“Mr. Naficy? Can you please not tell my moms about this? Maybe you could just say that I got in a fight with Parisa and asked if you could drive me home?”

He’s not upset or mean about it. I can tell he feels bad as he glances at me as he drives. I can tell that, if it were up to him, he would have let me spend the night—but Fereshteh considered it a liability.

“I’m sorry, Gabriela,” he says. “I can’t lie to them for you.”

We stop at a red light, and I notice the small bottles of hand sanitizer, placed in the side of my door. Parisa is so convinced that she’s going to get the ademavirus, her hands are already cracked and dry from how much she’s been washing them. There are only a handful of positive cases where we live—but sanitizer is still hard to come by these days. I wait for Reza to glance at his phone and then toss two of the bottles into my jacket pocket.

I close my eyes, and when I open them, the car turns into a visitor parking spot. Reza turns off the ignition and walks around the front of the car to open the door for me. I plead with him one more time.

“They’re going to be so mad at me.”

“Or maybe they’ll give you a get-out-of-jail-free card,” he says.

“No, they definitely won’t.”

Elena, hair in a messy ponytail, opens the door and tightens her bathrobe. A groggy Julia stands behind her, confused to see me home at this hour. Reza apologizes and explains what he and Fereshteh walked in on in the bathroom: a half-empty bottle of vodka and a tin tray of gummies. He tries to give me an assist and says that it was just “teenagers being teenagers,” but my moms aren’t buying what he’s selling. I don’t detect any judgment in his voice, but I can tell from the expressions on Julia and Elena’s faces that they’re still irked by his tone. They are offended not just that he’s brought me home. They are offended by his easygoing charm, his Lululemon sweatshirt, his Adidas sneakers, his Tesla idling in the parking lot. Everything about him screams model minority.

“Thank you for bringing her home, Reza,” Elena says. “We’ll take it from here.”

With that, the door shuts and I’m alone with my moms. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m surprised that they’re angry, but I’m a bit caught off guard that they don’t cut me any slack. After all, I’m a first-time offender. That should count for something. My whole life I’ve tried to be perfect because I know they already have enough on their plate. The last thing they need is a rebellious teenage daughter.