Debate practice. I was pretending to take notes on the topic "Is Global Warming Real?" but really I was staring out the window, watching the dancers emerge from the gym, freshly showered and back in their school clothes.

Jin was with a group of guys with backpacks slung casually over their shoulders, feet shuffling heavily in untied shoes, slamming each other sideways into lampposts and walls. One has a tennis ball that he was throwing onto the parking lot pavement ahead of him, letting it ricochet off the bumpers of unsuspecting cars. Sometimes another guy would step out in front of him and catch it.

Dog tags. The marines. I thought of what Jin had told me about this father and grandfather, his uncles and great-uncles and cousins. Every war. He talked about enlisting as if he'd never thought twice about it. The decision had been made before he was even born.

Watching Jin now, I wondered if he'd look up at the windows to where I was. Could he find Mr. Mang's windows? Was he even thinking about me? Wait for me? Counting the minutes until we met up the way I was?

No. Jin was piling into a car with the other guys. Even though he'd said he'd meet me, the car was leaving the parking lot. Jin was gone.

He was gone, and all that was left for me to notice was a single tree that had turned bright orange in the still-green woods at the edge of the parking lot.

"Suzy?" It was Mr. Mang. Everyone had been called up and was gathering around his desk. He was pinning our index cards to a bulletin board so we could all see the evidence we'd amassed. "Care to join us?"

"Okay." I was scrambling to assess what I'd written on my cards.

But Mr. Mang has a way of quickly grabbing a stack of cards off your desk even if you're not done, and he did that now.

I've always loved Mr. Mang. He was a champion debater in high school and college, and it's amazing how fast he can talk and how quickly his brain works.

I joined the others as he pinned up our cards and talked about what makes a good piece of evidence. Shaking a fistful of pushpins gingerly in his hand, he highlighted some of the cards with star stickers, moved others around, and ended up with a neat, coherent package of evidentiary spin. Until, that is, he got to mine.

He slapped my first card onto the board, nailed it with a pushpin, then slapped on the next before realizing it was blank. He flipped through the pile, looking for any other cards with writing on them. There weren't any.

Everyone on the team had been responsible for a different talking point, and now no one was going to have anything substantial to say when the subject of global warming arose. "Suzy," he said. "Is this all you have?"

"I was . . ." I began. But there was nothing I could say.

"Perhaps you were so overwhelmed by the enormity of the issue you - like many of our elected leaders - were struck mute?" Everyone laughed as Mr. Mang cocked his head like a dog listening for a whistle being carried in the wind.

"Next time, more?" I nodded, feeling stupid. He looked at his watch. "Okay, let's wrap up these evidentiary outlines and get to work spinning facts" - he made a motion with his hands -"into gold."

As I packed up, he stopped by my desk. "You okay, Suzy?"

I wasn't, but I wasn't about to tell Mr. Mang why. I didn't even like admitting to myself how naive I'd been. How had I let Jin get under my skin?

Then I stepped out of the classroom, and there he was.

"I - I thought -" I sputtered. "I saw -"

Jin pushed himself up from a slouching position by the lockers, and his smirk widened into a smile. Slowly, like he was moving underwater, he held out a hand as if to take mine, then, looking from one side to the other, he dropped it.

"You thought what?"

"I thought you'd gone off with your friends. I saw you. In the parking lot."

He shrugged. "Jungkook was playing 'We Will Rock You.' It's kind of a team thing. I made them drop me off right after."

"It would have been okay if you'd gone with them," I lied.

He took my hand for real this time. "No, it wouldn't."

And I think that's what I would miss most later. Jin's certainty. Looking into his eyes and seeing all of him there, the way I could then.