When lunch finally comes, I rush to the cafeteria, hastily grab a tray of food, and head over to my friends’ table. It’s all I can do not to skip to them. I catch them up on everything they’ve missed. When I’m done, they greet me with stunned silence.

“Someone say something,” I say.

“You really forged your mom’s name?” Shawn asks.

“Well, yeah. But she’s so busy with the march, she probably won’t notice. And hello, can we focus on the big news: Devonte asked me out!” I remind them.

“What’s the point of starting something up with him?” Dell asks. “You only got a few hours until your mama finds out and you end up on a missing poster.”

“And you Black, so . . . cops ain’t even gonna look for you,” Shawn adds.

Naija shakes her head in dismay. “Girl, you did all this for Devonte? I know he’s fine, but . . .”

“It’s not about him,” I promise. She stares back at me as if to say, “Don’t even try it.” I sigh and admit, “Okay, it’s about Devonte, but it’s not just him.” I stab my now cold, limp fries with my fork. “My mom thinks so badly of me already; nothing I do could really make that much of a difference. I overheard her on the phone—she’s disappointed in who I turned out to be.” I ignore the pain in my chest as I recall her words.

“Everyone disappoints their parents,” Shawn replies pointedly. Shawn has been trying to tell his dad he’s gay for months now and can’t seem to go through with it. I place my hand on his.

“Not everyone disappoints their parents,” Naija says. “Sometimes we do stuff for them ’cause it will make them happy. They look out for us, so we look out for them.”

“Nah, I’m with my boy Shawn on this,” Dell says. “Everyone lets down their parents. One time my dad came home and found me doing something so bad, he wasn’t just disappointed; he became disillusioned.”

“What happened?” Naija asks.

“It was awful; the kind of moment that changes a man,” Dell says as he looks off into the distance. Dell is rarely serious. But right now, he looks dejected and somber.

“What did your dad catch you doing that had him so shook?” I ask gently.

Dell tries to gather himself. “Y’all know how me and my dad do when it comes to music. He introduced me to the greats: Davis, Parker, Coltrane, Gillespie . . . and I betrayed him—no, I did more than that. I wounded him. I cut him deep . . .” Dell says in a pained, soft voice.

“Yeah, we got that part,” Shawn tells him. “Now what did you do to hurt him so bad?”

“He came home and found me . . . listening to Kenny G.”