“I care, but not that much, not really. If you don’t play, there’ll be other kids after you. Always another year. This season is already over in a couple months. Pfft, like that. When I don’t see you, I don’t think about you. But you care. I’m here because, for you, if you don’t let this through you, it’ll run you over. Or you’ll have to cut out that part of yourself, and you’re empty.

“It’s worse to stay away and be empty than it is to come back and lose. Gray is very good. He’s better than you, but that’s not enough to keep you away.”

“I’m getting what I need from wrestling.”

“No, you’re no good at wrestling, so you can let yourself just ‘do your best.’ You can blame giving way on just not being very good. You have to play squash because in squash, you’re good enough to know exactly when you’re giving way.”

Ben’s eyes began to unfocus with tears. “Please leave me alone,” he said.

“It’s not me,” Price said softly.

And he waved in a small way and turned to leave, coughing as though armoring himself for the outside cold before pushing through the emergency exit.

*  *  *

That night Ben came back to the room after dinner, expecting Ahmed to be frowning at his computer screen, working on the Twombley paper. But instead he was sitting on the couch with his head all the way back on the leather headrest, his eyes open and glassy. Ben put down his bag and turned to Ahmed, who didn’t move. “Are you baked?” Ben asked.

“No.” He laughed.

“Ahmed, why are you doing this?”

He didn’t answer for several seconds. “Doing what?”

Ben wanted to say, The school expects that a boy will never use intoxicants of any kind.

“Hanging out with Tommy.”

“Who else treated me well after Ennis was expelled?”

Ben didn’t answer right away. “You’ve had other friends.”

Ahmed laughed.

“Hideo?” Ben said.

“Even since the first day, swimming to the Jesus Rock, all the Jell-Os at the Dish…”

Ben waited and was just about to speak again.

“Tommy and Graham and…They are the first to treat me like it is better for me to be around. Like an asset.”

Ben wished he could say words out loud without Ahmed’s being able to hear them—What about me?—and only after hearing them choose whether to transmit them. Would he speak more clearly if there were no money between them? “But that doesn’t mean you have to smoke.”