B high school was supposed to be better than her zoned school, GW high school, but Dallas still felt that it was the biggest loser school on the planet. No one had chosen to be there. She got in through a lottery. Hush got into Bronx Science, the brain school, the specialized school. It changed her. She started on some punk shit Dallas didn’t understand: heavy metal, black lipstick, blue streaks in her hair. She turned blanquita overnight. Hush also became secretive and didn’t like to hang out on Quepasó Street.

—Can we just chill at your house? she would say.

—Who you hiding from? Dallas asked her.

—Everybody. Then Hush would change the subject. Snuggling up under Dallas’s comforter, often staying the night and skipping out in the early morning to go to school.

Dallas struggled through her morning classes, and was proud of herself. She made it through lunch period without cutting out. She was running late to Mr. Estrella’s math class because she stopped in the bathroom to reapply her lipstick. She hadn’t done the homework. He assigned everyone a series of analytical questions to prepare them for the PSAT. The dingy hallways were lined with broken fluorescent lamps that blinked like strobe lights. The walls filled with the ghost of old graffiti. She noticed some kids were smoking in the stairwell, the vents exposed them. Freshmen often forgot to cover the vents.

At the end of the hallway, she also noticed that the emergency EXIT door, usually chained closed, was wide open, and no one was on guard. The open doors were like two arms. The sun poured in, blinding her. The doors wanted to hug her. They opened up so she could taste a little bit of the outside world.

Dallas made her exit unnoticed. Dropping her head, pulling her backpack off her shoulder, she concealed her face from the guards in the front of the school. It was almost summer, warm enough that she could take off her jacket and tie it around her waist. No one followed her out. She left seventh, eighth, and ninth periods behind.

She took the train to the end of the city, then hopped on the Staten Island ferry. It was a boat. It had a view. It was peaceful. Sometimes she took it twice, back and forth, because the movement was calming. When she did her homework, the ferry was a good place to concentrate. No one bothered her.

—She did not say that to you, the woman sitting behind Dallas said to another woman.

—You better believe she said that to me, said the other. —If I don’t go to work tomorrow, she said I best not come back. After eleven years. White folk don’t think we human. I swear they don’t.

They were around her mother’s age.

She wanted to be closer to her mother. But it was never the right time to talk with her. Her mother was always telling her what to do, giving her chores. Expecting her to listen, to agree with her. Esperanza complained. Dallas tuned out. —Can’t you keep your eye on what you have to do? Esperanza would push her out of the way to do things herself, because Dallas burned the rice or left the bleach on the shirts for too long, or forgot to take the water out of the iron. Her mother worried about oxidation, the house catching on fire, thinning cotton. —If your father was here, Esperanza would say.