Basketball practice runs from three to five. And because of that I only have forty-five minutes between the end of class and the start of practice to get through lunch, hand in overdue assignments, and change into my sports gear. Which explains why I'm a little antsy as the minutes drag along to two. Or maybe antsy is too delicate a word for my state.

It happened in my AP math class.

Our instructor isn't what anyone would describe as easygoing, from his homework assignments to his teaching methods. For that reason, I make sure that I'm at my mental best in math and science classes. If it means drinking watered-down coffee and going over the topics well ahead of time then so be it. It must have been the collision with Darnell in PE or my late-night altercation with Xavier but either way I was totally off my already floundering game.

We were going over a new topic, something flowery about derivatives. And that's when he called on me to differentiate the math on the board. Let's just say the board wasn't the only thing that was blank.

The figures scrawled in black marker didn't resonate with me in the slightest. It was the longest minute of my life. I sat back down and someone else stood to try and solve the question. Successfully I might add. The lesson dragged from there on as the hour hand inched towards two and I sat angry at myself and the instructor, blocking out the rest of the class. When it ended I started to stack my books and shove them back into my bag. Hoping to leave early enough, because this particular class was notorious for its lectures. And my performance today was pretty damn deserving of a lecture.

Now Mr. Turner waves me over to his desk as the rest of our class heads out.

I stand in front of him for a beat before he looks up to acknowledge me. Classic educator intimidation tactics. I don't flinch, refusing to be fazed.

He clears his throat and finally looks at me, "Ms. Monroe how long have you been in my class?"

"One or two months maybe, uh, this is my first year," I respond.

"Hmm, Advanced math is a difficult course and not everyone can handle it in their junior year." He says pressing down on the pen he was writing with until it clicks. I get what he's saying. I do. But I need to stay in this class if I'm going to write my SATs this school year."I'd understand if you chose to switch back to Ms. Phelps course and transfer again next year."

"Wait, you got all that from me failing one question." The with all due respect in that sentence is implied.

Another sigh reaches me from his end of the line. He shuffles a few papers and pulls out three test papers. They're all mine and the red ink on them is disheartening.

"Thus far you haven't even managed to keep your grade a C average." I can't even disagree with the proof that is staring me in the face. "The lowest in the class."

"Is there anything distracting you, because your grades last year were much stronger?"

This time he waits for me to say something in response and when I don't he continues with a low note of resignation.

"What I'm saying is maybe you should reconsider taking my class when your grades and your GPA could be higher with a different course." Then he goes on to say: "These grades, your extracurricular activities will matter on every single application you write out next year."

I nod again struggling to swallow my saliva as well as my pride. It makes sense, why take harder math when I could barely handle regular math.

"It might seem like a step backwards but it could also be a step in the right direction. If you do intend to stay, I need to see some improvement, get that D to a C and work your way up from there."

"Yes, thank you I will," I say finally.

Everything he's saying is true and in both our best interests but I still want to cry. Is it wrong of me to want to excel in a class I'm not even supposed to be taking? I don't know. As if life wasn't complicated enough. Is it wrong of me to want a scholarship? To want more than the community college I'm bound for? To want, to dream of Ivy league or even a private school abroad?

*****

I eat my sandwich whilst making the mad dash from the math department down the hallway to the school's basketball court. For the record, it's grilled cheese and it's stale.

As I turn the corner, I notice a flyer pinned onto the school's bulletin board. I pause. Its header reads in italic lettering San Antonio Soup Kitchen. Before I can stop myself I am leaning and scrawling my name and email address over the sign-up sheet in one of the last empty spots.

For the past two years, I have focused more on basketball than anything else. It didn't make me any friends or any more popular and because I wasn't an actual player it didn't count as an extracurricular. The extracurricular was a coding class I dropped out of a few months into it. Taking AP math meant I would have something shiny enough on my application but a C seemed like more of a deterrent to any admissions team.

Volunteer work on the other hand was good any way you looked at it. You couldn't fail at volunteer work. It wasn't possible and that made it something I could excel at.

