Micah: The Good Girl by Ashley Woodfolk

Author:Ashley Woodfolk [Woodfolk, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

“There he is,” Micah said.

Lux shaded her eyes and went up on tiptoes to see. “Damn,” she said. “He looks just like he does in the sketch.”

Zero was playing ball at the courts like Micah knew he would be. He had his long dreads twisted back into a bun, and he’d taken off his shirt. His dark brown skin shined with sweat as he trash-talked another guy on the court like his life depended on it.

“Nah, I told you, you can’t handle this!” Zero said as he dribbled around the kid he was playing. He took a shot and made it, nothing but net.

“A’ight, bet,” the kid said. He grabbed the ball and jogged back over to where Zero was grinning, his shooting hand still hanging in the air. “Let’s go again.”

“Yo, Z,” Micah shouted. When she used to come to the courts with Milo, no one would talk to her. But if she came alone, all the guys tried to get her number and she got tired of saying “I have a boyfriend” every five minutes. It felt weird being here without her brother beside her.

“Mike-Mike!” Zero said, using the nickname Milo always called her. He grinned big and walked toward her and Lux. “Where you been at, girl?”

“You know,” she said. “Just around.” They hugged and Micah introduced Lux to him.

“I’ll be back, Jay,” he said to the guy he’d been playing basketball with, and then turned back to Micah. “How you been, li’l mama?” His dark brows furrowed and he looked serious. “How’s your heart?”

She smiled. She’d forgotten Zero always used to ask her that. They walked toward the fence and he kept an arm around Micah’s shoulders.

“Been okay, I guess,” she said. “Just keepin’ busy.”

“Yeah, me too. Courts ain’t the same without him, though,” Zero said. “Nothin’ is.” A second later, he asked, “Yo, is that his?” Micah remembered Lux was holding Milo’s sketchbook. She nodded and he reached for it. “I haven’t seen this thing in forever!”

Micah looked at Lux, who raised her brows. Ask him, Lux mouthed. But Micah wasn’t ready.

“You know, sometimes when he met me over here, he did more drawing than playing,” Zero said. He started flipping through the book and paused on a self-portrait of Milo. “I miss that skinny dude like crazy.”

“You haven’t really come around,” Micah muttered, “you know, since it happened.” Zero used to hang out at their place all the time, and Micah had known he’d be around less after Milo died, but she didn’t think he’d disappear. She hadn’t thought about it until Lux pointed to the sketch the other day, but she hadn’t seen him in months.

“I wanted to give you guys some space,” Zero said. “Plus, me and him didn’t end on great terms, you know?”

Micah frowned. “No, I don’t know.”

Then Lux said, “What do you mean, end?”

Zero untwisted the T-shirt that he’d tied to the fence and pulled it on.

“We broke up at the beginning of last summer. We had just been

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