21.

21 or cutthroat is a street variation of basketball. It's simple enough in theory with an unlimited number of players all working to be the first to score 21 points. The most interesting thing to note about playing 21 is that the game doesn't recognize fouls. Anything goes, no rules or regulations. Because of that, the game can get as violent and as physical as we allow it. If The Purge was a sport then this would be it.

In retrospect, playing against Nic, the guy whose job it is to shoot from long distances isn't the greatest idea. Though Nic is a senior, he's a substitute player. After a string of particularly bad games and a management shake-up, he was knocked off our starting line-up. I'm guessing he still hasn't recovered from it. But he's a good player, better than most.

I don't have time to concern myself with that as we all head out onto the court and arrange ourselves into snap positions. Thoughtlessly, I reach up to my hair to try and adjust my sweatband but my hands come up empty. I must have left it at home.

Before we can start I'm interrupted. It's Darnell who grabs my arm and leads me a few steps away from my position.

"What the hell are you doing?" I say.

I pull my hand out of his grasp as soon as we stop walking. Too many people have tried to force me around recently and it's getting old.

"Can you please talk to me?" He asks.

"No, thank you," I say starting to turn around but I don't because he twists me to face him again.

"Please." That's when I notice his hands. Both of them are shaking at his sides, as though nervousness is blowing off of him in waves.

I gnaw at my lip as I study him. There are shadows under his red eyes. His energy is erratic, like a live wire. The kid's tired. Courtesy of our mid-term exams. Which worries me. What does it say about me if the smartest kid in our class looks like he hasn't slept or eaten in days and I went to bed at the comfortable hour of nine last night? Only after watching more Narcos. It's not very encouraging.

"You look tired," I say with a sigh, hating that already I'm softening. I'm supposed to be mad at him, not sympathetic. Where are my Beyonce vibes when I need them?

"My only power source is Red Bull right now." He says smiling but then the smile falls flat off of his face. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm not avoiding you."

"Yeah, you are. You haven't talked to me all day. You literally ran away from me earlier."

"I've been busy," I say, finally.

"Right, so am I. But I thought after Friday..."

"Huh, Friday," I say mulling over the words before spitting them out. "And was this before or after you decided you were going on a date with Leah?"

The fastest way to get rid of a band-aid, you rip it right off.

He laughs, "What no? That wasn't a date."

The sound of his laugh makes me bristle. As though he's laughing at me.

"I'm not stupid, okay. And I'm pretty sure you don't kiss someone and then go on a date with your girlfriend. Not without being a two-timing ass or an idiot." I say.

Which are you?

To his credit he lets me finish before responding. "Leah's not my girlfriend. And she said it was a date yes, but just because she needed someone to go with her. As a friend. That's what she is. Just a friend."

It sounds believable. Meaning it sounds exactly like what I'd say if I was caught in a lie. And I would know, I've told more major lies in the past few weeks than some people tell in a year.

It's nice to know that underneath my reasoning there's a semblance of morality and guilt.

I scoff, "Why do you even care? I sure as hell don't." The pit of my stomach turns as I say the words. Rejecting them as false.

"You don't care?" He asks. His voice is rough as he asks the question. "About what happened on Friday?"

Before I can respond one of the other player's calls, "Hey ladies, we're about to start."

The perfect exit to this awful conversation. And so I take it, jogging back to my position. I can't let myself forget that my reputation hangs in the balance of this one game.

Micah stands at half court to start the game with a rim shot. He throws the ball and it bounces off the rim allowing the scrimmage to begin. For the first few minutes, it's a confusing mesh of players all gunning for the ball. Someone shoves me aside to hop across the court. There are no reservations about playing with a girl this time around.

I keep moving forward, undeterred.

The ball is swept out of my view and tossed into the air. Samuel grabs it in a single motion and takes a shot at the net but misses and the ball bounces back into the fray.

Basketball is about unity and teamwork. The strength of our team as a whole is greater than all our strengths divided, or whatever they like to print onto cat posters these days. But 21 is a totally different, pun intended, ball game. It's every man for himself. In the place of passes and coordination, we have bruising shoves and insulting steals. More frustrating, more unpredictable but also much more fun.

