“Quincy, this stuff is terrible for you. Do you wanna d—” She catches herself and stops.

I shrug. “Do I wanna die of a sugar- and sodium-induced brain rush? I mean, what do I have to lose, right?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Like the truth?”

She crosses her arms, looks away, but not before I see the sadness in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes still trained on the other side of the kitchen. “I’m supposed to protect you.”

I walk over to her. “You did,” I say to her. “And you are.”

She looks up at me and I smile. “But now you gotta do me a favor.”

Her face switches to skepticism. “What favor?”

I reach across the table, rip a soda from the pack. “Soda shotgun race me for old times’ sake?”

She laughs. “Boy, we haven’t done this since your dad was alive.”

“He was the king, no doubt,” I say, nodding. “But you were always the best.”

She picks up her keys from the table, then takes the soda from my hand. She turns the can horizontally, and with the keys she punctures a hole into its side. She hands me the keys and I do the same to another can. And we pop our tabs and we’re chugging, chugging—foam dripping from our mouths, I can barely drink for all the laughing. And yeah, Mom destroys me.

“Looks like I still got it,” she says, punching the air in front of her like a boxer.

“Yeah, you do,” I say, and I grab her arm and lift it straight into the air. “Tonight’s winner and still the heavyweight shotgun champion of the worrrrrrlllddd . . . Simoneeee “Mad Dog” Barrantessssss.”

Mom cracks up, and I drop into the seat next to her, the tile wet and sticky.

“Hey, Mom?” I say.

Her face is still beaming. “Now what?” she asks.

“How much time do I have left?”

Jamal

24

When Whit and I get home, Autumn’s on our porch steps.

“You two okay?” Whit asks, looking at us. But she doesn’t stick around for the answer. She’s already walking into the house. “Don’t mind me, I’ve just gotta pee for the eight hundredth time today.”

“I’m sorry,” I say as soon as we’re alone.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” Autumn shoots back.

Which, fair.

“But you know what’s better than apologizing after you screw up, Jamal?”

“Not . . . screwing . . . up?”

“Okay, so if you understand that, how come we keep ending up here?”

“Because I . . . suck?”

“Jamal, this isn’t funny.”

“I wasn’t being funny. I promise.”

“Stop.” She waves me off. “No more promises you can’t keep.”