Page 60 of The Bright Lands

“I’d never!”Jamal had protested, his face flushing, his heart in his throat.“I’d never do that to you, D.”

“Please, it’s nothing. My girl and me, we’ve got an understanding.”

“You what?”

“Go for it, seriously.”Dylan had laughed, then gotten mock serious, the Grand King of the Gridiron, joking in the way he did when he wanted something.“You have my blessing, Reynolds.”

So Jamal had finally responded to Bethany’s unanswered text messages:

OK. Let’s do it.

And yet when they’d finally gotten down to business Friday night she’d called the whole thing off the second his hand had touched her chest. She’d said she had a headache. Maybe it was her period coming on, she wondered.

Hell, Jamal had thought bitterly. Maybe it was Ebola. The girl had been made of excuses.

Jamal was, at heart, a decent man. He didn’t believe girls owed him a thing—least of all sex—but considering all the shit he was now mired in, he vaguely wished he had more to show for last weekend than a couple awkward moments with a small boob, a microwaved pizza and ten hours of good TV. At least, he thought—always looking on the bright side of things, even in the face of a capital murder charge—Bethany’s house got HBO.

The bell rang. He thought back to Friday’s game, back when he had been so excited to put their plan into motion (excited if only because he knew how pleased it seemed to make Dylan.)

At the thought of the game, something came back to him.

“Yo, G,” Jamal called down the hall. Garrett turned back. “Tell me, Mason—what was you and the other boys looking at during halftime?”

The bell rang again. Students hastened into class. A weak breeze struggled through the hall’s open windows.

“The fuck did you just say?”

Garrett started toward him, Mitchell following a step behind.

“It’s an easy question,” Jamal said, holding his ground as the massive boy came close. “You and KT and Mitchell, all the boys in your little squad, you was all looking at something on your phones, being all clandestine and shit. You gotta remember. You sure thought it was amazing.”

Garrett’s cheeks had turned purple. Jamal could smell the rage on him, a mustardy scent that reminded him vaguely of Frito pie. He couldn’t help but be startled. Garrett was hardly a mild man but Jamal had never seen him tweaked like this before.

“If you say one more fucking word I will kill you, Reynolds.”

“You can try,” Jamal said. He smiled.

Garrett brought up his fist to strike Jamal; Mitchell grabbed his arm to hold him back; Bethany’s voice shouted their names down the hall. She was hustling in their direction, wearing pants and a sweater despite the heat of the morning.

“You remember what I fucking told you,” Garrett said. He stormed away.

“Are you alright?” Bethany said.

“No.” He turned his attention to her, adrenaline still racing through his brain. “Where the fuck did Dylan go last weekend?”

She frowned. “He was at thecoast, Jamal, how many times do I have to tell you people?”

“‘You people’?”

“Forget Dylan—you have to go, Jamal. You have to gonow. My dad knows.”

Jamal blinked. “What?”

“He found me at Jasmine’s this morning. It was that fuckingfence. I texted Dad when you were leaving Sunday night to say I was going to get food but the fucking fence never opened again for me to come back. He finally put it together. Jamal, he has cameras in the house, places he never told me about. They were recording everything. The whole time.”

The bottom fell out of Jamal’s stomach. “But we didn’t do anything.”

She pulled back the sleeve of her sweater. Her arm was a vivid purple-brown.