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press down on the pedal as hard as I could to distance myself from this bad after school special, but the bike didn't lurch forward like it should have. Something was dragging behind it, holding it back. I turned around and saw the kid with the quasi mustache, his hands gripping the back of the bike for a free ride on his skateboard.
    I thought about clocking him, but the only thing more humiliating than riding your dirt bike to school is getting in a fight with a bunch of kids.
    "What are you doing, dumbass? Busy intersection, lots of cars."
    The kid looked back at his friends and grinned. He was in full showmanship mode now, and it was only going to get worse.
    "It's called skitching, asshole," he said to me. "It means I get a free ri—"
    WHUMP!
    The blur of a car whizzed by and knocked him off the back of my bike. He bounced off the car's windshield and flew high into the air. I didn't see him land, because it was clear on the other side of the street across from all the traffic. His skateboard veered across the intersection, somehow missed every car, and disappeared into a sewer.
    The car screeched to a halt; the kid's friends raced over to his side. One of them had the good sense to use his cell phone to take a picture. The driver of the car called an ambulance, and by the time I got there, the injured kid, drained of all color, was coughing up blood.
    I moved in quickly, before any of the stunned bystanders could protest, and I grabbed his head between my two hands.
    "Hey, kid!" I tried to get his attention. His eyes were glassy, rolling back in his head like a porcelain doll's.
    "Hey, dumbass! I'm talking to you!" I yelled at him to keep him conscious, to keep his attention on my voice while my hands did their work. My hands burned as I yelled. "Don't ever do that again, you hear me?!" I shook him by the shoulders, and I felt like my hands were going to melt. "You hear me?!"
    Traffic had stopped by now, and people were gathered around me. A gruff man with a tire iron had organized a group of adults to move me away from the injured kid. They began to approach.
    Finally, the boy's limp eyelids popped to life and he looked at the panic around him.
    "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." He wiped the blood away from his mouth. The coughing had stopped, and there was no more blood trickling out. He even stood up. "Really, I'm sorry. Is everyone okay?"
    The ambulance arrived moments later, but I was long gone by then. I heard the paramedics had to treat the driver of the car that hit the kid more than they had to do anything for the kid himself. The driver was apparently in shock, hyperventilating from the whole ordeal, and the kid with the quasi mustache gave her the paper bag that carried his cigarettes so she'd have something to breathe into. The driver accidentally inhaled the receipt, and the paramedics had to fish it out of her windpipe.
    I stopped in the parking lot in front of the gymnasium and puked into the bushes. I wiped my mouth. I didn't like throwing up, but I was getting better at this: my fingers didn't even twitch this time.
    "You're late," Coach said when I finally arrived, disheveled and worn out. He clutched a tub of potato chips and offered me one.
    "Uh, no thanks," I said.
    "Listen, Thorn. I'm going to cut to the chase here." He shuffled a few papers on his desk. They were yellow with age. "How long have you played center for me?"
    "Five years."
    "Really? Is that all?" His eyeballs rolled up as he tried to remember, like he was trying to get a look back at his brain. "I thought it was more than that."
    I stared at a coffee mug on his desk. It said NUMBER ONE DAD! in big, bright letters, and it was half full with coffee from the morning. The creamer had congealed into a thick film on the surface.
    He chomped down on a potato chip, shook his head, and shrugged.
    "Well, the point is, I've been looking after you for a long time now, and I only have your best interest at heart."
    Uh-oh. Here it comes.
    "This little