“I know, I know. Give me a sec, okay? I’m working on something.”

She went back to typing, and Jus’s mind went in a different direction. Over the past couple of days, it’d really sunk in that this would be his and SJ’s final tournament together. When it was over, his excuse for hanging out with her would be kaput.

And then what would he do?

He glanced over at her again. She was rockin’ her glasses with her hair in a messy knot. His favorite way for her to be. Yeah, just last night he’d been at Melo’s—and definitely not for anything academic—but being around SJ was just…different. He didn’t wanna let it go but had no clue how to keep it going.

“Oh my god!”

“What?”

“I think I’ve got it! C’mere!” She uncrossed her legs and made room for him in the chair.

As he squeezed in beside her and felt her whole left side pressed against his right, he had to take a clandestine deep breath—she smelled like fruit and flowers—and force himself to focus.

“So check this out,” she said, rotating the screen so he could see it. “The Myth of the Superpredator” was the title of the article. “The gist of this: back in the nineties, some big-shot researchers predicted that the number of violent crimes committed by African American teen males would skyrocket in the years to follow. The ‘leading authority’ on the matter dubbed these potential criminals superpredators.”

Justyce already knew about the superpredator myth—he’d stumbled upon the whole thing while trying to deal with his own profiling trauma. But he let SJ keep going because when would he get to see her all absorbed in debate research and talking a million miles per minute again? He’d miss this.

“Fortunately, the prediction was incorrect,” she went on. “Crime rates among youth plummeted.”

He smiled. “Okay…”

“Unfortunately, it seems the fear of young black guys created by this research is alive and well.” She ran a fingertip over his wrist.

Annnnd time to get up.

He went back to pacing. “So where would we go with this, S?”

“Well, I’m thinking we could do an argument on racial profiling.”

Jus stopped. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“So you’ve lost it, is what you’re really telling me.”

“Oh come on. What do we have to lose?”

“Uhh, the tournament?”

“Screw the tournament.” She shut her laptop and came over to where he was. “This is something people need to hear about, Jus. It’s an argumentation gold mine!”

“Mmmm…” It wasn’t that he didn’t believe they could form a solid argument—she was right: the numbers spoke for themselves.

The real issue? He didn’t wanna be the black guy accused of “playing the race card” at a state tournament.

He turned to her then. Though he prolly shouldn’t have. Cuz feelings. “I don’t know about this, S.”

“I didn’t sleep for a week after what happened to you, Jus,” she said. “I know we might be throwing away our chance at a win, but if we can get some facts out there, maybe make people think a little bit, it’ll be worth it, right?”

Jus didn’t say a word.

She threw an arm over his shoulders. Boob on the biceps. “It’s our last hurrah,” she said. “Let’s go out with a bang.”

“S, I—”

“Come onnnnnn, Jussy!”

She pouted.

He sighed. There would be no turning her down.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

—

Because of their combined debate record for the season—eight wins, one loss, one tie—Justyce and SJ are the final pair in their division to present their argument. When their names are called, they step into the glaring stage lights and up to the adjacent podiums. The only people Jus can see are the three judges.

The center judge says You may begin, and SJ launches into their introduction. With her final sentence—“We are here to argue that racial disparities in the US criminal justice system are largely due to racial profiling”—a murmur trickles through the audience. Jus’s stomach clenches, and a bead of sweat runs down his side from his armpit. Two of the judges are stone-faced, but when he locks eyes with the third—a white lady—she nods at him.

His eyes shift among the three of them as he and SJ rattle off the statistics that support their argument: drug use versus drug conviction numbers, arrest numbers in minority-populated versus white-populated police zones…By the time they get to the superpredator stuff, all three judges are rapt. That’s when Jus realizes SJ was right: whether or not they win this tournament, he needed to talk about this in a public forum.

When they’re done, Jus feels like he’s walking in a dream. He and SJ get backstage, and the team sweeps them up in hugs and high fives. Doc, with visibly moist eyeballs, tells Jus how proud he is, and a black guy from another team nods at him from across the room. Some random cute girl from another school brings him water with her number scrawled on the cup, and he sees SJ slip it in the garbage when she thinks he’s not looking.

He has no clue how much time passes between them leaving the stage and hearing the emcee return to announce the results, but the next thing he knows, Doc and the team are filing out to return to their seats.

None of it feels real.

Without thinking too much about it, he drapes an arm around SJ’s shoulders. She turns to wrap her arms around his torso, and when she buries her face in his neck, his other arm slips around her waist.

They breathe.

The emcee calls third place. It’s not them. SJ inhales, and Jus feels her ribs expand. When the emcee calls second and it’s not them, Jus squeezes tighter. “S, I just wanna sa—”

“Hush it. You can tell me later.”

“Bossy.”

She chuckles. It makes him feel better than he’s felt in a long time.

“And your state champions in the advanced pairs argumentation division: from Braselton Preparatory Academy, Justyce McAllister and Sarah-Jane Friedman!”

They don’t let go.

January 13

Martin, I think I’m losing it.

I’ve avoided writing to you about this because it really doesn’t have any bearing on the Be Like Martin experiment. Then again, I guess it could be considered a failed attempt at “romantic integration” or something…Anyway, after the dream I just had—which I definitely won’t put in here because it’s not appropriate—I gotta get some stuff off my chest.

So SJ and I won our division of the state debate tournament. When we returned backstage after receiving our medals, everything felt different. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way we were hugging just before they announced all the winners, so when she turned to face me looking all beautiful, I knew that was it. No more resisting.

We’re standing there grinning at each other, so I looked at her lips and leaned in for the kill…

AND SHE TURNED AWAY! Just straight-up rotated 180 degrees and started walking in the opposite direction! “You see Doc anywhere?” she said over her shoulder.