A community vigil is held for a student named Gabe, who was shot and killed, establishing the neighborhood's dangerous reality.

Nasir rides home on the bus after his basketball team loses badly to St. Sebastian's, where Bunny now plays as a star.

Bunny surveys his family's hardships at home, including a broken furnace, his sister's crushing student loan debt, and his father's failing bookstore.

Nasir receives a text from Wallace revealing that Wallace and his grandmother are about to be evicted due to rising rents.

Nasir asks his parents to let Wallace move in with them, but they refuse, citing limited resources and Wallace's poor habits.

Nasir learns that Wallace has been gambling on St. Sebastian's basketball games and losing badly, putting him in debt to dangerous people.

While searching for a tire iron in Wallace's glove compartment, Nasir discovers a gun and learns the full danger of Wallace's situation.

Wallace pressures Nasir to dig up a recruiting violation against Bunny so he will be forced to sit out at least one game.

Nasir sneaks into Bunny's room while Bunny is in the shower and steals his phone to hand over to Wallace.

A fake email is sent from Bunny's stolen phone accusing St. Sebastian's of paying him to transfer, and Bunny is benched pending investigation.

St. Sebastian's narrowly beats Oak Hill without Bunny playing, causing Wallace to lose even more money to his violent creditors.

State officials clear Bunny of all wrongdoing; Nasir apologizes for stealing the phone and begs Bunny to throw the championship game.

Bunny agrees to deliberately lose the championship game as a personal favor to Nasir rather than out of any concern for Wallace.

Teammate Drew hits a buzzer-beating two-point shot and St. Sebastian's wins the championship 59–58, despite Bunny's efforts to lose.

Wallace confronts Bunny and Nasir at the basketball court after the championship and shoots Bunny in the arm; Nasir calls 911.

After Bunny transfers to elite St. Sebastian's on a basketball scholarship, his childhood friendship with Nasir fractures, and both boys drift toward separate crises. Nasir grows close to his cousin Wallace, whose losing gambling bets against St. Sebastian's have put him in debt to the same violent people suspected of killing a neighborhood teen named Gabe. Desperate, Wallace pressures Nasir to sabotage Bunny, leading Nasir to steal Bunny's phone so Wallace can send a fake ethics complaint and force Bunny off the court. The plan briefly works, but St. Sebastian's wins even without Bunny, leaving Wallace deeper in debt and Nasir torn between his loyalty to his cousin and his rekindled friendship with Bunny. After being cleared by investigators, Bunny agrees to throw the championship game as a favor to Nasir, but a last-second shot by a teammate wins it anyway, setting off a violent confrontation that leaves Bunny shot but alive.

The core story of gambling debts, betrayal, and a championship that changes everything.

Bunny practices basketball alone at the neighborhood court in the cold, glancing up at Nasir's lit apartment window.

Bunny goes off campus with wealthy St. Sebastian's teammates and quietly goes hungry while they eat burritos he cannot afford.

Keyona tells Nasir he is not helping Wallace by letting him copy homework, predicting Wallace will fail because he avoids hard work.

Bunny visits his father at Word Up bookstore and reflects on how central the store has always been to his childhood.

Bunny's coach singles him out as the only attentive player during a film session, making Bunny feel like an even greater outsider.

Nasir and Wallace attend the same horror movie as Bunny and Keyona; Nasir is caught lying when he claims to be on a date.

During a supposed job-hunting trip, Wallace secretly disappears into the back room of a convenience store to make a deal with a man named Teddy.

Wallace convinces Nasir to throw eggs at Bunny's window as an act of catharsis; Nasir participates reluctantly and immediately regrets it.

Wallace finds an abandoned kitten shivering at the park, tucks it into his hoodie to warm it up, and takes it home to care for it.

Bunny visits Whitman High to watch Keyona's basketball game and has a conflicted conversation with his former coach about his transfer.

At a post-game victory party, Bunny impulsively tries to kiss cheerleader Brooke, who rejects him and reminds him he has a girlfriend.

