“Don’t you remember how all this started?” I mumble in reply. It’s my first practice back since Coach’s house call. I’m not really sure how I feel about returning. I know I’m glad to see Bruce in the gym. At first.

“They gotta pay,” Bruce mutters through a locked jaw, staring across the gym at the storage room. “They gotta pay,” he repeats. I haven’t gone back into the storage room and don’t plan on it. That’s why I’m down at the far end of the gym, stretching, when Bruce joins me. He slides his arms behind him and slowly rocks forward to loosen his shoulder muscles. “Besides, this is nothing dangerous. We’re just going to make sure Ronnie’s not forgotten.”

That’s what my brain shouts. No, no, no! What are you, crazy?!?! Wasn’t the attack on Ronnie and his suicide enough?! Do you want to start a whole new round with these guys? We are small. Scott, Tom, and Mike are huge. And wicked. They do as they please and no one ever says anything. And they know that.

My brain motors on but my mouth won’t budge except to nibble the skin on the inside of my cheek. Every single day since the attack is a nonstop loop of remembering all those horrible things that happened to Ronnie in the storage room. He isn’t forgotten in the least. The attack opened my eyes: Oregrove isn’t a school. It’s a hunting ground. Scott, Tom, and Mike choose their targets at leisure and go unpunished. Teachers look the other way, say “boys’ll be boys,” and bust the the rest of us for showing up two minutes late to class. It’s a place where someone small as Ronnie gets chewed up. Where someone small as me is supposed to keep quiet, smile for the yearbook photo, and graduate without spilling any bad secrets.

Scott hurts his arm and all anyone talks about is when he’ll be healthy enough to play again. Cheerleaders—those beautiful, awful cannibals who shred each other without ever making a fist—practically faint when he walks by them in the hall with his arm in a sling. That’s how it works for royalty. Everyone cares about Scott and his arm while Scott cares about no one. And meanwhile, Ronnie’s still dead because of what they did to him . . . and what I didn’t do. People like Ronnie, like me, exist at Oregrove for the royalty to devour.

NO! My brain shouts inside my skull. Tell Bruce NO WAY!

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“Don’t sweat it,” Bruce whispers back. “We’ll be in and out like commandos.” His energy is high again.

“Fisher should be doing this,” I grumble. “He loves this crap.”

“Why don’t you tell him what happened to Ronnie, then,” Bruce snaps, “and I’ll make sure to invite him on our next adventure.”

“There won’t be a next adventure. This is it.”

“Right,” Bruce agrees. His plan, as explained during practice, is pretty simple, taking him less than a full sweep of the gym clock’s second hand to break my will and convince me that revenge is my duty. That, by the way, is Step 1. Step 2 involves us leaving practice last, and together, like he’s going to offer me a ride home. The school and the parking lot empty out by that time.

That leaves Step 3.

Bruce cracks the trunk of his Volvo and glances both ways, real suspicious, like bad guys do in detective movies. I think maybe he’s joking until he pulls out two industrial-size permanent markers. The kind sold at art supply stores. The kind dumbasses use for tagging. He plants one in my palm before I can pull my hand away. It sits in my fist, feeling like a weapon, or, more accurately, like a get-expelled-for-life baton.

“Bruce . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” he tries assuring me. “We’ll be quick. No one’s going to know.”

“I don’t think—”

“Come on!” The cutoff is harsh, letting me know he’s done caring about consequences or what I think. I follow him back into the school, stuffing the triple-size permanent marker into my gym bag.

We make it down into enemy territory inside of a minute—the varsity football locker room. This is serious. Too serious to involve others. Graffiti is grounds for immediate expulsion, no questions asked. No one else can know what we’re doing or be able to prove it. Bruce performs a speedy reconnaissance around the locker room to make sure we’re alone. Trying to explain our presence in the varsity football locker room would be impossible.

Satisfied the place is empty, Bruce moves decisively. Sweet chemical toxicity fills the air once he uncaps the big marker. Tom Jankowski’s locker is first. Bruce scribbles hurriedly but carefully, making sure the name is clear. He moves on to Studblatz’s locker and repeats the message.

“Okay, your turn,” Bruce says. “Hit Scott’s locker.”

I do as instructed, hesitating only a moment, since it’s already too late by then. Too late to go back. I pull the cap off my marker, hearing it snap. I press the wet wick against the thin sheet metal. I spell the name down the locker just like Bruce did the other two:

“Let’s go,” Bruce whispers. “Their regular lockers are next.” I nod, still inhaling the heavy, sweet, chemical scent of fighting back. We scoot out of the locker room, peeking out the doorway and looking both ways before scampering down the hall and upstairs same as we did the time we sprayed pee in their lockers.

I sort of know where each of their three regular lockers is based on where I spot them hanging out between classes and the decorations the cheerleaders paste on them for game Fridays. Bruce, having planned for this moment, knows the precise coordinates and we go in fast. I sprint to the far end of the hallway and peer around the corner to watch out for janitors, late-working teachers, or delinquent students (like us), while Bruce tags Tom’s locker.

Finished, Bruce waves me toward him to the next hallway. Running past Tom’s locker, I see that Bruce tagged it with Ronnie’s name the same way he did downstairs. But this time he’s added “Murderer!” across the top. A nice artistic flourish, I think, popping the cap off my marker. Next up is Scott’s locker and Bruce tags it quickly. Studblatz’s locker is last. Bruce jogs to the end of the hall and plays lookout at the corner while pointing at me to tag it. The fumes from the marker mix with my adrenaline and my head starts getting light. I write Ronnie’s name in bold letters, pressing hard, breathing deep. Across the top of the locker, I write “Murderer!”

“Go, go, go,” Bruce mouths, scooping the air with his hands as a signal for me to catch up. As I reach him, he grabs my arm at the elbow and tugs me behind him. We fly down the next hall. With my head so light, it feels like I’m floating for a moment. I kick at the brick wall for no reason. I get only a dull thud that hurts my foot. So I kick a locker instead and get the nice, satisfying clang I want. Bruce glances back at me with a frown.

“Okay, slow down.” Bruce puts a hand out to slap my chest. “We walk from here.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“No reason to look suspicious. We just forgot something after practice and we came back to get it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give you a ride home,” he says.

In the car, I uncap the marker again and put the wick almost directly up my left nostril. I inhale repeatedly until I start feeling nauseous.

“That smells like shit,” Bruce says. “You’re going to obliterate all your brain cells.”

“That’s okay,” I assure him, recapping the marker. “Some parts would be better if they were obliterated.”

Bruce pulls into my driveway. My dad isn’t home yet. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says.

“Yeah, cool.” Everything feels nice and distant, including Bruce’s voice, like it’s all coming through a veil and nothing is that awful or bad. Nothing really hurts or seems dangerous, and places like Oregrove—where they cheer for guys who did what they did to Ronnie, where they crown them kings—are only a joke.

“Thanks for helping,” Bruce says, tapping the capped marker I hand him against his steering wheel. “It’s the least we could do,” Bruce says. “It’s still not enough. Not even close. But it’s something.”