"Dez, it's ten-fifteen at night."
He looked out the window. She heard it land on him. *Later.* Her own word.
"I'm thinking," she said. "That's the truth. I'm not saying it to make you stop asking. I'm thinking hard."
"Okay," he said. He didn't believe her, and she couldn't blame him.
V.
On Thursday after school, Amari drove Jalen to The Marketplace in his mother's Corolla. Jalen carried the orange box on his knees the whole way, *NOT YET* on the lid facing down.
The kid at the Dick's return counter scanned the receipt, opened the box, flexed one sole to check for wear, and looked up. "You sure? These are gone everywhere. You could flip them for like two-seventy."
"I'm sure," Jalen said.
"Refund goes back on the original card."
"I know. That's the point."
Walking out past the wall of basketballs, he felt lighter and worse at once, like he'd set down something heavy and his arms didn't know what to do.
At home he waited until Walter had the chicken in the oven and Dez had gone down to the lobby to call Hector about the gear, which had gone on Spool that afternoon and survived forty straight endgame lifts. Then he went to his mother's door and knocked.
She was sitting on the bed with her phone. She had already seen it, he could tell. *Refund: Dick's Sporting Goods, $203.39.*
"You took them back," she said.
"Yeah."
"Did you not like them?"
"I loved them." He stood in the doorway because he didn't trust himself any closer. "Mom, I need to say some stuff and I need you to let me get to the end."