Mom was quiet, her head back against the absurdly cushioned chair, her eyes half closed. “Jordan, this is how you’re going to face those bullies: You will apologize.”

“What?”

“You’ll do it because you’re the bigger man. They may spit in your face, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll apologize and mean it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will,” Mom said. “Or I’ll make you sorry.”

I let out a long, slow breath in the manner of the meditation exercises we’d both learned. Whether she would follow through on such a threat didn’t matter. She knew I could never defy her. I said nothing, which for me amounted to surrender.

Mom’s expression softened. “You know they’ll talk about this being two white boys.”

“You mean two big white boys bullying a slender black kid in his skivvies?”

She snorted out a laugh. “‘Skivvies.’ You and your vocabulary. Yes, that. But, no, not really.”

“People don’t have to turn everything into a racial thing.”

“Just like you and Maggie.”

If I could’ve shot laser beams from my eyes, Mom’s head would have been soot by the time I said, “What about me and Maggie?”

“Come on, people talk about you and your pretty little blond girl.”

“And?”

“And we’re still not living in a post-racial society no matter what some people want to believe.”

“You should know,” I shot back. We almost never talked about the fact that Mom was black and Dad was a quadroon or octoroon or whatever he was that allowed him to “pass” in certain situations and gave me my warm, Obamaesque skin tone.

“I do know,” she said—and might as well have dropped the mic right there.

“Mom,” I said, “Maggie and I have been friends forever, and nothing has ever happened between us.”

She arched her eyebrow at me.

“Look, I wish I had something more salacious to report on this subject,” I added.

“Do you?”

Yeah, I did. At some point I might even have to act on this feeling, because, damn, what was the point of being gossiped about if you weren’t actually getting to enjoy the thing you were supposedly guilty of? Also, I really liked Maggie, and there was something pathetic about my having the courage to beat the shit out of those two jock assholes while being petrified of, I don’t know, holding her hand. I bet it would be warm and soft, too.

“Just be careful,” Mom said.

“I’m the most cautious dude in town,” I said with my most charming smile, then muttered under my breath, “Maybe other people shouldn’t fuck with me. Bears, neither.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You said something.”

I didn’t know where that had come from, actually. I never talked to myself, out loud or in my head, with that kind of aggression.

“Must’ve been the concussion talking.”

Mom got up and placed her hand on my forehead. It felt good.

“When you get hit and lose consciousness, that’s a traumatic brain injury,” she said. “You’ll have to take it easy for a few days and see how you feel.”