Bigger Than The Program

[Captain Canada]

Looks like Cortez is getting a chip on his shoulder from the jump. Going to be intriguing to see where he decides to go.

[The JZA]

Don't Pet The Pit Bull
(SZN 1 , EPI 2)

The rain came down like the sky had been waiting all summer to settle a debt. What the forecast had advertised as scattered showers became a full-scale assault before nightfall. Thunder rolled over the Bronx in long, violent waves, shaking window glass and rattling loose metal along fire escapes. Lightning split the darkness above Kingsbridge Terrace, bleaching rooftops white for half a heartbeat before throwing the neighborhood back into shadow. The city had spent more than a hundred days sweating, now it was drowning.

Only hours earlier, cars had crawled through the streets with music rattling their trunks. Kids had chased Mister Softee trucks with damp dollar bills folded inside their fists. Open hydrants had sent silver water spraying across intersections while children leaped through the mist in basketball shorts and bare feet. By night, those memories felt like scenes from another season. The sidewalks stood abandoned. Gutters overflowed with cigarette butts, leaves, crushed cans, and whatever else the storm could carry. Water rushed along the curbs in brown rivers. Traffic lights changed for intersections with nobody waiting to cross. The occasional vehicle pushed through the flooded streets, its headlights cutting pale tunnels through the downpour before disappearing behind curtains of rain. Every strike against the windows sounded personal. The house seemed trapped inside an industrial car wash, the entire structure suspended on some invisible pulley while endless sheets of water pounded the siding. Wind shoved against the walls. Branches scratched along the roof. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm screamed into the storm until either the battery died or the owner finally found the courage to go outside. The weather had decided who was brave enough to be out and who was smart enough to remain indoors.

Cortez and Lauri had chosen intelligence..

Lauri occupied the dining table beneath the warm kitchen light. A portable mirror stood in front of her, its circular frame glowing around the edges. The light gave her face a polished softness while the rest of the kitchen remained dim beyond it. A package had been waiting when they arrived home from school. Lauri had carried it inside like it contained state secrets. She had disappeared upstairs with the box, ignored Cortez’s questions, then returned to the dining table with the contents concealed inside one fist. For nearly twenty minutes, she had leaned toward the mirror, adjusting something inside her mouth.

Across the house, Cortez sat beneath the standing lamp in the living room. The television played with the sound muted, filling the room with the grainy colors of another era. He had found a YouTube channel a user was dedicating it to old NFL games and had left the playlist on, currently playing the Super Bowl XVI. The San Francisco 49ers led the Cincinnati Bengals fourteen to nothing as halftime approached. Joe Montana moved across the screen, calm behind an offensive line built from men who looked more like dockworkers than modern athletes. The footage carried static around the edges. Players ran across a field dulled by age and videotape decay. Advertisements from forty years earlier flashed between possessions, selling cars, beer, and cigarettes to people who were now grandparents or ghosts.

Cortez barely watched. The television was atmosphere. His true attention rested on the playbook spread across his lap.

Pages were marked with highlighter, pen, and fingerprints. Route combinations intersected across diagrams like street maps drawn by somebody expecting collisions. Protection assignments filled the margins. Cortez moved through each play slowly, visualizing the field from behind center.

Mike linebacker shaded right. Safety creeping down. Corner showing outside leverage. Three-step drop. Shoulders square. Ball out before the break.

He rehearsed each movement without leaving the couch. His left hand tightened around an imaginary football. His feet shifted against the rug. He read defensive ghosts moving across Antonio’s living room and delivered silent passes through them.

This was where Cortez felt safest.

Inside structure. Inside repetition. Inside a world where every problem could be reduced to leverage, timing, and whether somebody completed his assignment.

“Yo, bro!” Lauri’s voice cut through the mental drive. She pushed away from the dining table and hurried through the kitchen archway. Her bare feet padded against the floor as she entered the living room with the mirror still glowing behind her. “What you think?” She stopped beneath the lamp and smiled wider than necessary.

The expression made Cortez look up, then again. Something gold gleamed across her teeth.

“What's that in your mouth? ” Cortez lowered the playbook slightly, studying her as though she had arrived with a visible injury.

Lauri opened her mouth wider and tilted her head beneath the light. “These my new double cap grills.”

