And now I’m jogging down the side of the humanities building, running my fingers along the brick facade, glaring into each of the open rectangular windows.

And then I see my calculus teacher seated at her desk, and she meets my eyes, but I’m looking past her, I’m looking at the kid who, when I sprained my ankle playing neighborhood football, carried me off the grassy knoll and the entire quarter mile home.

The kid who’d seen me at my worst but had still wanted to stay.

The teacher walks over to the window. “Jamal, you can’t disrupt our club meeting. In fact, why aren’t you headed home already?”

“Excellent question, Ms. Haddish,” I say. “One that deserves a considerate answer.” I poke my head inside the window frame so she can’t close it.

“Jamal, please move along. You can’t cause a disturbance. Now if you don’t wanna be here, fine, we can’t force you to stay, but . . .”

I shake my head. Because why did everyone think that?

That I didn’t want to be in the places I was at?

Why had no one ever asked me why I didn’t want to be here? Instead of just deciding oh well, it’s your loss.

Maybe Mrs. Sweat was righter than she knew.

Maybe I was being swallowed up.

Maybe I’d forgotten how to be me. The old carefree Jamal. Silly, fun-loving Jamal.

“You’re right, Ms. Haddish. And I’m really, truly sorry for interrupting your club, and I promise I’m gonna leave in like fifteen seconds, but please, please let me just say one thing first.”

She crosses her arms. “Jamal.”

“Please,” I beg, tenting my hands together in prayer. “Fifteen seconds. That’s it. I just need to tell my old pal Q something.”

“Jamal, if this is some kind of vendetta or . . .”

“It’s not that.” I wave my arm in Q’s direction. “Hey, man, are you . . . hey, c’mon, can you just look at me for a second?”

But Q keeps staring straight ahead, as if he can’t hear or see the guy flagging him down in the window.

Ms. Haddish sighs. “Q, will you please just . . .”

Q turns my way.

“Q, I . . . I don’t know how to start this, but I’m just gonna . . . I’m just gonna try . . . okay, it doesn’t matter . . .”

Ms. Haddish taps her watch. “You have like five seconds left.”

I shake my head. “Okay, look. I’m sorry, Q, for treating you like crap when . . . when my parents died. You didn’t deserve that. I know that. And I’m sorry it’s taken all this time for me to tell you as much. I’m sorry that you had to . . .”

Whoa, Jamal, easy, boy. You nearly spilled the reanimation beans.

“You see, the truth is . . . the truth is . . . I blamed you, Q. I blamed you for what happened.”