A Good Kind of Trouble

At lunch, Shayla hides her anger towards Julia and her happiness at her interactions with Jace. She tells her friends her phone was taken away, and Julia says she thought Shayla was “just bent” and shows off her Stacy-like highlights. Shayla lets her mind drift to Jace’s smile instead of focusing on Julia. She smiles through PE, prompting a comment from Yolanda about how much Shayla must like running. Yolanda pushes Shayla to be nicer to Tyler, so Shayla somewhat attempts to be less rude in shop class. At the end of class, Shayla hurries excitedly to track practice, happy to run. Running helps her release her emotions: the elation from Jace, her anger towards Julia, and her annoyance with Yolanda asking her to be nice.

Shayla struggles with the hurdles at track, worrying that Coach West regrets assigning them to her. Bernard asks if she asked Mr. Levy for a partner change, and when Shayla asks why he asked, he says she looked pleased about the reassignment. She tries to change the subject by asking about how his lab went, and he said he would have preferred it if he were partners with her and sadly walks away. Coach West announces a preseason track meet coming up in two weeks against Oak Junior High.

Shayla’s anxiety turns to excitement as she begins the hurdles at the preseason track meet. Then, at the sixth hurdle, she trips and face plants. She’s mortified and tries to leave the track, but Coach West encourages her to continue the race. Though she doesn’t want to, Shayla picks herself up and finishes as Julia starts a cheer in the stands. Coach Wests asks if she’s up to running the 400, and Shayla fakes that her ankle hurts. She sits, and Angie joins her, relating to the embarrassment and comforting Shayla by telling her everyone who runs hurdles falls. When she asks if Shayla is going to run the 400, Shayla is positive Coach West sent Angie over.

Bernard checks on Shayla, and when he leaves, Angie discerns that he must have a crush on Shayla, to Shayla’s surprise. Angie walks Shayla to her next event, the 400. As Shayla waits for the start gun, she rubs her itchy palms together. She notices that the rubbing never helps. She finishes fourth in the race. Isabella and Julia supportively joke about Shayla’s fall, and the three laugh together “like old times, the three of us laughing at something that isn’t even funny” (164). Then, Stacy makes a derisive comment about the fall, and Julia laughs. Shayla is deeply hurt that Julia didn’t stand up for her against Stacy. She reflects in her eyeball journal that she still would rather never fail than have to be resilient and pick herself back up. She also writes about how some laughter can hurt.

It’s the last day before winter break, and Shayla has lived down her fall and is excited for the upcoming dance. Isabella’s beautiful, pedantic, impassioned mom, Mrs. Alvarez, drops off Isabella and Julia at Shayla’s home. After Mrs. Alvarez lectures Isabella about dancing with boys and standing up for herself, she leaves, and the girls take selfies with their phones. Shayla misses her phone, which her mom still has. She feels plain next to Julia and Isabella’s made-up faces, so she stashes some of Hana’s makeup in her purse to put on at the dance. In the car, Momma overhears Julia asking about Jace, which starts Momma off on her own lecture about them being too young to fraternize with boys.

At the dance, Jace dances next to the girls, who are dancing together. Shayla is at first excited, but then she realizes he is specifically dancing with Isabella. She heads to the snack table, and Isabella is at her heels, asking what’s wrong. Shayla snaps at her then takes the opportunity when Tyler asks her to dance. As they’re dancing, several boys command Tyler to kiss Shayla.

Tyler sloppily kisses Shayla until Coach West intervenes. Shayla is mortified. Isabella asks why she didn’t reject the kiss, and Shayla rudely retorts about Isabella not being able to say no. Bernard appears and asks her to dance, whisking her away from Isabella. He asks about the kiss with Tyler, and to avoid saying something rude about Tyler, Shayla simply says that Tyler is nice. Bernard’s cold response causes Shayla to realize that Bernard may be into her.

On her way to the bathroom, Shayla runs into Julia and her friends, and she catches on that they were the ones who organized the command for Tyler to kiss her. Julia is embarrassed and dismisses it as a joke, but Shayla confronts them, asking how Julia could do something like that to her. Stacy and Julia apologize, but Shayla is still furious. She turns to see Jace and Isabella “[d]ancing and laughing and looking like a great couple” (181).

