I took a deep breath as I sat. “I need help understanding what’s going on with you. You hardly paid attention at all in class today, and you’ve hurt your leg, and ruined the rest of your cross-country season. Plus, you seem kind of frightened. I want to help. What’s going on, Rashid?”

His eyes widened slightly during this little speech, but he didn’t interrupt. He tapped his good foot, considering. “I’m cool, Ms. H,” he said after a few minutes. “I just tripped, and I’m working as hard as I can on my schoolwork. I’m all right.”

“I don’t believe that.” I paused. “And I’m a little pissed that you would sit there and try to tell me that when it’s obvious that everything is not all right.”

Using the word pissed had the effect I’d hoped for. He looked startled. Then, so suddenly that it was as if a wind had passed through the room, his hard-guy veneer was gone. “Ever since I made that speech, I feel like everybody’s looking at me,” he said brokenly. “Everybody’s like ‘Ooh, your brother got killed.’ I can’t concentrate. I don’t know why I thought it would be better once I told. It didn’t do any good at my old school. I don’t know why I thought it would help.” He rubbed the back of his hand fiercely across his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking. Now … This thing with my leg. It was just stupid. I don’t really mind about the running, but it was just stupid.” He sat back in the chair, biting his lip. I felt my heart contract under my ribs. I wanted to hug him but instead sat quietly, watching him pick at his pant leg and breathe.

“So what do you think we should do?” I said after a long silence.

“I dunno.” He sat up and looked at me, speaking more clearly. “I don’t know. I want to stay here, even though … even though it’s really hard. I don’t know what to do.”

“What really happened to your leg?”

His gaze went flat again. Wrong tack. “Like I said, I fell. I’m going to be fine.”

Okay, okay, don’t press there, I thought. “Well, do you think it would help to have some tutoring, spend some extra time on the subjects that are giving you trouble?”

He snorted. “Every subject is giving me trouble. It ain’t … There isn’t that much tutoring in the world.”