The second the hallway cleared, I wanted to crawl into my locker and never come out. I hooked my leg onto the bottom shelf, testing if I could still fit—remembering third grade when Nico shoved TJ inside and smmed the door for ughs.

  Maybe Shon would shove me in now. At least that’d be something. But these days, all I got were smirks or silence.

  Friendship was dead. Shon was gay.

  Could Shon be my gay friend?

  Gym css loomed. Lunch after. My stomach churned. All I could picture was Shon and Mattie’s matching gres.Crystal and Nico would be there, but they were background noise.

  I grabbed my gym bag—shorts and tank top rolled inside—and dragged my feet toward the locker room, my red Jordans squeaking on the tiles.

  Ms. Wyman was gay. Not that anyone said it to her face. Only female gym teacher, but she never stayed to watch us change—just took roll call and dipped outside. Crystal swore she "stared at the girls," but ever since someone said it loud enough for her to hear, she’d been waiting in the hall. Rumor was she owned a horse, had a daughter, and kept a photo in her office of her with some short-haired, fnnel-wearing woman who dressed like my papa did. (Dead before I met him, but I’d seen the photos.)

  “Cosgrave!” Ms. Wyman barked from the stairs. “Hustle! You and Ware have three minutes.”

  The locker room reeked of Love Spell body spray—the kind Crystal doused herself in like bug repellent.

  Shit. Alone with Shon.

  I bolted inside, praying to avoid her. Shon never changed at the benches—always hid in the showers or a stall with Mattie. (*Couple behavior?* Now Nico’s words made it too obvious.)

  I sat on the bench, gym clothes in my p, ready to go. I’d worn my gray sweatpants and hoodie to school—no way I was stripping down to shorts with Shon right there.

  Thirty points off for not changing? My stomach twisted. Then the stall door creaked.

  She’s here.

  I shoved the clothes back in my bag and hauled ass out before she could see me.

  Mattie cornered me at the bottom of the stairs. “Where’s Shon?”

  “How should I know?” I snapped. “I’m not her keeper, Maude.”

  “You’re a bitch,” she hissed, stepping closer. “Why does she even like you?”

  Like me? My pulse spiked. Not like-like. Right?

  “As a friend,” Mattie sneered, so bitter it stung. “Which I don’t fucking get.”

  She shoulder-checked me— just hard enough to leave a bruise but not get caught. I shoved back.

  Sp-ready, I raised my hand—

  “Hey.”

  Shon’s voice cut through. Not angry. Not even loud. Just done.

  The birthmark on my left wrist itched like fire.

  Shon’s eyes flicked to it. “You okay?”

  She knows. The thought terrified me. How much had she noticed?

  “She’s fine,” Mattie snapped. “She started it.”

  Maude was annoying—but not the cute-and-sweet annoying like Shon.

  Shon stared at me, so close I could see the frayed threads on her hoodie sleeve. Her left foot tapped once, like she wanted to say something.

  Then she grabbed Mattie’s elbow. “C’mon.”

  No looking back.

  "Bleachers! Now!" Ms. Wyman's whistle pierced the gym. "Dodgeball or volleyball?"

  Nico fake-coughed. "Dodgeball. Volleyball's for gaaaaayyyyyys." He dragged it out unnecessary and annoying.

  The css howled. Even Ms. Wyman's mouth twitched. "Nico, detention if you finish that sentence."

  "Volleyball?" Three half-raised hands. "Dodgeball?" A cluster of arms - all the boys all the jocks, who always pyed like she had something to prove.

  "Cosgrave," Wyman pointed at me, "already down thirty for not changing. Don't make it forty for not voting."

  Nico made those obnoxious ooooh sounds, because of course he did.

  "Ware and Dones - you're captains." Wyman tossed Shon the ball instead of flipping for first pick. End-of-year rules, I guess. "Pick your whole teams today - you don't have to defer to you teammates."

  My stomach dropped. This was a setup.

  Shon picked me first. Not Mattie. Me.

  Was this some weird recruiting thing?

  I didn't even want to think about what Nico would say.

  Mattie just smirked, like this was some inside joke. Shon grabbed two nerdy boys next ("Human shields," she muttered), then finally took Mattie fourth.

  When Crystal got picked st, she flopped on the bleachers. "I'm not pying."

  "Zero for the day?," Wyman said. "Your funeral."

