“I was just messing with him,” I say. “I would have slowed down if I saw a cop for real.” Of course I would have. I’m not stupid. “It’s not like I actually want to get a ticket.”

“You’re worried about a ticket and we’re worried about getting shot,” DeVante says.

“No one is going to get shot.”

DeVante grabs his forehead. “You think this is some fucking video game? After all that news you watch? It’s just entertainment?”

“Of course not.” I fucked up and I know it. I was trying to get a rise out of Tyrell, cold fish that he is. I took it too far, but everyone makes mistakes. “Can we move on now?” I say.

“You’re taking us to a place where there are tanks in the street. Do you get that?” DeVante shakes his head. “White privilege at work,” he mutters.

My skin stings. “It was my idea to go to the demonstration in the first place,” I remind him. “I’m totally on board with the protests.”

DeVante crouches beside Tyrell. “Come on,” he says. “We have to go eventually, you know.”

“Can’t…” Tyrell whispers something else.

Oh, for the love of—

DeVante reaches toward me. “Give me the keys. I’m driving.”

TYRELL

Underhill. It is home, and it is another world. All at once. That thing they say about college being a bubble away from the rest of the world is true, I guess. Perhaps this is how it feels to be an astronaut reentering the earth’s atmosphere, free-falling, hoping your heat shield holds, hoping your parachutes deploy. You’ve been in a place so beautiful, a place few people where you come from can appreciate or understand, and now you must return … assuming the very sky will let you. The movie they showed in the dorm lounge last Friday was Apollo 13 and all I can picture right now is that moment at the end of the movie when everyone is holding their breath. After everything they’ve been through, will they survive reentry?

Will I survive?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

We roll through the familiar streets, and my stomach clenches tighter with each block. “Right on Peach,” I instruct DeVante, who’s still driving. We’re almost home.

“Are we almost there?” Robb wants me and my urine stench out of his car ASAP. I get it.

“You can let me out anywhere,” I say. It’s easy walking distance from here.

“Naw, man. I got you,” DeVante says. “Door to door.”

We make the turn onto Peach Street and …

“Oh, shit.” Robb grabs both front seats by the shoulder and pulls himself forward. “What the fuck?”

Underhill is not home. It is another world. It is a police state, a war zone, a corridor of barricades and patrol officers. We can’t even drive all the way down Peach. They’ve re-routed the traffic around the section of blocks where the protesting has occurred. Across the concrete barricades, it is clear that storefronts have been burned out and looted. The sidewalks are littered with broken glass and debris.