Two gold caps gleamed along her upper teeth, bright enough to catch a flicker from the television. “When I see that ex-bitch of yours, I'ma blind her and catch her with a Shoryuken one time, BOP!”

She dipped low, twisted her hips, then launched an exaggerated uppercut toward an invisible opponent. Her fist stopped inches away from the lamp shade. The performance dragged a smirk across Cortez’s face before he could stop it.

“You look like if you pawn those things, you'd probably get back $2.50, and maybe a used scratch off ticket and a bottle cap,” Cortez teased, leaning back into the couch as he gave her another once-over.

“But I don't know,” he added after a beat, his tone shifting just slightly, more thoughtful now. “The look kinda suits you. You don't look crazy with it. Just makes you look like you need to suck your teeth every five sentences.” He chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

“Who you trying to impress?” he asked, cutting his eyes toward her again. “Some shorty caught your eye at school?”

Lauri saw the reaction and immediately turned defensive.

“Aye, fuck off with that!”

There was no heat in the protest. Her lips were already curling into a matching smirk as she abandoned the fighting stance. “These are just aesthetic. For the 'gram, you feel me?”

She dropped onto the couch beside him, landing close enough for their shoulders to touch. The cushions sank beneath their combined weight, forcing Cortez to lift the playbook before it slid toward her lap.

“Nah, ain't nobody specific yet. Just wanted to treat myself, you know? Plus...”

Lauri paused. Her tongue moved unconsciously across the back of the new caps. A smaller smile appeared, one without the performance behind it.

“I've been thinking about expanding my content. Maybe doing some more lifestyle stuff, you feel me? And before you start, yes, I do know the difference between actual wealth and flexing on social media.”

Cortez cut his eyes toward her. One eyebrow lifted, then he returned to the playbook. “Shit, you might as well. Mofos pay y'all just to flex in places you don't belong and with things you don't own.” He flipped the page, though his attention remained divided.

He had seen the posts. Women leaning against rented cars that looked like they couldn't find the ignition button, let alone drive. Men taking photographs with a wad of cash that typically get them robbed in the same day. Models standing on private jets that never left the runway. Champagne bottles passed between strangers while cameras worked to convince the world they were lifelong friends.

Entire identities constructed under borrowed lighting. “Just know that "fake it til you make it" don't hold up for long in the real world. Can't live your life as a fraud forever.”

Lauri’s smile faded. The playful light left her face so quickly that even the gold in her mouth seemed to dim. She pulled both legs onto the couch and tucked them beneath herself, turning until her body faced him completely.

“Wow, ouch. Was that necessary, bruh?” She tried coating the hurt in irritation, but it did not hide well.

“Because if that's how you really feel, then maybe I should just give up now, right?”

Her arms folded over her chest. Her jaw set stubbornly, building a wall around whatever insecurity his words had touched.

Outside, rain hammered the windows with renewed violence. Thunder growled above the roof.

Cortez looked up from the page. “The hell is you talking about?” He turned fully toward her now, confusion hardening his expression. “Ain't nobody flying out gay girls to Dubai. You don't play for that side of the team, fam!”

He laughed harder than the joke deserved. Lauri stared at him before confusion crossed her face first, then the offense. Then the slow realization that they had been speaking about two completely different things.

“What?! No, I—wait, what are you even talking about?!”

Her hands flew outward.

“I meant like... Makeup, try-on hauls and stuff! Something outside the polished lighting and edited photos.”

She shook her head so sharply that her braids struck the back of the couch. “That's not even the same thing! And also, super cringe to assume that's what I was talking about, bro.”

Despite the annoyance twisting her expression, amusement had started leaking into her voice.

“But for real though... why would you jump to that conclusion?”

Cortez leaned back. For reasons known only to him, he decided the best available response was music.

“Cause you's a cutie pie who may think that she's truly fly! Tryna' cop a whip and a ride to Dubai!”

The improvised verse left his mouth with more confidence than rhythm. It hit the room and died there immediately.

Cortez held the pose for a beat, waiting for something resembling appreciation. Lauri stared at him with the blank expression of someone witnessing a public emergency.

“Uh... Yeah, I'ma just...” He lowered his head toward the playbook. “Stick to football... Please and thank you.”

