Isacc picked up his sister every day after school, from Heartrow Prep Academy on the other end of the neighborhood. But she was thirteen and didn’t need anybody picking her up from school. He didn’t want to. And when he did show up Ally was always with her friends and yelled at him to give her a sec. Her friends thought he was funny with his baggy pants, the anime trinkets hanging from his bag, and she didn’t need to give them a reason to turn on her. Ally was quick to find another target in Clemente’s stuttering aunt or Georgina’s ancient parents. But the walk home was reassuring because neither of them had to talk or if they did it was to share something new they’d learned. Being two years older, Isaac used to jump on any dates she got wrong, equations she struggled with, or books she found tough, until their mom slapped him upside the head at dinner one evening. “We’re a team. Don’t ever forget it. Her wins are yours. Yeah, you’re the dummy, but be thankful you’ve gotta smartie on your team. She’ll need you some way.” But Ally only made Isaac look like an uppity bitch. His friends made fun of him through her, goading her to do or say something feminine they could pin on Isacc. Or they flirted. Repeating something lewd that she didn’t understand.

Isaac met up with Sean after dropping Ally off. They sat on the curb in front of the convenience store where Sean got a slushie and told Isaac how he was going over to this pretty girl Nina’s place later to show her how he made beats.

Sean did DJ, that was true. And he rapped over it sometimes, that was true too. But Isacc knew he was giving a different impression. That Sean wanted her to believe he could bust out a song from nothing. He wasn’t producing like that. Making his bag like he wanted her to believe. To be that kind of generator. Because they were already in that game. Not of what they had. No, they all had the same, more or less. They went to the same school and some of them wore better clothes or went further for vacation, but what mattered next was whether they could make more. Were they going up or down.

Isacc didn’t know what he generated. He needed to find it. He couldn’t code very well, found it tedious. Isaac knew if he didn’t figure out his edge by the end of the year there would be nothing left for him. His dad showed him pamphlets of trades school but Isaac had learned fast that salary would always be capped. He knew he needed equity.

Some thought they could get around it. Make everything a little fairer. Like his American Studies teacher. Mr. Drewberry was the kind of teacher that purported to be a Socialist. “You see, we already live in an increasingly socialist society — one which subsidizes your education and the roads and your food if you need it.”

A girl raised her hand. “You mean food stamps.”

“Exactly. But don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t from the kindness of the government’s heart. Rather it is a strategic investment in itself. Because while many of us may be teachers or middle management, an educated, fed populace — even the poorest — is primed for innovation and global competition.” Isaac hated Mr. Drewberry. He referenced his childhood in the south constantly. Class solidarity he called it. This sense that he was trying to reach across the aisle, looking in Isaac’s eyes sincerely to say I see you. This feeling that he needed Isaac’s approval and as such the fifteen-year-old refused to give it. He kept an empty face. He needed to be smarter than Mr. Drewberry.

As part of their living history lesson, the class conducted a reenactment of the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists for the ratification of the Constitution. Isaac was a Federalist while Sean was an Anti-Federalist who passed out cookies before the debate and used an AI-generated Thomas Jefferson to rap about state rights. After the class voted against the Constitution, Isaac wrote a seething critique of Sean’s methods in his peer review form. Mr. Drewberry passed him a note with his final grade.

“You don’t give enough credit to face. You think because he puts up this façade that it makes him lesser, because you can see beneath it. Impression makes a difference. It is the origin from which people will judge and be impressed by you forever on. If you are afraid of a miscalculation, a consistency you must uphold — truth — you forget you are building the narrative. If you are afraid someone will see through you, you forget they are looking at all. That’s the kind of attention every machine in the world is trying to bottle. Yes, Sean isn’t doing anything original. But he is trying. And if it gets peoples attention it doesn’t matter. Winning was what mattered.”

So Isaac decided to win. He knew he didn’t have Sean’s charm or Ally’s brain; instead he would attract all he needed. Become a blackhole. A shapeless thing, collapsing infinitely inward. A withdrawl from the world that would suck it in.

Unexpectedly, this improved his relationship with Sean. With Ally. With his mother. There was a depth that they were always trying to gleam. They knew that more went in him than came out. The question was where it went. But even Isaac did not know. He became gravity incarnate. A boundless force pushed on him until he could not see himself in the mirror, and it flipped around and around, piercing him at every angle.

Isaac even started helping Sean. Introducing him to raps he could model. There was a power in being behind him. In being the force that propelled his popularity. And he had no interest in taking credit, in being known. The mere satisfaction of exercising his talent and perception were enough. And there was a thrill in knowing he could take it away, that if he did Sean would be better off than before but would never reach the heights he could with Isaac’s help. He learned equity started within. Every interaction he began to instinctively rate by performance, whether he had learned anything, could grow that capital. Time and education. Power in what could not be seen but everyone knew was there. The full expression of which would only be realized once he left, like a tree.

Ally got up every morning at 6am so she could make instant oats and sit. The house was empty after school, but the world felt empty at this time. Indeed, most of it was. Sometimes she ventured out around the block and found no one. It was a peace she carried through the rest of her life.

Ally suspected her friends hated her. Not because of anything she had done, rather that they were of an age where competition was everything and because they were so similar distinction carried the greatest advantage. Her inclination was contrarian, her gait bow-legged. Ally’s friends manicured to a degree of obsession, edging out any attention they could get, and Ally understood the minimum she needed to do for the same effect, where she could put her time instead, and this incensed them.

She wanted a best friend like a woman wants a lover, to bring out a fuller part of herself she suspected lay dormant without a complimentary opposition. Ally noticed two of her friends grew closer after a sleepover and decided that must be the way to true companionship. When her mom suggested inviting all her friends Ally insisted she only wanted her best friend there. But the night of Harriet wanted to gossip about their other friends and Ally, fearing a trap, refused without realizing it was the prerequisite to intimacy.