When the ball reaches Micah, I rush over. The first person to spot him. I track his movement with my own but before he can evade it, the ball is stolen by a wave of activity to my left.

"Dammit," I whisper when I see that it's Nic in possession now.

He darts across the court too fast for anyone to keep up with him. Then he shoots. I hold my breath as the ball travels and then very neatly slips into the net.

He turns to look at me and raises his hands in a what-up gesture.

Nic: 3

Monroe: 0

I'd like to make fun of how eager he is to prove himself to someone else. But aren't I the same way? Who am I, the pot, to call the kettle black?

The ball is tossed back into the trenches and the struggle begins again.

But I know these players. I've been studying them for weeks and for hours at a time. I know their stats. How fast they are, their strong suits and weak points. Heck, I even know them down to their shoe size and sneaker preference. And so when I see what looks like an opening I take it.

Darnell flexes his forearm and maintains possession. But the sleep deprivation must be slowing him down because right before he can lift his arms to shoot, I'm standing between him and the net. I steal the ball and spin on my left leg. I don't need to be told what to do next. As the ball slips into the net I think: one down.

I just need to do that six more times and I'm all set.

How fun.

Nic: 15

Monroe: 12

Darnell: 12

Samuel: 6

That's the score thus far. Everyone else is so behind I don't bother keeping count. But Nic is still in the lead with me trailing him. I can't bear to think about losing to him. Not after what I said. Being a hard-headed idiot is one thing, but not having the talent to back it up is another story.

My headache has only grown worse and as a result, so has my temper. I no longer have qualms about being savage in my approach. Shoulder butts, aggressive blocks, and childish pushing that's so forceful my sneakers squeak across the floor as they skid.

I've never been in a real fight before but I think this is what it feels like. The chaotic adrenaline pumping through my veins and my vision scattered over several targets. My body working at its most inefficient as it stretches out my senses. In the past few minutes, I've been tripped, elbowed, and whacked in the face. But I don't complain because I do the same to them.

I'm marking Nic this time which means I have to get real close and personal as we shuffle to gain advantages. He's much faster than I realized. Darting back and forth stealthier than I can track.

He manages to get a hold of the ball and feigns right but I block him. He's at the perfect angle to score a three-pointer. And it's open too. He's so tall my defense means nothing in the face of his natural assets. My brain scrambles to find a possible solution but I'm too slow. Nic makes to shoot and I jump to try and intercept. But he doesn't.

It was a trick.

He bounces the ball and hops out of our deadlock. He runs a few paces and I follow. This time I don't hesitate. He tries to shoot again but I stop him, smacking the ball right out of his hands. Technically an illegal move, with too much force and anger tied up in the motion to be played off casually.

"Bitch," He whispers, with a cutting edge to his voice, as the ball bounces away from us.

My head whips up as I hear him say it. I almost smirk at how mad he is. "No rules, remember?"

The universal code for no hard feelings.

We really should have left it at that. But no we didn't.

"That was a foul, Hazel." He growls stepping forward.

"It's 21. No fouls. You don't need to cry about it." My tone is more than a little cocky but I don't care.

I'm about to make for the ball but I don't. Nic stops me.

"Screw you, trailer trash," He says. Right to my face, no whispering. Nothing. No way to disguise what he just said to me as anything other than what it was.

I'm not proud of what I did next. But then again whoever is?

If there's one surefire way to lose your rep on a sports team overpopulated with boys, it's with tears. Of any kind. Even if you've somehow managed to impale yourself onto the basketball hoop, you best not shed a tear as medics drag you across the court. But that all flies out the door when I register the words.

It's almost prophetic the way it confirms what I've been thinking about myself throughout the day. All of a sudden I'm worth less than every player on this court because of where I live. The waterworks start slow then all at once.

The dryness in my eyes, the weight on my chest, and the pressure in my throat. I should have told you this earlier, in all honesty, you should've probably guessed but I'm an ugly crier. In less than a second, I'm red in the face with snot dripping out of my nose and onto my upper lip. In the aftermath of Nic's comment, I bite hard on my thumbnail trying to blink the tears away while everyone else stands, shocked.

And that's why I don't quite catch what happens next. I don't hear Darnell sprint over to where we're standing, I just hear the sound of his sneakers. I don't see him push his hands onto Nic's chest, I just catch the resulting thud when he falls.