Lauri groaned and dropped her head against the couch cushions. “Brooo, that was so bad,”

Her laughter broke loose as she shook her head. “Like... genuinely painful to listen to. Where did that even come from?”

She peeked toward him from the corner of her eye, a smirk pulling at her lips despite her effort to remain disgusted.

“You know what? I'm glad you're sticking to football because if rapping is what you do in your free time...”

She let the sentence trail into the silence, one eyebrow rising high enough to finish the insult without words. Cortez turned another page and pretended he had already forgotten the exchange. The storm slowly loosened its grip on the neighborhood. The heavy downpour softened into a steady drizzle. Individual drops became distinguishable against the glass. Thunder moved farther east, grumbling over distant buildings instead of directly overhead. The streets began breathing again. A sedan passed through the block, its tires slicing through standing water. The wet hiss carried from nearly half a block away. Minutes later, another vehicle followed, moving cautiously beneath the streetlights. Water dripped from awnings and fire escapes in silver chains.

Then footsteps sounded across the front porch. A shadow passed behind the blinds. The shutters were closed, but the shape was unmistakably broad and masculine. Keys scraped against the lock. The handle jiggled. A shoulder pushed against the swollen doorframe.

Antonio was home.

The front door swung inward as he stepped through carrying the garage and the storm with him. A soaked black North Face fleece jacket clung to his shoulders over a light-gray crewneck. Dark-wash jeans were damp from the knees down. His work boots carried black grease in the seams despite an obvious attempt to wipe them before entering. A plastic grocery bag hung from one arm, stretched tight by packages of meat and whatever else he had collected before the store closed. Water rolled from his hair along the side of his face.

“What's up O.G.?” Cortez glanced at the clock on his phone.

The numbers surprised him.

“Damn, it's after 11 already? I didn't mean to study this long.”

Antonio pushed the door shut behind him and locked it. “Salut. I grabbed some protein from the store since you kids keep eating everything I buy without replacing it.”

His deep-brown eyes swept across the living room, briefly landing on Cortez and then Lauri. Exhaustion sat beneath them, but it had not altered the quiet authority in his posture. “School go okay today, Princess?”

He carried the grocery bag into the kitchen and dropped it onto the counter with a heavy thud. Then he ran one hand through his damp hair, sending several drops onto the floor. Antonio had spent the day repairing other people’s mistakes beneath raised vehicles. The smell of motor oil had settled into his skin years ago. Even after a shower, some trace of the garage always remained in the lines of his hands. He moved like a man who had been working since before sunrise but refused to let fatigue bend his shoulders.

“Maaan, Antonio! Seriously?!” Lauri called after him without leaving the couch. “Can you at least pretend to trust us with basic shopping decisions? Leave us a little bit of grocery money and we could replace things. We're not savages!”

She shifted into a cross-legged position and adjusted the hem of her hoodie. “But yeah, school was fine. Bunch of boring lectures and Mrs. Henderson questioning my future choices again.” The final part arrived beneath an exaggerated sigh.

Lauri rose abruptly and walked toward the kitchen doorway with both hands planted on her hips, already prepared to reopen the case against Mrs. Henderson.

Cortez watched her go.

An opportunity presented itself and he took it without mercy.

“Your "Princess" over here thought she'd be cute with some gold grills.”

Lauri froze in the doorway.

Cortez glanced sideways at her. “I think she might be worth something if we pawn her.”

Her eyes widened. Heat climbed into her cheeks as she spun toward him. She pressed both palms against her face, as though she could physically contain the embarrassment. Somewhere beneath the outrage, even she understood the absurdity. Cortez had reported her cosmetic purchase to Antonio with the seriousness of a child exposing stolen candy.

“Wow, you dead snitched on me,”

The first sentence came half beneath her breath. Then she stared directly at her brother.

“How am I supposed to be cool about this now?!”

Antonio emerged from the kitchen wiping his hands on a paper towel. He looked between them with equal portions of amusement and exhaustion.

“Kid, what I tell you about snitching on family? You want to be a mook, go outside and do that”

The reprimand carried little weight, but Cortez lifted both hands in surrender anyway. Antonio tossed the paper towel onto the counter and folded his arms.

“Alright, Princess, let me see these grills he's ratting you out on.”