Nasir finds Wallace at the library badly beaten and learns the same people suspected of killing Gabe are now threatening Wallace.

Bunny confesses his attempt to kiss Brooke to Keyona; she tells him to leave and says she needs time to think.

Nasir asks his father why he returned to Whitman after serving in the Air Force; his father says a place is only as good as the people in it.

Nasir waits at the hospital with Bunny's family and Keyona; a doctor reports that Bunny is alive and expected to make a full recovery.

While the main plot turns on debts and betrayals, a rich layer of secondary scenes reveals the characters' values, vulnerabilities, and daily realities. Bunny's hunger at an off-campus burrito run, his solitary late-night practice sessions, and his awkward position as the only focused player at St. Sebastian's film sessions all illustrate the invisible costs of crossing class lines. Meanwhile, Nasir and Wallace's shared movie night, their failed job-hunting trip, and Wallace's unlikely tenderness toward a stray kitten complicate any simple reading of who these young men are. Misguided loyalties surface when Nasir helps egg Bunny's house and later watches helplessly as Wallace is beaten for unpaid debts. The pool closes with the quiet aftermath of the shooting, as families and friends gather at the hospital and learn that Bunny will survive.

The smaller moments that reveal who these characters truly are under pressure.

Bunny and Nasir make eye contact at Gabe's vigil, but Nasir deliberately turns his back and walks away with Wallace.

Bunny resolves to break up with Keyona to repair his friendship with Nasir, but Keyona argues she has the right to choose her own partner and convinces him to stay.

Nasir's mother persuades him to attend one of Bunny's games by pointing out how much the broken friendship is hurting both of them.

Wallace proposes hacking Bunny's Facebook to post offensive content; Nasir pretends not to know Bunny's password in order to protect him.

Bunny visits Nasir's house while Nasir is out; Mr. Blake encourages Bunny to stop letting pride prevent him from expressing his feelings.

Nasir finally confronts Bunny directly at his home, accusing him of being selfish for transferring to St. Sebastian's without consulting him first.

Bunny asks his coach to arrange a scholarship transfer to St. Sebastian's for Nasir, knowingly risking an ethics violation to repair their friendship.

Bunny gives Nasir a full tour of St. Sebastian's and confides that he feels more like a mascot than a real student there.

Bunny's father reveals that he and his business partner have decided to sell the failing bookstore Word Up.

Bunny realizes Nasir likely stole his phone after finding it missing following Nasir's visit, but chooses not to name him to the headmaster.

Wallace storms out of Nasir's room after arguing that Nasir cannot truly understand his desperation because of the advantages Nasir's family provides.

Walking home alone through the wealthy neighborhood near St. Sebastian's, Bunny recalls being stopped and interrogated by police there solely because he is Black.

Bunny wakes Nasir the morning of the championship game to apologize for transferring without consulting him; Nasir accepts and apologizes in return for cutting off contact.

A doctor informs Nasir that Bunny barely survived the shooting and that Nasir's fast 911 call is what saved his life.

Nasir visits Wallace in jail and leaves wondering what else he could have done to help him and whose responsibility Wallace truly was.

Beneath the main events lies a series of quieter but pivotal shifts that determine who Bunny and Nasir become. From Nasir's deliberate cold shoulder at Gabe's vigil to Bunny's agonizing choice not to implicate Nasir to the school headmaster, each moment tests the limits of loyalty, honesty, and self-interest. Bunny's offer to bring Nasir to St. Sebastian's opens a new possibility for their friendship, while the revelation that Word Up is being sold strips away another anchor from Bunny's old life. Wallace's furious claim that he and Nasir come from different worlds forces Nasir to reckon with his relative advantages, and Bunny's memory of being racially profiled by police near the school exposes the invisible costs of moving between worlds. The pool ends with the epilogue's quiet devastation, as Nasir sits across from Wallace in a jail visiting room and asks himself, without resolution, what more he could have done.

The decisions, confrontations, and discoveries that reshape the characters and their choices.

Randy Ribay

Novel

Fiction

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