Wild Pitch by Matt Christopher

coyly.
    “Like maybe I like her.”
    His mother smiled.
    “Well, you are trying to make up to her, aren’t you?”
    That was true, of course. But it wasn’t that he
liked
her. Liking her and trying to make up to her were two different things.
    “I guess I am,” he admitted.
    “Then don’t feel self-conscious about taking the flowers,” she told him. “I think it’s a beautiful gesture, no matter what
     your reasons are.”
    She got a roll of Saran wrap from under the kitchen sink, tore off a piece from it, and wrapped it around the flowers.
    Eddie watched her, while her words ran through his mind again, and he wondered if he detected a double meaning in them. Frowning,
     he said, “Mom, you don’t think that I … that I really like her, do you?”
    Her eyes twinkled, and she grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him so that he faced the door. “So what’s so terrible about
     it if you do?” she said. “Girls and boys don’t have to be enemies forever just because of a wild pitch, do they?”
    He pondered that as he headed toward the door, and agreed with her. But what was Monahan’s opinion about that? If she was
     anything like thatcrazy cousin of hers, he might as well forget about ever getting on friendly terms with her.
    He went out, looked up and down the street, saw no one he knew coming from either direction, and hurried to the garage. He
     opened the door, got out his bike, and rode it to the hospital.
    As he stepped up to the receptionist, he saw by the large wall clock behind her that it was five minutes after two.
    “Good afternoon,” the woman greeted him sweetly. “Help you?”
    “May I see Phyllis Monahan?”
    The woman adjusted her pince-nez glasses and smiled. “I’m sorry, but only two people can see her at a time. There are two
     visiting her now, and two are waiting. Would you like to sit down and wait?”
    He looked behind him and felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. One of the two people sitting in the waiting
     room was Monahan’s cousin. Their eyes met, and Eddie thought he had never seen such a cold look in his life. With the cousin
     was a girl a few years younger than he. Probably his sister, Eddie guessed.
    He turned back to the receptionist and hoped that his discomfort didn’t show.
    “I don’t think I’ll wait,” he said.
    “Suit yourself.”
    He looked at the flowers in his hand, conscious of their pleasant smell, and wondered whether to leave them. Sure as heck
     Monahan’s relatives were eyeing him this very minute, wondering what he was going to do, too.
    He looked back at the woman. “Thank you,” he said, coming to a decision, and left.
    Outside, he started down the steps and flung the flowers between two clumps of bushes. He would’ve left the flowers with the
     receptionist if that darn cousin of Monahan’s hadn’t been there.
    I wonder what he would’ve said if I had left them? Eddie asked himself. Would he have demanded them from the receptionist
     and thrown them in the basket? Or would he have been more clever and told the receptionist politely that he’d take them up
     to Phyllis when he went to see her, and then thrown them away?
    Whatever, Eddie felt better not leaving them. He went to the parking lot, got on his bike, and took off for home. His thoughts
     remained on Monahan. He wondered if he’d ever get to see her while she was in the hospital. Maybe he should have stayed, he
     thought.
    And what about that ding-a-ling cousin of hers? I can’t let him haunt me every time I see him. One of these days I’ve got
     to face him, because oneof these days I’m going to see Monahan. I’ve got to. I’m not going to let her keep thinking that I hit her on purpose. All
     her friends probably think the same thing, and would make her believe it too. I have to fix that—fix it as soon as possible.
    He got home and told his mother what he had done with the flowers.
    She frowned at him. “You threw them away? Why, for Pete’s