For a moment, I pretend that what follows is good, happy.

When were you gonna tell me you’re really taking pride in your lawn-mowing?

When were you gonna tell me you can actually sing?

But this isn’t that. This is the setup to an ongoing series I call What’s Wrong with Jamal, starring Jamal Anderson as himself and costarring Everyone Else.

She asks again, so I bite. “Tell you what, Whit?”

“You’re skipping class again? Really? I thought we . . .”

I hold the phone away from my ear until she stops talking. “I’m not skipping,” I say into the receiver.

“Then how come Mrs. Sweat wants a meeting Monday?”

“Okay, I got to school the other day and I didn’t feel well and . . .”

Whit sighs. “Dammit, Jamal. This is serious.”

How long before she says your future?

“This is your future we’re talking . . .”

Kids dot the lawn like pushpins. Kids in the infinity pool guzzle from red Solos, play flip-cup on the edge. This pool’s a mood ring, the cool cerulean water now purpling.

When Whit finishes outlining my current path toward oblivion, I tell her:

I’m sorry.

It won’t happen again.

Not to worry.

“They will remove you from my custody, Jamal. Is that what you want?”

This is the part where I reaffirm my commitment, where she questions if she’s failing me. “I want to stay where I am,” I tell her. And I mean it.

“We gotta figure this out,” Whit says.

This being me.

But before I can reply, Autumn’s tugging on my arm.

“I gotta go,” I tell Whit, ending the call. “What’s going o—” But I don’t finish.

I follow Autumn’s eyes across the patio just before the detonation.

His laughter trips a blast of memories, each a land mine that shrapnels through me. That goofy grin, slumped shoulders, his knees bent like he can hide his Goliath ass.

“Maybe the Universe wants you to make good,” Autumn says, in a way that makes the Universe sound like some benevolent god, or at the very least, your I’m just trying to help mom.

Except that’s not the Universe I know.

And it’s definitely not the Universe that knows me.

98

Nutshelled: last time I spoke to Quincy Barrantes, I was an asshole.

I own it.

And okay, sure, we’ve had conversations since then, like:

’Scuse me.

Nooope.

Yeah, lots of those exchanges.

But mostly, I take minor precautions to ensure our paths don’t intersect. Like when I flung my bike into prickly shrubs, then dived in after it. And yeah, Q ended up walking the opposite direction, but whatever.

In the interest of zero unhealthy confrontations, avoidance is the best policy.

Which, trust me, Q also appreciates; only thing he hates more than me is confrontation. Q, a magnet for bullies—how many times had I stepped in front of him? Taken blows meant for him?