“So, how are your friends? What did you guys used to call yourselves? The Starjammers?”

Sol snorted out a laugh. “Nah, the Celestials.”

“Because y’all all used to get mad high, right?”

“Sometimes. But the real story is that we all met playing tennis, and when we started out, we used to always hit the balls extra high. Like into the cosmos and shit.”

“That’s funny.”

“I guess. They’re fine. I saw them all last night. Good times.”

“That’s good. Family is here for you too, you know.”

“That’s good to know. I’ll be sure to call you guys up the next time I’m going over best practices for stopping a home invasion or renovating a house on minimum wage. Get the fuck out of my house.”

Derrick held his ground. “This ain’t your house, Solara,” he blurted out, emphasizing her name. Sol’s eyes instinctively flitted to the knife on the counter, but her hands reached toward a drawer. Derrick flinched, his fleshy face jiggling from the suddenness of his movement.

Nana had bought a gun after Kathryn Johnston, an elderly woman, got killed by some trigger-happy Atlanta cops. And she used to keep it in this exact drawer. “Waiting on an order of pig ears,” she always joked whenever someone inevitably stumbled upon it at a cookout. Sol knew Derrick had no idea the gun now resided under her pillow, so she let her hand linger in the drawer. He was such a pussy.

“Found it,” she said excitedly, brandishing a wrinkled sheet of paper. She balled it up and tossed it at Derrick, who caught it with his forehead. Picking it up from the floor, he flattened it out, scanning its legalese.

Sol didn’t feel like waiting. “That’s a copy of the deed to the house. My house. Nana left this house to whoever in the family took care of it. All anyone had to do was stay here for forty-five days and show the bank that they were taking care of it.” Derrick stared back at her quizzically. “I’m an eighteen-year-old homeowner, nigga,” Sol added.

Derrick scoffed. “Good for you. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old with multiple homes. Call me when you get a degree or something,” Derrick said coldly, crumpling then dropping the deed. He left just as quickly, his footsteps creaking more loudly than when he came. Sol slammed the door behind him and went to the window to watch his departure.

He’d been a pile of putty in her presence, but back in the outside world, his gait was confident, his arms and legs swinging freely like cooked noodles hanging from a fork. Sol seethed as she watched him start his car, a gleaming hybrid Hyundai Sonata, and back out into the street, probably headed to one of his many homes. Suddenly the two years she planned to wait before starting college seemed like an eternity. Even after an early release from juvie and an unlikely on-time graduation, she was still a failure. On edge, she walked to her grandmother’s liquor cabinet and removed a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s. The crumpled deed remained on the floor.