Lauri hesitated. Her fingers rose instinctively toward her lips. The bravado she had displayed for Cortez disappeared beneath Antonio’s evaluation.

She sighed dramatically, opened her mouth, and displayed the two gold caps beneath the kitchen light.

“There. Happy now?”

His eyes settled on Lauri’s mouth. “And here I thought you were saving your money for college.”

She closed her mouth and immediately folded her arms. “It's not even that serious! I just... I wanted to treat myself, alright? Is that so wrong?” Her voice rose as embarrassment transformed into defense.

“Maybe I shouldn't have gotten them right now with college savings and all that, but... I dunno. Sometimes a girl just wants to feel good about herself, you know?”

Antonio studied the work in silence, assessing. His head tilted slightly. His eyes moved across the alignment of the caps, the finish, the way they sat against her natural teeth.

“Alright, I see 'em. Not terrible, but definitely expensive for something cosmetic.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms again. “I get wanting to feel good about yourself, Laur. I do. But there's smart ways to spend money and less-smart ways.”

His tone remained calm, what made the lecture harder to dismiss. Antonio rarely spoke from theory. Every warning came attached to some old scar, lost dollar, or lesson he had been forced to purchase himself.

“Tell you what though... you finish the semester strong, show me you can balance this style stuff with actually focusing on school, and we'll revisit this conversation. Deal?”

Lauri’s defensive posture melted. She turned toward Cortez with triumph brightening her face. “Hehe, that blew up in your face, huh?”

Cortez rolled his eyes. “Don't you have some anime to watch?” He retorted.

Lauri grinned, satisfied that she had survived judgment and the victory over her big brother.

Antonio looked beyond her toward Cortez. The amusement drained from his expression.

“And you, champ? What happened at school today besides your sister's new gangsta grills?”

Lauri began clearing her belongings from the dining table. She gathered the illuminated mirror, packaging, makeup pouch, and discarded wrappers into her arms. Before climbing the stairs, she stuck her tongue out at Cortez. Then she disappeared toward her room, moving quickly enough to avoid being drafted into any further serious conversation.

Cortez closed the playbook halfway. “Eh, it was what it was I supposed. The beginning of last days of high school. You know how that goes. Other than that...”

He paused.

The television continued playing silently behind him. The Bengals were threatening near the goal line now.

Cortez released a breath, debating whether Jennessa deserved to enter the room.

“Ran into my ex-girl, you know, shorty with the pink hair? Bumped into her at the gas station on the way from school. She's all smoke, ain't nothing serious.”

Antonio’s posture shifted. His shoulders straightened against the archway. His attention sharpened in a way that let Cortez know the subject had moved beyond casual school gossip.

“The one you broke up with a few months ago?” His tone remained neutral.

“What'd she want? Try to get back together or something?”

Antonio’s eyes narrowed slightly. Experience had taught him that former lovers rarely approached each other without carrying unfinished business. Especially when the breakup was fresh. Especially when pride had been wounded.

"You handle it alright?"

A wet print marked the floor near the doorway. “About as smooth as you tracking mud through here” Cortez responded.

Antonio glanced down.

“You know that little pit bull upstairs, Lauri, wasn't letting anything pop off without her in the mix.”

He finally closed the playbook and placed it on the coffee table. His knees cracked when he stood. After sitting for so long, his back and legs felt older than the rest of him. He stretched both arms above his head before speaking again.

“But I think I'ma have to give Jennessa some type of proper closure so she can leave me alone. I know breaking up with her over text is a bad look, but I just can't deal with her anymore, man. She's just... doing too much.”

The explanation stopped before reaching the details. Some truths were too tangled to loosen after eleven at night.

Antonio nodded slowly. He crossed into the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and removed two glasses. Ice cracked beneath the dispenser. Water filled both glasses with a steady rush.

“So you think giving her closure might resolve things? Could work, could make it worse. Depends on what you say and how you say it.” He slid one glass across the counter toward Cortez, then took the second for himself. “Just... be careful, yeah? Some people don't handle rejection well, especially when it's fresh. Lauri getting involved probably didn't help either - that girl's got your back but she can be intense.”

Antonio took a drink. His expression remained thoughtful over the rim.

“Yeah, no doubt.” Cortez picked up the glass and drank. The cold water exposed a thirst he had not noticed. He swallowed more than intended before lowering it.