  Everyone cracked up. Wyman was the only teacher who didn't care what you said to her face. Gay rumors? Homophobic slurs? She'd just raise an eyebrow and keep chewing her gum.

  GAME TIME

  Shon mapped our defense like a general pnning D-Day: "You three - wall up." She positioned the nerdy boys in a half-circle around us girls. "You two-" The athletic guys got exiled to the corners. "Stay alive. Feed us balls."

  "Start scattered," she ordered. "Whistle blows, hit your marks."

  Nico's team just mobbed together. "This ain't fair! They cheating!"

  "Strategy, pussy," Shon shot back.

  "WARE!" Wyman's whistle shrieked. "Language!... But she's right, Nico. Don't be a baby 'cause she's outthinking you. She’s using brains, you using brawn. Change it up"

  Mattie hip-checked Shon. "We got both, over here" she whispered. They did their secret handshake - three sps, a snap, then finger guns so sharp they could've shot someone.

  Whistle. Game on.

  Nico wound up like a major league pitcher and fired straight at Shon's face. I saw it coming - two hands on my ball, holding it like a riot shield as I jumped between them.

  THWACK. His ball ricocheted off mine so hard my elbows vibrated.

  "NO HEADSHOTS!" I screamed.

  "DONES! OUT!" Wyman pointed at Nico like a judge sentencing him to the electric chair.

  His face turned the color of ketchup. The whole css lost their shit.

  Shon turned to me, pushing up her gsses with that one crooked finger she always used. "Thanks. Saved me." Her high-five stung my palm raw. "My dad would murder me if I broke these." She looked scared and relieved all at once - just like I felt scratching my burning birthmark.

  "No big deal," I lied, rubbing my hand. "Already lost thirty points today. Need all seventy I can get."

  Her left foot tapped twice against the gym floor - Morse code for something I'd never understand.

  Then Nico ruined it. "Saving your girlfriend," he sneered, kicking a ball so hard it hit the bleachers.

  Shon's hand nded on my shoulder before I could move. My birthmark itched. She saved me this time - because I was two seconds from unching my ball at Nico's stupid bleach-blond head.

  The whistle blew again. The game moved on. Without us.

  Shon Journal

  Today was the best day ever.

  Jess saved me from getting my ass whooped.

  I forgot my backup gsses for gym. But I had the strap Mattie gave me—bck, stretchy, with little fmes. A birthday gift. It actually works when I py. I can drive to the hoop without them flying off my face. It’s not the strap. It’s the gsses. They’re old. The prescription’s old and wrong. I see double when I run full court. But I wore them anyway, because I can’t afford to break my only real pair. Again.

  Last time, I got hit in the face with a basketball and they cracked. I had to wear them with tape in the middle for the whole year.

  We had a tournament Saturday. My mom got into it with Coach, loud, mid-game, yelling about how I should’ve been starting.

  I already got benched. My stomach was in knots. I could feel the girls’ eyes on me. Most of them don’t like me. Mattie does. Laurel, sometimes. The coach’s daughters smile in my face and talk shit behind my back.

  They go home after games, eat and ugh, y on the couch.

  I go home and get drilled.

  Not basketball drills.

  Dad drills.

  “Why you breathing like that?”

  “Pick your knees up.”

  “Hit the wall. Now sprint. Again.”

  “Wall taps. Push-ups. Go!”

  Inside the ceiling loft.

  After a whole day of pying. After a tournament.

  Tapping the wall in the hallway. Rebounding off nothing. Running the length of the house like I was in practice. Arms shaking on wall push-ups.

  I’m thirteen. This isn’t basketball anymore. It’s punishment.

  I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma in fourth grade. Doctor said it. My mom even got the prescription. But she never filled it.

  I reminded my dad I have asthma.

  He said, “Oh, then you don’t need to py basketball.”

  He wanted me to say okay.

  I didn’t.

  So, I guess I don’t have asthma.

  All weekend I felt betrayed. And berated.

  Jess and that ugh with Nico haunted me.

  I think she’s still mad about st week.

  I just—whatever. That’s not what hurt most.

  What hurt was my mom harping on me over what I wore.

  “Why do you dress like that? You got something to tell us?”

  She picked out those clothes herself. She shops at the wrong stores. Buys stuff she wants me to wear—nothing in style. I only have a few things I like, so I wear my basketball shirts, hoodies, jeans. The pants ride high. Shirt sleeves sit above my wrists. Everything rides up. I try to yer so no one sees.