She tried baking but this proved counterintuitive, reeking of desperation in the lowest form; anyways, none of the freshmen were eating carbs that year.

Then one day Katie Jenkins came to school in a dark blue blazer, trimmed with gold, over a rust blouse and green corduroy slacks. Katie Jenkins had been homeschooled through elementary school so went into high school at a friend deficit, which may have worked in her favor if she hadn’t been decidedly eager. A sincerity uncorroded by recess. Ally arrived at school early when she ran into Katie returning from marching band practice.

“Morning Ally!”

“Hey Katie. Nice outfit.”

“Thank you! I thrifted the jacket, and the pants are my aunts. Oh that’s fun to say, I’m gonna use that. Pants are my aunts!”

Ally chuckled and repeated the phrase. They compared notes on Trigonometry and the latest Sofia Isella single. By the time they parted Katie had asked Ally for her number — a monumental win. Ally rode this high throughout the day.

At lunch, Ally and her friends picked at their food. Chemistry had bored them and a quarter of their class was out for test prep. Clemente blabbered about her mom’s recent switch to avocado oil from olive oil. Ally looked out over the sterile cafeteria and made eye contact with Katie Jenkins. She smiled and waved. Ally waved back. Harriet noticed this.

“You two friends?” asked Harriet.

Ally shrugged. “Yeah. She’s sweet, but I don’t know why she dresses like an Ohio magician.” She had meant it truthfully, as one might assess a work of art.

Harriet guffawed, eyes wide but slimming. “That’s so good!” She interrupted Clemente and Georgina so Ally could repeat what she’d said. Ally didn’t think it funny, but the mark hit. She pocketed this information — a new skill. She began to deploy this tactically, wanting to be a girl’s girl, but one with sense and astute judgement.

One evening after having friends over her mother sat her down at the kitchen table.

“What was that about?”

“What was what?”

“Picking at Georgina like that. She’s your friend.”

“Oh. We were just gossiping.”

“Baby you don’t gossip when she’s in the room. That was a teardown.”

“We didn’t say anything that wasn’t true!”

“Exactly, so it didn’t need to be said.” She tilted Ally’s chin up. “It’s good to notice these things. But when you point them out, you’re showing your jealousy. It backfires.”

“I’m not jealous of Georgina.”

Her mom pursed her lips. “Baby she’s a lot prettier than you.”

“Mom!”

“Didn’t need to be said, right?”

And Ally’s friends stopped talking when she walked up. She confronted Clemente on this but couldn’t get a straight answer. There was a perverse delight in knowing they were afraid to confront her. That she may fire back.

So morning’s became more sacred for Ally, and she determined that whatever she needed would find her there. But she refused to consider it may have been Katie Jenkins, that she could have missed it. She entertained a crush now and again. Pretty boys she didn’t talk to and knew nothing about except what she made up. Fantasies that started and ended with pushing them into a closet. Kissing was gross; sex sounded vulgar. Packing them away had a pleasure she saw in cats who batted their quarry between paws.

Heartrow Prep Academy divided each class into four Career Teams that competed for a .2 GPA bump every year. The Socrates, Aristotle, Laozi, and Confucius teams earned points by securing internships, working part time (although this required companion essays and readings), or inventing an app. Administration emphasized the importance of engendering networking skills. “You are among the brightest in Philly. Don’t squander your leadership,” said the Dean. Ally set about making an app for converting empty green spaces into community meetup points. Isaac and Ally’s house had a lot next door that had been vacant since their mom was a girl and had grown skinny trees with big leaves along the perimeter. The two referred to this as their backyard because there was a park at the other end of the block where the rest of the children lived so they usually had it to themselves. In the summer their dad would barbeque with his squat charcoal saucer, leaned back in an equally squat beach chair, beer in hand while he listened to Ally’s music moving out the upstairs window.

While Ally researched bulletin board apps she heard Isaac as a resonant silence. What had once been a fingerprint of Japanese and house music had became an oppressive absence over the past few months. They shared a wall, making Ally acutely aware of her background music.

She knocked on his door. When he didn’t respond she cracked it open.

“Isaac?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming in.”

His room was tidy except for a mess of sweaty clothes in the corner opposite his bed. Ally avoided the room ever since he turned fourteen and grew paranoid about people walking in, the same time he started lounging around shirtless. But Isaac was seated straight back at his desk reading white text on a black background that made Ally uneasy.

“What’s up?” he swiveled his hips around and stacked his head over his arms on top the back of the chair.

“Nothing.” She sat on his made bed and realized he may just be growing up, that there were parts of her brother she wouldn’t see again. A vision of herself curled into a corner, cold and too pathetic to move. But a feeling that he was waiting for her to break, that even if she did he would be no comfort. “Why were you sitting like that?”

“Like what?”

She held her head like a goose with pursed lips and arched her back.

He laughed. “It’s good posture.”

“Sit like a normal person.”

Isaac furrowed his brow. “What’s your deal?”

Ally shrugged one shoulder casually. “Nothing. Just weird seeing you try and act all proper.”

“I’m actually trying to work. Why don’t you go back to TikTok.”

She guffawed. “Oh yeah you gotta study real hard to be a plumber.”

“Fuck you.”

“Woah, aggressive much?”

“Out.” He stood. He hated feeling like an ape. Because he didn’t know what else to say other than scream and he wanted to be better than that so the most he could do was get her out of his sight.

“Isaac you are being so rude I ju—”

“Out!” He hated how big he got.

Ally stomped out and slammed his door so loud it woke their dad from his nap. She laid under her comforter and three pillows and cried until she fell asleep. Isaac almost cried but rewatched a YouTube video on Crab Mentality then did pushups.