “What do you want out of this?”
    I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. There was no point. She wouldn’t understand. “Do you get what basketball means to me?”
    Ema met my gaze and moved closer. I felt something warm pass over me. “Yes, of course.”
    “You can’t be an outsider on a team,” I said. “You can’t be the loner sitting at a table in the corner.”
    “You mean like I do?”
    “No, I mean like
we
do. Basketball is a team sport. That’s the beauty of it. I want to be a part of that. It’s why I wanted my parents to settle in one place. So I could play on a real team. So I could know what that’s like—being part of a team and all that goes along with it.”
    I stopped because the emotion came suddenly. Suppose I hadn’t wanted that. Suppose I had just kept my mouth shut. Would my dad be alive (or with me)? Would my mom have stayed off drugs?
    Had my desire to be part of a real team destroyed everything?
    “I know that’s what you want, Mickey,” Ema said in the softest voice. “I get that. But helping Troy Taylor—”
    “Will show everyone that I’m willing to do
anything
to be a good teammate.”
    Ema shook her head, but she didn’t argue.
    We reached the door to Spoon’s hospital room. No one was around, so I knocked lightly and pushed it open. I heard Spoon’s voice:
    “Did you know that ants stretch when they wake up in the morning?”
    I smiled. Ah, Spoon.
    “Oh, and I mean ant like the insect. Not aunts like my aunt Tessie. She never stretches.”
    I wondered what nurse or doctor he was regaling with his random facts, but when I saw who it was, I pulled up short.
    It was Rachel.
    Spoon smiled at us from the bed. “Great,” he said. “We’re all here.”
    Rachel greeted Ema