  I’m not trying to be sexy. Or weird. I just don’t want anyone looking at me.

  But she thinks I’m hiding something. She’s always looking for what’s wrong with me.

  “You’re blowing up,” she says. “You keep eating like that—your father doesn’t want fat kids.”

  I wanted to scream. To tell him to look the other way.

  But I didn’t. I nodded. Said okay. Shut my door.

  That was wrong too.

  “Open this door. What you hiding in there?”

  Nothing. I just wanted to cry in peace.

  Saint came knocking ter. “Wanna py?” he said. He’s in sixth grade. Real smooth with the ball. Fast. Smart.

  I call him Sally sometimes to mess with him—he hates it in a funny way.

  But Dad? He loses his mind.

  “You call him Sally again, He ain’t no sissy. And you not a dyke.”

  I didn’t say nothing.

  Saint-Salvatino. That’s his real name.

  Yup

  Some made-up mix of Salvatore and Santino. Dad was proud of it, like it was royal. Sonny for short. It was not his first and middl: Saint-Salvantino was one word and his first name. But I call him Sally or Saint.

  And when I do—and Dad hears?

  “You’re a dy. Act like it.”

  My name is Shonnell. They named me after both of them—Nelvin and Shontel. So I go by Shon.

  Not because I hate my name. Because it feels cool. Feels like me.

  But even that’s a problem.

  Dad goes out most Saturday nights to hang with his boys. Those are the best hours of the weekend.

  Mom’s upstairs on the phone gossiping.

  Saint’s downstairs pying Xbox.

  I can watch UConn, or py Oregon Trail.

  Once Mom gets tired of talking, I can get on the computer. Check AIM. Email Mattie.

  That’s when I snuck into her room.

  I knew what I was looking for.

  Her jewelry box. Not the good one. The one with the broken stuff.

  I found an old chain with a busted csp. She never wears it.

  I’d already taken five pennies from Dad’s change bottle—he’s been filling it since I was born. It comes up to my hip. He won’t miss five cents.

  I gave two of the pennies to Jess already.

  They were in the paper football pocket.

  Two more I kept for the neckce I want to make her.

  One I kept for good luck.

  It’s the one I dropped in the cafeteria this morning. It rolled under the table and Mattie said, “Leave it—it’s fate.”

  She always says weird stuff like that. I listen.

  Mattie’s name is actually Maude. She used to be Bad Maddy. But this year she wants to drop that.

  She said Shon and Mattie would get more respect with boy names. Said they’re cool. Badass.

  She hates Maude. Said it sounds like an old white dy name. She’s half-white, half-Hispanic.

  Lives in Central North Windsor, but ended up at my school because her mom used her dad’s address on the Northside.

  Her parents are split but still cool with each other. They show up to games. Cheer. Laugh. Buy snacks.

  My mom shows up to argue with the coach.

  Then bmes me for everything.

  Back in third grade, I tried to make a friend. Christina and her twin sister were the only ones who smiled at me. I wrote Christina a note, asking if she wanted to be my friend.

  My mom found it in my backpack.

  Held it up like a piece of evidence. Showed my dad.

  “You do this?”

  “You don’t ask people to be your friend,” my mom said. “You let them come to you.”

  We’d just moved to this neighborhood. Mostly white. Not all, but enough that I felt it every day.

  I was the new Bck girl in a sea of pale kids with straight hair and lunchables. Four Bck kids in my css. We moved from the capital, where it was way more Bck and Hispanic. But my dad bragged about getting us out the city. Into the suburbs.

  First day, I saw some girls riding bikes past my house. I ran outside to say hi—

  They pedaled off before I could get the words out.

  A white boy on the bus called me mop head.

  My mom had cut my hair into this mushroom bowl. It bounced when I ran. I hated it.

  I didn’t fit in with the white kids. And the Bck kids already had their cliques.

  I stuttered when I got nervous. Got sent to speech css.

  Then I’d visit my cousins who lived in the city, and they’d say I talk white.

  But the white kids still corrected me. Said I sounded ghetto.

  I tried telling jokes. Got in trouble for talking.

  Tried to impress my bully by bringing a water gun like he did.

  He told on me.

  I got called to the principal’s office.

  My mom had to come get me.

  And when I got home?

  Lash. To the ass and hands.

  “I send you to that school to get an education. You not one of them white kids.”

  I made the mistake of saying Kyle brought one too.

  But Jess—

  Today

  Jess stepped in front of a rubber bullet for me.