All I can do is laugh. This fool must think that because he has the body of a linebacker and I’m on the lean side that he could take me. Clearly, he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know about all the scraps I’ve gotten into roaming the streets as a kid in my old neighborhood.

Josh walks off, throwing a weak “asshole” over his shoulder, and settles into a row toward the middle of the bus. The lights lower and the grumbling bus starts rolling.

Finally. I slide my left headphone back on, find Khalid in Spotify, and snuggle up with Carli.

Ten minutes later, thanks to her brother’s IG, I know Carli Renée Alexander is more than okay. Man, let me tell you. She’s perfect. And she’s in the hospital—not dead. It’s not like I really thought she was dead or anything, but it’s good to know she’s alive and well. And I’m playing a game at her school in a week! Doubt she’ll be there with the surgery and everything, but her brother is on the JV team, which plays right before our game. So I can give my number to him.

Twenty minutes later and I’m still digging. I’m not one of those crazy stalker dudes or anything. I just can’t stop looking for new pictures of her face. She has this cute little button nose, sprinkled with freckles, and these dark brown eyes that pop out of her pale brown skin and take hold of me.

Man, I can’t even tell you what I feel when I look at her face. It’s better than stepping into an empty gym before the sun comes up. Better than walking through the pines after it rains and having a stray drop land on my nose. Better than thumbing through Mom’s old poetry books, finding words I can feel. Or listening to her old records. Or staring at her old beetle collection. Looking at Carli’s face, it’s like I get lost to some kind of force. Sounds stupid, I know, but I’ve never felt anything like it before. Anything close.

I look up to grab a Snickers bar out of my duffel bag and notice most of the team crowded around someone’s seat toward the middle of the bus. I slide my headphones off and hear people cracking up.

“It must’ve been that big-ass afro,” someone says in a low voice.

“He likes big ’fros and he cannot lie,” someone else says in the rhythm of that old Sir Mix-a-Lot song.

Everyone laughs.

I think about Carli’s big red hair, about Nya’s natural puff. A knot forms in my chest and I stand up.