“I mean, like I said, we've broken up. We're done. I reminded her that, she acknowledged it. But...” He paused to find his next words. “All this after shock nonsense she's doing, blowing my phone up, leaving comments under my posts online. I'm starting to think I'm dealing with another level of crazy, and I'm not built for that this year, especially with the season I'm trying to focus on.”

Antonio listened without interrupting. His brow furrowed. He set his glass against the counter with a small clink and folded his arms.

“Sounds like she's got a chip on her shoulder about the breakup,”

The assessment came without judgment. “Texting, commenting on your posts - that's passive aggressive shit. Like she's trying to get your attention without actually talking to you.”

Antonio held Cortez’s gaze. “If she's blowing up your phone constantly, that's disruptive. Football season's important - you can't afford distractions, especially not the kind that follow you everywhere. So what are you thinking? Just ignoring it until she gets bored?”

Cortez scoffed.

The idea of Jennessa becoming bored and peacefully disappearing sounded less believable than the storm reversing itself and falling back into the clouds.

“Nah man, this band-aid gotta be pulled. I'm done with this hurt biz.”

Antonio raised an eyebrow, then a small smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth.

“A band-aid, huh? That's one way to put it.” He shook his head and released a low chuckle. “Sure, some things you gotta rip off quick instead.”

The joke faded.

Antonio nodded once to himself. “Alright kid, you got this. You figure this and let me know how it turns out.”

Cortez finished the water and released a relieved breath. He placed the empty glass within Antonio’s reach, making no attempt to carry it the remaining distance to the sink.

“Yes sir, will do.”

A yawn widened his mouth. He checked the time again.

“Yeah, it's time for me to crash. I'll see you in the morning, Unc.”

Antonio collected the glasses.

“Get some rest, kid...”

Cortez retrieved the playbook from the coffee table, turning off the TV and climbed the stairs. The house settled behind him while Antonio unpacked groceries beneath the kitchen light. Rain whispered against the windows, quieter now but not gone. Outside, water moved through the gutters carrying dirt toward drains already clogged with everything the city had tried to discard.

Morning arrived before the city had finished drying. For those who had struggled to sleep through the storm, dawn felt less like a new beginning than another demand. Gray light spread across wet rooftops. Water dripped from fire escapes and tree branches. The streets reflected buildings in broken puddles disturbed by tires and hurried footsteps.

After one night of violence from the sky, New York returned to its regular schedule. Television anchors reported early-morning collisions that had jammed traffic on the Cross Bronx. Adults dragged sleepy children toward buses and school entrances. Dog owners stood beneath awnings while their animals inspected every wet patch of sidewalk before selecting the most inconvenient place to stop. Crossing guards blew whistles at drivers to halt them. Pigeons strutted down the blocks after leaving white evidence of their contempt across hoods the fresh rain couldn't remove. Somewhere on every block, an irritated driver leaned on a horn as though noise could move traffic faster.

New York was New Yorking.

The rain had scrubbed some of the heat from the morning. Damp trees released a clean, green smell rarely strong enough to survive the city’s exhaust. The air carried calm warmth instead of yesterday’s suffocating pressure. Kennedy was operating on the second half of a shortened opening week. Two school days gave students time to learn schedules, locate classrooms, and decide which teachers they already hated before the full academic year began Monday.

Students arrived by bus and on foot.

Some gathered outside the entrance beneath the clearing sky. Others occupied the cafeteria, stretching breakfast into a social event while waiting for homeroom. Security scanners beeped. Staff members repeated instructions nobody listened to. Friends reunited after sixteen hours apart with the emotional intensity of soldiers returning from separate wars.

Cortez stood at his locker exchanging books for the morning’s classes.

For the fourth year in a row, Kennedy had assigned him the same narrow metal compartment. He had transformed it into an archive. Stickers covered the inside of the door: football brands, college logos, old wrestling graphics, neighborhood tags, and decals collected from camps. His cleats rested in a drawstring bag shoved deep into the back. Deodorant and cologne stood along the top shelf beside athletic tape and two nearly empty bottles of sports drink. A photograph of Cortez, Kareem, and Antonio at a WWE live event in Brooklyn had been secured inside with aging tape. Beneath it were two photographs of Cortez and Jennessa from junior high. In one, they sat together on the bleachers, younger and thinner, Jennessa’s natural black hair pulled into a high ponytail. Cortez had one arm around her shoulders while both struggled not to laugh. In the second, she kissed his cheek while he stared dramatically at the camera.

