Breathe. Robb gets under my skin without even trying, and at the moment, it seems like he’s trying. Ignore him. Focus on the next problem set in the textbook in front of me.

“That’s all you got to say?” Robb looks annoyed. “That’s your hometown, dog.”

I’m well aware of where I come from, thanks.

He pushes the phone closer, like it’s going to make me see something I didn’t already.

I turn away. “So?” The cold feeling starts to rush in.

I don’t want to think about home. Definitely don’t want to think about people dying there.

My head is full and pounding, out of nowhere. My fingers curl around the lip of the desk.

Shootings are way too common. Anytime one happens anywhere, it reminds me of Tariq. Not that I forget about him the rest of the time. T’s always with me. I carry him, like a satchel, everywhere I go. I don’t mind. He’s still my best friend. I carry him, and he helps me carry everything else. Sometimes it’s like I can even hear his voice.

This is different. It’s not in my mind—it’s physical. A head-throbbing, throat-clogging, stomach-aching feeling sets in when the news hits too close to home.

Breathe in and out. Hold the edge of the desk. It’ll pass. It’ll pass.

“So, did you know her?” Robb says.

It’ll pass. “You think I know every black person in Underhill?”

Robb rolls his eyes. “I’m not racist like that, yo. It’s just, if there were riots where I come from, I’d be all over it.”

“Lots of dissatisfaction down there at the country club?”

Robb laughs. “I know, right?” He doesn’t even feel the dig.

“News at eleven,” I say. He thinks we’re buddy-buddy. A couple of guys, just joking around. It will never make sense to me. I’ve stopped trying to understand.

Robb scrolls through his phone. “Peach Street,” he says.

A shiver goes through me. “What?”

“Dunno. They’re making a big deal about where it happened.”

The story writes itself in my head. I can see the street, the convenience store. The block I’d avoid like the plague, except I can’t because I have to walk down it to get just about everywhere.

“Dunno,” Robb says again. Scrolling. “Oh, wait, it’s the same block where—”

He’s going to say it, and I don’t want him to. He doesn’t know.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” I push the words at him. I’m rarely this direct with Robb, but he can’t take a hint. I need to sit with it all in my own mind. Calculate the odds of a second shooting happening in the same exact place. Like a vortex. A Bermuda Triangle, right down the street from my so-called home.