He nodded, slowly. I noticed the only thing on his tray was an orange, and Qwan generally didn’t eat fruit unless you figured a way to fry it. My dude was off.

“She hit me up last night and said I didn’t have to worry about getting blown up. Her period came.” He picked the orange up, examined it like he didn’t understand it either, dropped it back on his tray. “She also told me not to speak to her again. She said people here treat her bad all the time. She wasn’t about to date one of them.”

Whoa. “I’m sorry. You for real like her, don’t you?”

“I love her, D.” His voice was so low, I barely heard it. Louder, he said, “If you ever bring up that I said that, I’m kicking you in the chest.”

“Noted.”

Qwan, never one to let the shield down for long, turned us back to my messed-up life. “What’s up with your situation? No car, no phone. How long’s that going to last?”

Still under the impression my parents would cave after a few days, maybe a week at the most, I waved it off. Had no reason not to. So, my concern lay more with the Purity Pledgers and how they were feeling the fallout of the CU road trip. What I heard from pieced-together reports passed along from Jameer when I was at school and Mya when we shared shifts at FISHto’s. Some punishments were more severe than others. The Burton Brothers got their game systems and music recording equipment taken away. Helena and Shanice were forced to sign up for extra chores at the church. Jameer couldn’t be oppressed much more in his house, so nothing changed for him. Mya didn’t get into any trouble at all.

“My mom yelled a little, but she’s never come down on me hard,” she said while we unpacked the new shipment of Cra-Burgers in the FISHto’s deep freezer. “She told me I do more right than wrong so she’s a little relieved when I step out of bounds.”

“Since you’re still free, maybe you can bring me more comics to read.”

“You checked out Shuri?” She sounded skeptical.

“I did.” As of last night. With no connection to the outside world, I would’ve read the laundry tags on my shirts to keep from going stir crazy.

“And?”

“It was dope.”

She sighed all dramatic. “Guess I gotta read some Batman now.”

“That was the deal. You should have your Tuesdays and Thursdays free, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

She stopped unloading patties. “That’s not funny. Believe it or not, the Pledge meant something to most of us.”

I believed her, but felt an accusation in her tone, so I let the conversation taper off and made no special effort to pick it back up that night. I didn’t twist anyone’s arm on the road trip—hell, I actually told most of them not to come. It wasn’t my call to cancel the whole damn Pledge. All that, and she still wasn’t mad at Newsome? Not my problem.