Isabella breaks away from Jace, and she and Julia walk over to Shayla, who is sitting alone. They ask her to dance, but she refuses and snaps at them. Julia and Isabella dance until it the event is over. When Momma picks them up, she is furious about Shayla’s makeup. Shayla washes her face when she gets home and tries to act like she’s having fun. As the girls get into their sleeping bags, Shayla confronts Julia again about commanding Tyler to kiss her, facetiously referring to her as “Jay” like Stacy does. Isabella agrees that Julia shouldn’t have done it, so Julia insincerely apologizes and changes the subject to social media pictures. Isabella hints that she’d like to talk about why Shayla was mad at her, too, but Shayla turns away, pretending to sleep.

When Shayla wakes up before her friends, she goes through Julia’s phone and finds a text chain between Julia and Isabella: Julia encouraged Isabella to dance with Jace, but Isabella said she was worried Shayla would be upset. At breakfast, Momma talks to Julia and Isabella about winter break plans while Shayla holds back tears. When the girls leave, Shayla hugs Momma, who starts lecturing her about makeup and boys again and explains she’s still in trouble through winter break: still no phone, and extra chores. Shayla goes to her room and journals about how alone she feels.

Shayla thinks of the dance as a turning point in her life. Before the dance, she was anxious to get Jace’s attention, Momma respected her, and she was ready for winter break. After the dance, she wants to avoid Jace, Momma is still punishing her, and her winter break plans no longer exist. She spends much of her time writing in her eyeball journal and refuses to speak to Isabella or Julia. She wishes for “a smaller forehead and friends [she] can trust” for Christmas (194). At the mall, Momma sends her to Starbucks for a pick-me-up because Shayla is so discouraged about her friendships. She sips her drink sadly, watching happy shoppers stroll by.

While Shayla is alone with her coffee, Coach West appears and cheerfully approaches her, seeing that Shayla is upset and prodding her to share what’s wrong. The coach asks if it has to do with Tyler kissing her, and when Shayla explains it was because of the Command game, Coach West reminds her she can always say no to anything she doesn’t want to do with anyone. She keeps pushing, and Shayla finally tells her about the love triangle between herself, Isabella, and Jace. Coach shares that she, too, had a friend she felt was prettier than her and resented her for it. She stresses that a person’s looks are out of their control and that she learned crushes aren’t worth losing friendships. Then, she asks Shayla if thinks her history teacher, Mr. Powell, would like the purple scarf Coach West chose for him at the mall. Shayla does think so, even though she knows some classmates make fun of him for his style; she thinks he’s an “awesome teacher” (200). They wish each other Merry Christmas, and Shayla waits for Momma to come back, determined to call Isabella when she gets home.

Shayla and Momma walk outside straight into a group of protesters. A protester throws a rock through a window, and Shayla almost loses Momma in the crowd. She realizes how scary a protest can be. They make it to the car and drive past a man being handcuffed.

On the radio, Shayla hears the trial is coming to a close. At home, Hana orders Shayla to cheer up, so Shayla tells her about the protest. They discuss how the protests are not about violence but that sometimes they “can make it seem like our movement is just about spreading violence” (205). Hana expresses that she sometimes feels like being violent to bring attention to the plight of Black people. She divulges that she’s had to cross several colleges off her list because she was afraid to live in those cities as a Black person. Shayla apologizes for whining, and Hana invites her to a rally at UCLA.

The whole family goes together. They park at Westwood and walk with their signs towards the group. They grab candles and begin to march silently towards campus. Shayla looks at a crowd of Black people and feels a sense of belonging. Once they reach campus, they sing “We shall overcome” (210). When Shayla gets home, she writes in her eyeball journal about the march, then Tyler calls. They have a short, awkward exchange, and to fill the silence, Shayla blurts out that she went to the rally. She hangs up as he starts to ask her a question. Shayla directs her parents to tell Tyler she’s busy if he calls again, and her dad sarcastically asks if she’s talking to anyone at all.