He did not need the pictures, but he had never removed them. Keeping them did not mean he wanted her back, nor did throwing them away would not erase what they had been. They belonged to a version of his life that had existed before everything became accusation and damage.

Cortez placed the final textbook inside and shut the locker.

Jennessa stood beside him. She had arrived without sound. Her eyes were already fixed on him with the same cold intensity Bishop had given Q in "Juice."

Cortez’s hand remained against the locker door, a quiet sigh left his nose.

In the back of Cortez's head, Antonio’s warning returned, about how some people did not handle rejection well.

His first instinct told him to walk away. Instead, Cortez straightened.

He put on his big-boy pants and kept the greeting cordial. “Good morning, Jennessa.”

Her expression did not change at first. Something flickered in her dark eyes, however—a brief disturbance beneath still water. She tilted her head. A strand of pink hair slipped across one eyebrow.

“Morning,”

Jennessa leaned against the neighboring locker with practiced ease. “You look... lost in thought.”

Her gaze traveled across him. Over the summer, Cortez had grown more solid through the shoulders and chest. The long nights in Antonio’s gym had replaced some of the remaining softness in his frame. The lanky boy Jennessa remembered had hardened into an athlete more comfortable occupying his own space.

“That a new thing?” She lifted one painted nail and gestured vaguely toward his upper body. “Trying to be all civil and shit after how you spoke to me yesterday?”

The words sounded casual, but the edge beneath them was not.

“Look, don't bring that up, aight?” Cortez turned until he faced her completely. “It's too early in the morning for that beef. What is it that you want, Jennessa?”

Her eyes narrowed by a fraction. She crossed her arms beneath her chest.

“What I want,” Each word arrived carefully measured, “is for you to actually listen to what I have to say instead of cutting me off mid-conversation like I'm some... some groupie.”

Jennessa stepped closer. At five-foot-three, she had to crane her neck to hold his gaze. The height difference had never weakened her confidence. She carried herself like inches were another rule she had decided did not apply.

“You know what's really interesting, Cortez?” Her lips curved into something too cold to be called a smile. “How quick you were to throw us away like we meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. We had three years together. Three fucking years, Cortez. And now you think you're some big shot because of football?”

Cortez looked down at her. The closeness prickled against his skin. Her directness had once been among the things he loved most. Jennessa never drifted around the point. She drove directly through it. She spoke without filters and confronted discomfort before it could find somewhere to hide. When the rest of the world smiled politely and lied, Jennessa told the ugly truth with her entire chest. That fearlessness had drawn him toward her.

But then there had been the incident. The rumors, the details, Lauri’s face afterward. Some acts could not be undone by honesty delivered too late.

“Nah, unlike you, football didn't betray me. You know what you did. You fucked up.”

Jennessa’s jaw tightened, her hands closed into fists at her sides. For a moment, genuine emotion broke through the careful mask she had worn into the hallway.

“I didn't 'betray' you!” Her voice rose above the surrounding noise. Nearby conversations weakened. “We weren't even together! That night was... it was...”

The words failed her. That almost never happened. Jennessa took a step backward, trying to rebuild control, but it was too late.

Students had already noticed. Phones emerged from pockets with disgusting speed. A boy near the drinking fountain lifted his camera and pretended to check messages. Two girls farther down the hall stopped walking altogether. Attention spread outward in ripples.

Jennessa lowered her voice.

“I made one mistake, Cortez. One. Mistake.” Each word came separated and deliberate. “And you threw everything we had away because of it. So yeah, maybe I fucked up—I'm human. But you? You acted like a child about it.”

Cortez scanned the gathering audience. The first week had barely passed, and already Kennedy’s hallways were hungry for spectacle. He reached for Jennessa’s arm. His grip was firm without being cruel. He guided her through the nearest side exit before the crowd could grow. Students followed several steps, disappointed when the heavy door shut between them and the confrontation. Outside, warm air met them beneath a clearing sky. The field stretched beyond the fence, still shining from the previous night’s rain. Water clung to the bleachers. Puddles occupied low sections of the track. The school walls blocked most of the morning noise, leaving only distant traffic and the muffled life of the building behind them.

