Dad said, “Mister Tyrell called here to say he couldn’t maintain your employment if you weren’t going to work. I convinced him to give you one more chance. You’re going to your actual job this afternoon.”

“Fine.” Anything to get out of here. I tugged my keys from my pants pocket.

“Give me those.” Dad extended his hand.

“You said I have to go to work.”

“You are. I’m taking you. And picking you up. Same for school.”

“For how long?”

“Until I can trust you again. Give me the keys.”

I dropped them in his palm.

“And your phone.”

“Dad!”

Mom backed him up. “Do what you’re told. Any more backtalk is only going to make your situation worse.”

I handed my cell over. “Can I go now? I need to change into my uniform if I’m going to FISHto’s.”

Dad nodded, releasing me. I got halfway up the stairs before he said, “Bring that laptop down here, too.”

“What?”

“Until we say otherwise, it’s only for homework, and you do that where we can see you.”

Was this a Supermax now? Was I Jameer?

A slick voice in the back of my mind whispered: You’re not Jameer. You deserve this.

There was no fighting this, just enduring it. They were old. They’d forget. Eventually.

It was the only way I knew to comfort myself as I was cut off from the outside world. From Kiera.

How was she? What sort of fallout was she experiencing?

Questions I had no way of answering anytime soon.

According to Dad, I had bigger fish to fry. Literally.

One cold comfort: this couldn’t last long. This kind of tech lockdown, the car restriction, we’d been here before. They’d get tired of supervising, of being my chauffeur. This would go three, maybe four days if they were feeling hard core.

In my room, tugging on my FISHto’s shirt, I thought, This is nothing. It won’t last.

Seventeen days later, with Cressie home on break, Mom hauling in last-minute groceries, Dad prepping the Thanksgiving turkey, and me still as cut off from the world as my parents could manage, my conviction waned.

Chapter 23

NOT THAT THOSE DAYS BETWEEN Newsome’s ultimate judgment and the holiday were uneventful; I simply had no effect on the twists and turns.

The only free contact I had with anyone outside my house was the cafeteria at school. That first day at lunch Qwan explained what happened between him and Angie at the grotto.

“Maybe I had too much of that wine, D,” he began. “Things were going okay, I was trying to say the right stuff, but she kept talking about, you know, possibly being pregnant. It’s all she wanted to talk about. It was freaking me out, but I kept it cool, until she asked me what kind of dad I thought I’d be. So I was like, ‘Whatever kind you want so you don’t blow me up on some #BabyGettersToo-type shit.’”

“Oh.” We’d all heard how the rest of that conversation went. “Have you talked to her since?”