Shayla feels socially disconnected without her phone, which gives her more time to watch the news about the trial and protests. She’s relieved to return to school from winter break and finds Julia and Isabella waiting for her. Isabella warns her that there are online rumors about her and Tyler, but Tyler appears before she can explain. The girls talk briefly about their winter breaks, and Tyler announces that Shayla attended the march, insinuating that they are “talking” like a couple. Julia and Isabella express their surprise before the bell rings, and they leave for class. Tyler sticks by Shayla, knowing she has PE next. At PE, Yolanda seems annoyed to see Tyler with Shayla.

Ms. Jacobs reminds Shayla’s English class to write in their eyeball journals, directing her comment towards Shayla. After class, Isabella shows up unexpectedly in the hall to confront Shayla about her anger towards her and Julia. Shayla sees that she’s frustrated; this reminds her of her own frustration with Jace liking Isabella, while two other boys give her unwanted attention. Shayla tries to get Isabella to tell her what people have been saying about her and Tyler, but Isabella puts her foot down, shocking Shayla into agreeing to discuss it later. They walk to lunch together, finding Julia with Tyler. They eat lunch awkwardly together. Isabella asks if they can now talk about Shayla’s anger, but Shayla goes to class.

In shop class, Tyler offers to help Shayla with her birdhouse, but she declines. Yolanda “smiles at Tyler like he is one of her little brothers or something” and asks him to help her, instead (224). At track practice, Angie and Natalie invite Shayla and Tyler to eat lunch with them. Shayla wants to hang out with them, but she doesn’t want Tyler around. Before she can explain their relationship, Natalie warns her that Stephanie, Tyler’s cousin, will hunt Shayla down if she hurts Tyler. Panicking that everyone thinks they’re dating, Shayla blames Julia for commanding him to kiss her, and herself for actually kissing him.

Shayla thinks about how her situation with Tyler is a lot like trying to push off the starting blocks at a track event: “Sometimes you just get stuck in the blocks” (227). At lunch, Isabella and Julia grab Shayla and run with her to the spot they usually go during the break between classes. They confront her about not speaking to them and accuse her of hiding what’s going on between her and Tyler. Shayla tells them they were being bad friends because Julia commanded Tyler to kiss her and told Isabella to pursue Jace. Outraged, Julia and Isabella realize that Shayla read their texts. Shayla counters that Julia only spends time with her Asian America squad and that she mimics Stacy. Julia throws back that Shayla should be happy for Isabella if Jace likes her. They start shouting, and Isabella shouts over them both to “stop talking like [she]’s not even here” (233). Julia storms off.

Isabella tells Shayla she isn’t interested in Jace, and even if she were, she wouldn’t have responded to him, because she respects Shayla’s feelings. She’s hurt that Shayla didn’t realize that Isabella is too good of a friend to do that. Shayla agrees, and they make up. Isabella asks Shayla about Tyler, and Shayla explains that she was simply trying to avoid Bernard. Isabella tells her she needs to be truthful with Tyler.

In shop class, Tyler leaves Shayla alone, and she eagerly leaves for track in the hopes it will clear her head. They practice starting from the blocks, but Shayla has difficulty concentrating between Bernard calling out at her and the relay girls watching her.

At break the next day, Shayla finds herself alone with Tyler. She knows she should correct him about their relationship, but instead she watches disdainfully as he talks about the trial, though she agrees with his stance. Between classes, Tyler confronts her about their relationship. She asks why he likes her, and when he says she’s “cute,” she gently advises him to find someone who returns his affections and treats him well. When he insinuates that the kiss at the dance made him think she liked him, Shayla explodes that no one should kiss anyone without their consent. He apologizes and tells her Coach West already told him as much. Eventually, he leaves. Shayla sees Natalie frown.

With Isabella out sick and Julia not speaking to Shayla, Shayla eats lunch alone. She sits on a bench to eat her soggy sandwich, and Jace approaches her, smiling. He immediately asks about Isabella, which hits Shayla hard. She tells him Isabella’s sick, and he sits down next to her to ask if Isabella is talking to anyone. When she tells him she’s not, he smiles self-assuredly. Instead of leaving like Shayla expects, Jace shares about his academic struggles. Shayla asks if he does his homework, which bothers him. He insults Mr. Powell’s flamboyant scarves. Shayla defends Mr. Powell and moves away so that they aren’t touching. She realizes that she can’t think of a time where she saw Jace being nice.