Mid-Air

Thirteen-year-old Isaiah, a Black boy growing up in suburban Detroit, stands with his two best friends, Darius and Drew, at the base of a massive dirt mound where local kids dare each other to ride bikes down. Darius wipes out but celebrates. Isaiah climbs to the top, freezes, and slinks back down while kids call him weak, the latest in a pattern of choking on dares. Darius makes them all promise to come back, and they agree.

Isaiah and Darius bonded at robotics camp as the only two Black kids in a group of 20, sharing passions for comics, skating, and breaking world records. Drew arrived as a new kid from Detroit whose toughness complemented their suburban interests. At home, Isaiah's mother, Kay, is a plant stylist, and Isaiah works as her paid assistant. His father, a National Geographic photographer, is rarely home. Isaiah traces his love of rock music to hearing Led Zeppelin in Thor: Ragnarök, but after classmates Randy and Marcus called him a "wannabe-white-boy-rock-star," he hid this side of himself, listening only inside his closet, where rock posters line the walls. His grandmother's knitted beanie, given in second grade, is his cocoon, pulled low whenever the world feels like too much.

The three attempt a wheelie world record on Rosewood Lane. Darius goes first while Drew times and Isaiah watches for cars. Darius is balancing when a man storms from his house and confronts Drew, screaming at them to leave. The confrontation escalates as neighbors gather. Isaiah, torn between watching Darius approach the cross street and helping Drew, struggles through the crowd. He screams "CAR!" but it is too late. Darius is struck and killed.

At the funeral, Isaiah cannot say goodbye. Outside, Drew shakes his head as if reliving the scene: police questions, the white sheet over Darius, the driver repeating he did not see the boy. Isaiah tells his father the man's yelling prevented him from warning Darius. His father calls the rage "ignorance" and "complicated." In the weeks that follow, Isaiah tends plants with his mother for comfort. At school, Drew explodes, shouting he is done talking about the accident, and his silence extends to Isaiah. Drew begins sleeping on Isaiah's floor at night; earlier visits were prompted by his brother Marvin's sickle cell disease and his father's absence, which Drew described as military service overseas. Isaiah watches Drew transform: a close fade replacing his locs, new Jordans, more time with Marcus and Randy. Drew dismisses their movie reenactments as "kid stuff," and Isaiah worries Drew is drifting away.

Isaiah carries a formative memory from age seven: He danced with his mother in her heels, and his father intervened, saying Isaiah "is not your daughter" and needed to be "toughened up." Now, watching Kay paint her nails purple, Isaiah asks if it would be weird for him to try polish. Alone, he paints his toenails and feels like a truer version of himself, until classmates' taunts echo in his mind. When his father notices at graduation, he first shares how ancient Egyptian men wore nail color, then warns that as a Black boy, Isaiah should not give anyone "another reason to question" him.

At graduation, Darius's parents receive an honorary diploma; his mother's sob echoes through the auditorium. Drew tells the school librarian about their plans to break world records, and the resulting announcement draws attention. Over the summer, they attempt records with mixed results: a failed burger-eating challenge, a successful knot-tying-in-ice-water record. During one challenge, Isaiah notices a large bruise on Drew's side; Drew claims it is from roughhousing. When Drew discovers Isaiah's closet full of rock posters and plants, he calls it "mad weird," and tensions simmer. Drew says he wants to quit because he needs real money, but Isaiah steers the conversation to memories of Darius, and for the first time in months, they laugh together. Isaiah reveals his deeper motivation: finishing what Darius could not. Drew agrees to the wheelie "for Darius."

Isaiah secretly rides to Rosewood and pops a wheelie alone, pouring water on the ground for Darius. The same man from the accident emerges. Isaiah screams that because of him, his friend is dead, and the man charges. Isaiah bikes away. Later, while waiting for Drew at a skate park, two men tackle Isaiah, grind his face into gravel, and accuse him of dealing drugs. He arrives home limping and bleeding but tells his mother and his Uncle Vent it was just a fight. Nightmares follow: Darius on the ground, the men on top of him.

When they attempt the wheelie on Greenlake Lane, Isaiah is paralyzed by flashbacks and barely screams "CAR!" in time. Drew slams into a parked car. The argument that follows cracks open: Drew reveals his father is in jail, not in the military, and Isaiah reflexively asks what he did, a question that enrages Drew.

Isaiah's parents send him to Salisbury, North Carolina, to stay with Uncle Vent and Aunt Terri, Kay's sister-in-law. Isaiah works in Aunt Terri's garden, which serves as a community farm in an area with no nearby grocery stores. He meets Grady, a talkative young neighbor. Uncle Vent teaches him to drive a riding mower, and Isaiah finds unexpected joy cutting grass for neighbors. At Devil's Slope, a deep crater in the woods where local kids ride bikes, he meets Kiana, Grady's older sister, who has vitiligo, a skin condition that creates patches of lighter pigmentation. She wears Doc Martens and recognizes the rock band on his shirt. Isaiah is smitten but freezes at the slope's edge.

On the lake, Uncle Vent listens as Isaiah opens up about his guilt. His uncle challenges the self-blame and shares wisdom from Isaiah's grandfather: Isaiah has a birthright to joy, peace, and whatever else he wants. Isaiah begins practicing on Devil's Slope each morning. When he finally rides it in front of everyone, he crashes into a bush but emerges laughing. Kiana takes him to her secret spot and paints his fingernails black. He tells her the full truth: Darius's death, the man from Rosewood who confronted them during the accident, and the two men who tackled him and accused him of dealing drugs. Kiana tells him he does not have to say he is fine if he is not, then shouts into the open air. Isaiah opens his mouth and roars.

Isaiah returns home to find his father, who has decided not to renew his contract and is staying for good. Isaiah tells both parents everything. His father, who his mother once said could not cry even after covering mass shootings, cries and holds him. Isaiah, who has not cried since his father told him at seven that big boys don't, finally bawls.

He goes to Drew's apartment to reconcile. Drew reveals the full story of his father's arrest: The family was driving Marvin to the doctor when police pulled them over, dragged his father from the car, and he received years in prison for a lapse in car insurance. Drew confronts Isaiah about his obliviousness to their economic gap: Isaiah's big house versus Drew sharing a sweltering room with his sick brother and washing his shoelaces every night. Standing in the rain, both boys punch at the sky and yell. They sit at Drew's kitchen table, exhausted but reconnected.

On the first day at Marshall High, Isaiah wears his Guns N' Roses tee, ripped jeans, and nail polish, his locs free of the beanie. Drew meets him in a Wu-Tang Clan shirt and gives him a Prince T-shirt. Isaiah gives Drew their framed Guinness certificates and reveals that in the last days of summer, they returned to the dirt mountain and he finally rode it down. Marcus and Randy call to Drew, who raises his chin but pauses. He lifts his hand and says, "Be like water." Isaiah glances around one last time for Darius, knowing he will not appear, and completes their handshake: "Always."