He checked his phone to see twenty minutes remained before homeroom.

“You want to talk about this? Fine. You got twenty minutes til' class. But don't try to make yourself look like some victim, I'm not falling for that B.S., Jennessa. I know you.”

He slid the phone into his pocket.

“So let's start here, for one, people who know you, know me and vice versa. I get it, we were like "this,"” Cortez crossed two fingers in gesture. “But that foul shit you pulled at that party is crazy. Secondly, you not only tried to, but with my sister?”

His brows drew together... “Fuck was you thinking?”

Jennessa wrapped both arms around herself. The posture was defensive, but her spine remained rigid. The wind blew and lifted several pink strands from her face. She stared toward the wet concrete instead of Cortez.

“I wasn't trying to anything with your sister!” Her eyes flashed toward him. “That whole situation was fucked up from the jump. Your sister saw something and misinterpreted it—because she was jealous!”

“Jealous?” Cortez blinked. The accusation seemed so disconnected from reality that his anger briefly gave way to confusion.

“ Jealous of what? She looked at you like a big sister.”

He stopped speaking and waited. Jennessa had demanded to be heard. He gave her the opening, but she did not immediately use it.

“So that's what you're telling me? Lauri misread the room? It wasn't just you being lit at a party? Smoking and drinking, dancing on other niccas at the function? Not only that you tried to move on her? You telling me my little sister is going to lie to me about some shit like that?”

Color rose across Jennessa’s face with frustration twisting with something harder to name.

Guilt. Shame. Fear.

She turned away and stared across the empty field. “Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying!”

The insistence arrived without the conviction that usually powered her voice. “Your sister... she always had this weird thing with me. Like, sometimes I felt like she wanted...” The sentence withered unfinished.

Cortez’s expression changed. Whatever patience Antonio’s advice had bought disappeared.

“Nah yo, watch how you talk about my sister.”

The warning came low.

“My sister's goofy and she like girls, but she ain't no line stepper. She ain't one of those ones, so come up off that slander.”

Disappointment replaced some of the anger in his face. He had expected denial, expected excuses, but he didn't expect Jennessa to push the blame toward Lauri.

“I'd respect you more had you just came out and called it what it was, but you can't even do that.”

Cortez shook his head. He turned toward the side entrance with the wound had been exposed, seemingly nothing beneath it looked healed.

Before he reached the door, Mrs. Henderson intercepted the door, opening it, seeing two students who looked like they were in a middle of a quarrel.

“Jennessa, Cortez, what are you two doing out over here? One of the students said you two were fighting.” Her expression carried the seasoned suspicion of an educator who had broken up enough hallway conflicts to know that teenagers rarely told the complete truth on the first attempt.

Cortez looked toward her. “Nah, Mrs. Henderson. We just wanted somewhere private to speak on sensitive matters. We're done here though.”

He gave Jennessa one final look. Not of hatred, damn sure wasn't forgiveness. Just exhaustion. He pushed passed Mrs. Henderson without bumping into her, returning to the hallway with several minutes remaining before class. Some students lingered, watching the situation unfold.

Mrs. Henderson watched him disappear beyond his locker before her gaze shifted back toward Jennessa and remained there longer than comfort allowed.

“Are you sure everything is alright, Miss Caris?” Concern and suspicion occupied equal space in her tone.

Jennessa stood motionless. Her eyes remained on the closed door Cortez had passed through. Her jaw clenched hard enough to ache. Everything about the morning felt wrong—the location, the timing, the students recording, the words she had failed to arrange correctly.

Worst of all was the vulnerability creeping through the fractures in her practiced composure.

“It's fine,” The response came smaller than she intended, more for herself than for Mrs. Henderson.

“Everything's fine.”

Mrs. Henderson studied her for another long moment, then spoke, "Alright, come on, class is about to start."

She held the door still, waiting for Jennessa to step through and make her way to homeroom.

[The JZA]

Buckeye nation let’s go

Let's not put the carriage before the horse

Looks like Cortez is getting a chip on his shoulder from the jump. Going to be intriguing to see where he decides to go.

It's the stuff of fairy tales, brother