As I pace to the hall, I catch Eileen Cortes, a senior and student representative. The peppy, athlete, and Latinx student coalition head looks more than a little harassed. She is balancing a stack of papers and a MacBook in one hand and trying to zip up her backpack with the other.

I should walk past. I really should. But I don't. I have been there so many times. Hell, I was there this morning. High school gets you. It just does. Showing someone else the kindness you needed is just one way of dealing.

"Hey Eileen," I say and with my free hand I drag the large green zipper up and pick up the protractor she had dropped.

Eileen smiles her big smile. I'm pretty certain that smile got her most of the male student body's vote. Match that with her brain for problem-solving and her charm... All I'll say on the matter is that she might take the White House one day. And I wouldn't mind.

"Hey, Heather..." she furrows her eyebrows as if to place me somewhere in her version of the high school complex. I can be found on the bottom left of the popularity pyramid, just above freshman. Say what you want but being ignored is the real bliss. Way less drama.

"Hazel," I answer without any offense in my tone. I'm not very active outside of the basketball scene so her confusion is understandable. "Everything okay?"

"Yes, it's just," she says with a look and stops. "Can you help me with something?"

I almost sigh but cover it up with a hesitant, "Yes." Followed by another bite of my grilled cheese.

"I'm in a bit of a predicament," With her backpack secure she's got an extra hand to dial up the political charm. Setting it to winning over the masses. "I think I bit a little too much to chew."

I laugh. It's not hard to feel comfortable in her presence and I can feel myself warming to her. "Been there."

"I have to give this back," she holds up the slim laptop and I do not like where she is going with this in the least but I am still here and that must mean something. "It's got a report on it, due tomorrow. History."

Again, I can only smile back. I dropped history to make room for another science elective early in the school year. I've heard that it gets more intense with each semester so I don't regret the decision. She shifts to stare behind me, the flow of students is slowing with most moving to their after-school activities as I should.

"It's Michael's," Eileen says, "And since you're sort of on the basketball team I would be eternally grateful if you could return it."

Sort of. A low blow. Eileen tried to get me to try for the track and field last year. She's still bitter that I didn't show up but I let it slide because what else could I say to that?

Michael is on the basketball team and I wouldn't be going out of my way to return it.

"Thank you so much," she says with another of her trademarked smiles when I reach for the laptop, "I'd do it myself but we have a meeting with the other representatives in five and.."

I don't get a chance to reply because the girl is already walking away, damn her.

*****

Coach Carter is visibly pissed.

It's not in what he says but for more how he says it. The way he waves his arm to demand another round of laps from both the players and the substitutes. The way he glares at the girl's volleyball team whenever their ball rolls onto our side of the court. But more obviously, more undeniably is fact that he whispered fuck when Xavier walked in, fully kitted in Irvine's blue and black twenty minutes late. A curse word coming out of the mouth of a man who sits in the front pew of my church is way up there on the list of things I did not see coming.

To be fair all thirty of us were thinking it. It wasn't that Xavier was late, he's always late, as a rule. It was his face. And the realization that his nose was taking up a greater percentage of space on it than usual.

His nose was bruised purple and swollen, it looked like the only thing holding it together was the plaster and cast encasing it. In short, it was a hideous sight to behold.

Before anyone could say anything Coach jogged up and intercepted Xavier, pulling him aside.

But boys are jerks in general and someone still manages to say: "What happened to your face, pretty boy?"

The subsequent laughter is loud enough to reach and disrupt the volleyball team's huddle. Causing them to send their glares our way. Most of our games take place on the indoor court but practice is held on the court outside and we have to share with whoever else is playing that day. Which is almost always the Volleyball girls. Tanned, tall, and icy, great for outdoor cooling systems all across California but not so much for conversation.

Playing outdoors means the sun is constantly beating down on us and we have to do double duty with hydrating.

Coach Carter orders four more laps around the court instead of through it leading me to believe that the exchange he's about to have with Xavier is going to be a lengthy one. Even though we've been through a grueling warm-up I still throw myself into the laps. I have a reputation to uphold and it won't do me well to start slacking now.

