“Yeah, maybe. I mean, it’s whatever, you know? It’s not like I’m thirsty and begging to hang out. I mean, I have friends. I don’t need a social life or whatever . . .”

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

“Yeah, for sure. I know you got stuff going on, li’l mama,” he says as he studies me.

His stare makes me dizzy in the best way possible.

“Ayo, I wanted to ask you for a favor,” he says.

Oh crap. He wants homework help. Great. That’s what all of this was about? No reason to change my social status?

“What class do you need help in?” I ask, deflated.

“What? Nah, I got that on lock. This isn’t about that.”

And . . . we’re back!

“Okay then, what’s this favor you need?” I ask, daring to stop and look into his warm amber eyes.

“You know about the Coach Cross situation, right?”

Coach Cross is the track coach at our school. Last year, he had the dumbass idea that dreadlocks were “unsportsmanlike.” So he cut Alex Simmons’s locs off in front of the whole team. He just said, “My team, my rules,” and now See Us is demanding the coach give Alex a public apology.

“Yeah, I heard about it,” I reply.

“I’m on the track team, so I saw it all go down. It was foul and everything. But Coach said he was sorry.”

“Was it a real apology or a fake one?” I ask.

“What you mean?”

“Is he sorry he did it or sorry he got in trouble for doing it?”

He replies, “That’s the same thing.”

Okay, so I’ll be the one to educate our kids.

“It’s actually not the same thing,” I reply.

He sighs in frustration. “He said sorry and he meant it, all right?”

“Okay, I guess that’s good.”

“Exactly! So we should just let it go and keep it moving, right?”

“Certainly.”

And the librarian is back.

“This whole beef needs to be squashed. And it would be, but now your mother is demanding more than an apology.”

Yeah, that sounds like her.

“She wants the coach suspended?” I guess.

“No. She wants him fired! Coach Cross is the best. We lose our coach, we lose any chance of winning at nationals this year. You feel me?”

I watch as my dreams of being wanted by Devonte melt away before my eyes.

“Ayo! You feel me?”

“Huh?” I reply as the last of my social life fades.

“Coach said he was sorry, and we are all good with that. Alex is the guy it happened to, and he doesn’t even care either way. But your mom comes in and then everything gets messed up. Can you handle that?”

“Handle it? How?”