"Why the hell would you say that to her?"

Never, in all the time I've known him has Darnell ever resorted to violence. Not the time when his fourth-grade art project was stolen and dunked into our class fish tank. Not when Missy Peters called him fat when we were eleven. Not even when I stepped on his brand new Air Jordan's in freshman year, although he badly wanted to that time. And maybe this general lack of experience in the field of physical conflict is why he's so bad at it.

You never turn your back on the enemy. Which is the first thing Darnell does when he turns to look at me.

"Are you o—"

He doesn't get to finish asking if I'm okay because faster than I would have expected Nic leaps onto his feet.

He grabs the collar of Darnell's jersey and pulls him up close, so close that he has to stay on the tips of his toes to keep upright.

"What the fuck was that, Washington?" He breathes and I see Darnell flinch at the force in his voice.

I can't stop thinking that I should do something. Say something. Nic's anger is misplaced. He's mad at me, not Darnell. It should be me in the chokehold.

But my feet are firmly planted in place as I watch the scene unfold. I'm a mix of fear and interest and I don't try to intervene. I can only watch as Nic squares his fist right into the side of his face.

Involuntarily, I gasp when his hand makes contact. It hurts my heart as though I've been struck on my own face.

"Oh no," I hear someone say. "Not the moneymaker."

Nic lets go of the collar and stalks off the court, the gym doors swinging in his wake. Darnell teeters backward and lands sitting down. With a look that's a cross between bemusement and hurt. I wipe the moisture off my cheeks and rush to his side, my feet no longer immobile.

In that moment I realize that when it came to this boy, I was going down with the ship. Our ship.

He looks up at me when I'm close enough but doesn't say anything.

Sam walks round to the other side, "Woah dude. You just got into a fight with a senior and survived. Your street cred's never been higher."

Leave it up to him to bring in the unnecessary hype.

Although it might be true. The scuffle was watched rather intently by the girls on the volleyball side of our court. They stopped mid-spike to just see it all happen live. I'd wager that in less than five minutes the story will be running its course in the rumor mill with a few embellishments of course.

Micah walks over to us after retrieving the ball, "Are we still playing or..."

Somehow we all manage to give him the same unimpressed expression. He changes tact, "What was that whole thing about?"

"Probably stressed about midterms. Taking it out on everyone else." Sam says.

"He better pass. Another year with him would be torture."

Darnell touches at the spot on his face that looks to me like it's already swelling. "Either way it hurts like hell." Then for the first time, he looks at me, meeting my eyes. "My first fight. I bet it lasted longer than yours."

He says it like he's real proud of himself. I'm shocked that he even remembers what I told him about the fight with Xavier.

"You're delirious," I say taking his hand. "Let's go to the nurse."

I'd have to be blind to miss the eyebrows Micah and Sam raise at us as we walk out. They can think what they want, I no longer care.

*****

It's safe to assume by now that I know my way to the nurse's office.

We don't talk much as we walk to the nurse with his hand in mine. I'm acutely aware of how familiar this scene is to both of us. Except this time I'm dragging him to the nurse to get treatment for another basketball-related injury. Not the other way round.

He protests but eventually we get in line for Nurse Gregory.

After serious begging and a failed bribe, she lets me sit in as she treats his eye. I can only watch as she applies a cold compress onto the area holding it his face, then she points a flashlight into his eyes.

My bedside manner is lacking. That's another thing I've learned about myself today.

I have no idea what to say as my friend squirms in pain on the examination bench. All I have to offer is my presence and considering what I've said to him today it's not worth much.

After giving thorough instructions to place a hot compress onto his eye for the next few days, Nurse Gregory leaves us alone in search of Darnell's release forms.

Almost immediately after she closes the door he turns on me, staring me down with his one good eye.

"What the fuck?" He says.

Now that jolts me. Getting into fights, swearing. There's a good chance he's been body switched.

But instead, I say: "Yeah, Nic is high strung but not the type to get into a fi—"

"I mean you," He says cutting me off.

"Excuse me," I ask crossing my arms in front of my chest. He may have taken a punch for me but I helped him find his way to the nurse. We should be even at this point. Even enough for me to be irritated. "So you didn't hear what he said to me?"