I hadn't actually considered the damage my punch had dealt Xavier no matter how much he deserved it. Only because I didn't consider that my fist could actually do any real damage in the first place. Either way, I sincerely doubt someone with an ego as big as his would ever admit to being hit by a girl but I can't be too sure.

By my third turn round the court, I have to stop to catch my breath. I bend down to loop my laces back into place and wipe the building sweat off my forehead. When I'm done I wait, listening to the rest of the team catch up behind me then take off again. There's a reason the track team wanted me on their side even without the height advantage.

Irvine high used to have a girl's basketball team but after a series of humiliating losses and the transfer of our only coach the team was disbanded. And it just so happened that I got here a year after the fallout. Every year, in the hope of finding enough funding to get the girl's team back up, the Panthers absorbed a few girls onto the team. And every year that hope died and the number of girls it took dwindled.

When our last mascot graduated I jumped at the chance to fill Pete the Panther's shoes. Anything that kept me on the court and as involved in the game as possible.

My train of thought gets cut off when someone jogs into step beside me.

"I'd rather run alone if you don't mind." At first, I think it's Darnell coming back to bother me but I do a double-take when I realize it's Joshua.

"Don't worry," He says without slowing down or speeding up, matching my step exactly. "This won't take long."

Josh and I weren't friends prior to his relationship with Anika and we were only semi-polite during it. I can't think of a single topic of conversation that we'd have in common outside of sports. My hackles rise immediately, already anticipating bad news.

"What won't take long?"

"I need you to talk to your girl." He says looking ahead as we turn the corner of the court.

"My girl?" I try to say this as neutrally as possible but it's hard when my teeth are gritting and the sweat is threatening to drip into my eyes.

"Yeah Anika," He continues. "We broke up two months ago. The texts, the non-stop phone calls—"

"I don't blame her, do you?"

"People break up, Hazel," Joshua replies with a tad misdirected sigh of annoyance. "It's normal. What isn't normal is her ranting about my girlfriend at parties and embarrassing her drunk ass."

"What?" I stop and drag him along with me and out the path of oncoming runners. "Backtrack for a moment there, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, so you didn't see it. Great." He fumbles around in his pocket for a second before pulling out his phone. After a few taps, he clicks on a video and turns the phone to me.

The film is fuzzy at first and is pointing at black and white tile and then the frame jerks up and focuses on a crying, no sobbing girl. A girl I recognize, Anika.

"Is it because she's prettier? Huh." She asks. She slurs over the words and her lisp is heavy and even more pronounced. "Prettier than me."

In the background, someone laughs but the camera doesn't move to let me know who it is. Anika spins on the person recording the footage.

"Stop filming me, you asshole." She shouts, the tears spilling down her cheeks now unbidden. "You're all such assholes. You were my friends too and now y-you're, you're not."

Anika walks up to the camera and tosses her glass straight ahead. The yellow liquid sloshing over the lens and then the video ends.

"Oh, God."

Joshua pulls the phone out of my hands and back into his pocket. "Is this online?"

"Yup, I got this off the group chat."

The dreaded senior boy's group chat. A notorious forum where senior boys dragged the names and reputation of every single girl who gives them a reason too. Nothing was off-limits, screenshots, photos, lurid stories, and especially not videos of drunk girls fighting with their crappy exes. It was enough to hurt anyone's social standing. A highly toxic space if there was any.

"Monroe, Johnson." Coach Carter waves us over and we both jog back over to the center of the court where everyone else is already headed. When the whole team has circled around him. He starts to speak:

"I don't need to tell you that Xavier's injured you all saw that." From beside me someone whoops but is shushed. "I won't mince words with you so here it is. I know he's our best player but I can't let him play the game on Friday or for the next couple of games."

The sinking feeling in my stomach grows in anticipation for his next words.

"That doesn't mean we won't win this game. We'll just have to shift the positions around a bit. It's short notice I know. But my players can adapt to change." He looks down at his Ipad and taps the screen. "No. 7? Darnell. You'll be taking Xavier's position."