“Devonte?” she says. I recount that part of the conversation. She has a bunch of questions. She wants to know if I think he likes me and if there’s a chance he’s trying to get with me.

“Does it even matter, Nai? See Us will take up all my time. When would we ever hang out? What would I say to him? ‘Hey, Devonte, my mom’s not home. You wanna come over and write protest signs?’ ”

Naija laughs. I sigh and drop my head.

“Ayo, relax. You have a plan B, remember?”

“But that’s a month away. I can’t wait that long. I wanted to start the school year free.”

“Is there a chance you can still say your speech?”

“That’s why I called. Should I ask again?”

“If you don’t want to wait a whole month, then it’s your only choice,” she tells me.

I don’t reply. Instead, I replay the scene with Mom. It feels even worse than it did before.

“Earth to Ayo!” she says as she walks her phone into her bathroom.

“Sorry. Spaced out. I’m back,” I promise as I watch her lather her face with African black soap. When she’s done, she dries her face off and scoops a small amount of raw shea butter into her hand. She rubs the butter back and forth between her palms, allowing it to melt. She applies it to her face and neck, leaving her dark skin glowing even more so than before.

“If it was the other way around, I know Mom would have held her ground,” I add.

“Well, yeah, but that’s because any ground she stands on becomes her ground. She’s an unwavering force of nature, a category-five hurricane that people post warnings about.”

I sigh. “Yeah, and I’m a spring shower. The kind people don’t even bother running away from.” I roll over and plant my face in my pillow.

“I’ve known you forever, Ayo; you can handle yourself. Remember when you nearly sent Dell to the hospital?”

“Defending my fries from Dell’s greedy fingers and taking on my mom are two different things.”

“Maybe it starts with fries and it grows,” she says in a goofy voice.

I poke my head up from my pillow, deflated and drained. “Great. My mom defends Black people in Harlem, and I defend fries.”

She shakes her head and takes on the tone she uses when she’s about to school me on something. “No, Ayo, you defend sweet potato fries. That’s much more impressive.”

The more I think about my situation, the worse I feel. I’m in desperate need of a subject change. “Hey, why are you wearing a jacket in the house?” I ask. She shrugs but doesn’t say anything. “Landlord didn’t give y’all no heat? Damn, that’s cold. You wanna come stay here until the heat is back on?”