"I heard what he said. Nic's an asshole, he talks trash—" He looks at me appalled by his own words. "Wrong choice of words, I'm sorry."

I shrug and stay quiet, keeping a steady track of the number of curse words he's uttered in the past few minutes.

"I mean he says stuff like that all the time."

"And does that make it okay?"

"It doesn't make it okay. But he's a terrible person and terrible people say terrible things." He looks at me tired, brown eyes imploring. "But you aren't. You don't knock on the substitutes, your friends. In the past half hour, you smacked off Micah's glasses and tripped me twice. You're a great player but today... Today looked like you were gunning for every single person out there. So I ask again, what the hell is with you?"

I hate being put on the spot. Not by the group member who tried to get me to lead our shoddy PowerPoint presentation, not by our youth pastor asking me to lead the prayer in church, and especially not Darnell J. Washington.

I shuffle my weight from one foot to the next.

"I don't need to do this with you, okay," I say. When in doubt, storm out of the room. It's never failed me before. I start to walk to the door leading out of the office when he hops off the bench and takes hold of my shoulder, spinning me around.

I'm forced to look up at him, meeting his eyes. The gold-flecked brown in them is arguably his best feature. Rivaled only by his smile, which I'm sure can actually break your heart. But he isn't smiling now. Far from it.

He stares at me, waiting.

"You kissed me, okay. My first kiss. Was with you. My best friend. Well, not my best friend anymore. And— And that was nerve-wracking all on its own."I whisper. "Then I saw you with Leah and it was like three years ago all over again."

You choosing her over me, I think, but don't stay.

"I didn't want to speak to you, to speak to anyone."

Once again I'm stuck analyzing the muddle of my emotions. The feelings I didn't know were even there threatening to spill over the edges of their containment. Like the tears wetting my eyes.

"You said you didn't care." The words are gruff and the hurt that he's been hiding sneaks up from behind the words.

"I didn't mean that. Of course, I didn't mean that."

He looks at me and takes a long measured breath. "Then why did you say it? Why go to all that trouble of avoiding me. Giving me the silent treatment during practice like we were in the third grade."

"I'm a moody teenage girl. We do stuff like that all the time" I say pressing my hand against my neck. The tension sits firmly between my shoulder blades. "I panicked and I was scared, in hindsight irrationally."

Okay, don't judge me on this one. This is the first time I've used PMS as an excuse for my behavior in a while. Men have been using it to minimize women's emotions for generations, it's only fair that I reclaim some of that power and use it to my advantage.

As I say the words a twinge of pain spreads in my lower abdomen in agreement. Or distaste.

"Scared of what?" He asks. "It's not like I proposed or anything. I didn't ask to be your boyfriend."

I'm sure there will come a time in my life when those are the last things I want to hear coming out of a guy's mouth. But today, right now, all they bring me is unchecked relief.

"You don't want to be my boyfriend?"

"I never said that."

"Then what did you say." I'm very much enjoying the fact that I've flipped the script on him and I'm no longer in the hot seat.

My insides are still tender, as though all I need to do is trip and my thoughts will spill right out of me and onto the floor. I need time to regroup mentally.

"I like you, Hazel." Those words I like a whole lot more. "I like the sound of your voice when you get excited, I like that you think you're better than me at every single sport we play."

"I am."

He smirks stepping closer to me. "Sure you are. Plus I really, really like the way your hair smells."

I smile and reach to touch the strands that have slipped out of my bun. "It's the no-name brand shampoo that I use every other week. You must have really low standards when it comes to hair care huh?"

"Maybe." He says.

I'm so glad he isn't mad at me anymore. Glad I'm no longer the object of his anger. It's that gladness that makes me stupid. Or brave.

I press my toes onto the floor, pushing myself up. So that for a few seconds I'm tall enough to gently brush my lips against the bruise that's starting to color just under his eye.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "And thank you."

Nurse Gregory chooses that moment to open the door and I stumble backward, wringing my hands together.

"Okay," She says seemingly oblivious to what was happening seconds before. "Your parents are on the way. I just need you to sign something."

I don't go back to basketball practice when Darnell leaves. The pain in my stomach spreads and I have to race back to the bathrooms. Apparently, my Flo app was off by an entire day.