He told me I was ruining Ocean’s life. He said he wished I’d never moved to this town, that from the moment I’d shown up I’d been a distraction, that he’d known all along that it must’ve been me putting ideas in Ocean’s head about quitting the team, causing trouble. He said that I’d shown up and made a mess of everything, of the entire district, and couldn’t I see what I’d done? Parents and students across the county were in chaos, games had been postponed, and their reputation was on the line. They were a patriotic town, he said, with patriots among them, and my association with Ocean was destroying their image. This team mattered, he said to me, in ways that I could never understand, because he was sure that wherever I came from didn’t have basketball. I didn’t tell him that where I came from was California, but then, he never gave me a chance to speak. And then he said that I needed to leave Ocean the hell alone before I took away every good thing he had in his life.

“You end this, young lady,” he said to me. “End it right now.”

I really wanted to tell him to go to hell, but the truth was, he kind of scared me. He seemed violently angry in a way I’d never experienced alone in a room with an adult. The door was closed. I felt like I had no power. Like I couldn’t trust him.

But this little chat had made things clearer for me.

Coach Hart was a complete asshole, and the more he screamed at me, the angrier I became. I didn’t want to be bullied into making such a serious decision. I didn’t want to be manipulated, not by anyone. In fact, I was beginning to believe that walking away from Ocean now, at a time like this, would be the greatest act of cowardice. Worse, it would be cruel.

So I refused.

And then his coach told me that if I didn’t break up with him, that he would make certain that Ocean was not only kicked off the team but expelled for gross misconduct.

I said I was sure Ocean would figure it out.

“Why are you so determined to be stubborn?” Coach Hart shouted, his eyes narrowed in my direction. He looked like someone who screamed a lot; he was a stocky sort of guy with an almost permanently red face. “Let go of this,” he said. “You’re wasting everyone’s time, and it won’t even be worth it in the end. He’s going to forget about you in a week.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I go now?”

Somehow he went redder. “If you care about him,” he said, “then walk away. Don’t destroy his life.”

“I honestly don’t get why everyone is this upset,” I said, “over a stupid game of basketball.”

“This is my career,” he said, slamming the table as he stood up. “I’ve dedicated my entire life to this sport. We have a real shot at the playoffs this season, and I need him to perform. You are an unwelcome distraction,” he said, “and I need you to disappear. Now.”

I hadn’t realized, as I walked home from school that day, how far this craziness would go. I hadn’t realized that his coach would be so determined to make this go away—to make me go away—that he’d actually be willing to hurt Ocean in the process. Here, with enough space between myself and his screaming coach, I was able to process the situation a little more objectively.

And, honestly, the whole thing was starting to freak me out.

It wasn’t that I thought Ocean wouldn’t recover from being kicked off the team; it wasn’t even that I thought I couldn’t tell Ocean what his coach had said to me, that he’d basically threatened me into breaking up with him. I knew Ocean would believe me, that he’d take my side. What scared me most, it turned out, weren’t the threats. It wasn’t the abusive rhetoric, the blatant xenophobia. No, what scared me most was that—

I guess I just didn’t think I was worth it.

I thought Ocean would wake up, dizzy and destabilized by this emotional train wreck to discover that it hadn’t been worth it, actually; that I hadn’t been worth it. That he’d lost his chance to be a great athlete at a peak moment in his high school career and that, as a result, he’d lost his chance at playing basketball in college, at one day playing professionally. If this shitshow was to be believed, Ocean was good enough to be all this and more. I’d never seen him play—which seemed almost funny to me now—but I couldn’t imagine that so many people would be this upset if Ocean weren’t really, really good at putting a ball in a basket.

I felt suddenly scared.

I worried that Ocean would lose everything he’d ever known—everything he’d been working toward since he was a kid—only to discover that, eh, I wasn’t even that great, in the end. Bad deal.

He would resent me.

I was sixteen, I thought. He was seventeen. We were just kids. This moment felt like an entire lifetime—these past months had felt like forever—but high school wasn’t the whole world, was it? It couldn’t have been. Five months ago I never even knew Ocean existed.

Still, I didn’t want to walk away. I worried he’d never forgive me for abandoning him, especially not now, not when he told me every day that this hadn’t changed anything for him, that he’d never let their hateful opinions dictate how he lived his life. I worried that if I walked away he’d think I was a coward.

And I knew I wasn’t.

I looked up, suddenly, at the sound of a car horn. It was relentless. Obnoxious. I was halfway down a main street, walking along the same stretch of sidewalk I followed home every day, but I’d been lost in my head; I hadn’t been paying attention to the road.

There was a car waiting for me up ahead. It had pulled over to the side and whoever was driving would not stop honking at me.

I didn’t recognize the car.

My heart gave a sudden, terrifying lurch and I took a step back. The driver was waving frantically at me, and only the fact that the driver was a woman gave me pause. My instincts told me to run like hell, but I worried that maybe she needed help. Maybe she’d run out of gas? Maybe she needed to borrow a cell phone?

I stepped cautiously toward her. She leaned out of her car window.

“Wow,” she said, and laughed. “It’s really hard to get your attention.”

She was a pretty, older blond lady. Her eyes seemed friendly enough, and my pulse slowed its stutter.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Did your car break down?”

She smiled. Looked curiously at me. “I’m Ocean’s mom,” she said. “My name is Linda. You’re Shirin, right?”

Oh, I thought. Shit shit shit.

Oh shit.

I blinked at her. My heart was beating a staccato.

“Would you like to go for a ride?”

29

Twenty-Nine

“Listen,” she said, “I want to get this out of the way right upfront.” She glanced at me as she drove. “I don’t care about the differences in your backgrounds. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Okay,” I said slowly.

“But your relationship is causing Ocean a real problem right now, and I’d be an irresponsible mother if I didn’t try to make it stop.”

I almost laughed out loud. I didn’t think this was the thing that would turn her into an irresponsible mother, I wanted to say.

Instead, I said, “I don’t understand why everyone is having this conversation with me. If you don’t want your son to spend time with me, maybe you should be talking to him.”

“I tried,” she said. “He won’t listen to me. He’s not listening to anyone.” She glanced in my direction again. I suddenly realized I had no idea where we were going. “I was hoping,” she said, “that you would be more reasonable.”

“That’s because you don’t know me,” I said to her. “Ocean is the reasonable one in the relationship.”

She actually cracked a smile. “I’m not going to waste your time, I promise. I can tell that my son genuinely likes you. I don’t want to hurt him—or you, for that matter—but there are just things you don’t know.”

“Things like what?”

“Well,” she said, and took a deep breath, “things like—I’ve always relied on Ocean getting a basketball scholarship.” And then she looked at me, looked at me for so long I worried we’d crash into something. “I can’t risk him getting kicked off the team.”