I scramble through the stockroom door before he can change his mind. I’m fast. Not taking advantage of anyone’s favors. The washroom is tiny. I can elbow both walls at the same time. Not ideal, but I’m just grateful. I scrub my thighs with soap and paper towel, rinse my pants and wring them out as best I can.

Out front, I buy a soda, a sandwich, and three packs of the cookies I like. I need a treat. Rocky gives me an extra plastic bag for my wet jeans. I’ve always suspected he was a good person, underneath all the ways he acts like he doesn’t care.

“Thanks, man. You have no idea.” When I stick out my hand, it surprises him. He shakes. Then I head for the door.

“You stay out of trouble, you hear?” Rocky says.

I turn back. This, from Rocky, who prides himself on staying out of everybody’s business. Underhill. It is at once home and another world.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” I assure him. “I’m just coming home.”

DEVANTE

The second Tyrell is out of the car, Robb says, “Get me to some kind of car-cleaning place. Stat.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“It’s disgusting. What are we, seven?”

It’s all I can do not to pull the car over and scream at him, like my mom used to do when my sisters and I would be fighting in the backseat. Don’t make me come back there.

“You just don’t get it,” I tell him, for the thousandth time. “People die that way. You could have gotten us killed.”

“We were just driving. Nothing else.”

Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror. I’m driving in an unfamiliar city. I have to keep my attention on the road, but I can’t let it go just yet. “All that news you watch and you still don’t know that gets people like him and me killed?”

“It was never just that.”

How are we even having this conversation? Robb, who always wants to hang out at the Black House, who arm-wrestled us into coming here with him to protest. I grip the wheel tight. “Just because they were black? Sure it was. Eric Garner. Philando Castile.”

Robb says, “He had a gun in the car, though.”

“A legal weapon, that he never pulled out,” I remind him. “Sandra Bland only had a broken taillight.”

“And she talked back to the cop.”

Here it comes. I can feel it. I push harder, coming back at him. “She asserted her rights when they were being violated. Is that a capital crime nowadays?”

“No, but if she hadn’t said anything…”

Fumes of rage come up my esophagus. Worse than acid reflux. I choke them down hard. We’re not supposed to ever speak now? That’s what they all want, isn’t it? Our obedience, our deference, our silence.

“Remember those guys that got arrested while they were waiting for their friend in Starbucks?”