“My parents . . . found out . . . about Ramsey.”

I twisted in my seat, paranoid, expecting his parents to swoop down like monsters and snatch us away. “How bad was that?”

“Not as bad as it could’ve been, because I was able to convince them of what they want to hear. They’ve chosen to believe my story that he’s not my boyfriend.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“A couple of nights ago I was with him because I was covering for Kiera. Me and her went out together, then we split up. We were supposed to reconnect on the street behind our houses, you know, same old plan. But I got back first, in time for the most random evening jog my dad ever took. He ran right up on me and Ramsey in the car. We weren’t making out, thank God, but there were questions. So many questions.”

This was going in a direction I didn’t like, for a lot of reasons. He’d been covering for Kiera. “How did you answer?”

“I couldn’t go through it again, Del. Do you know how bad it would’ve been if I’d admitted I was with my boyfriend?”

Oh, Jameer. “You put it all on her.”

He cried some more. I felt a familiar irritation, my mind going in different directions than what he probably intended. “Who was she with, Jameer?”

I thought he might not answer. Maybe he thought I’d gotten over it all—until that moment, I kind of thought I had. “Mason.”

“Still! Even after—”

He flinched, pressed against the passenger door like he was trying to knock it off its hinges.

No, Del. No. It’s not your business. “Why tell me?”

“Who else can I tell? It’s eating me alive.”

“You feel better now?”

“No.”

“Good. Because I don’t either, Jameer. What happened after you blamed everything on her?”

“You don’t know?”

I had an idea. “They’re going to make her confess in front of everyone, aren’t they? You wouldn’t be this upset if it wasn’t that.”

“It’s my fault.”

“Yes. It sounds that way.”

He looked freshly wounded. Maybe I meant to hurt him. I still had work to do. Clearly.

I softened my tone, proposed the only thing that seemed logical. “If you feel this bad, then maybe you take it from her. Tell Newsome and your parents that you lied.”

“My dad caught her when she pulled up with Mason. Can’t take that back.”

“She didn’t snitch on you when she got caught?”

He shook his head.

“Then maybe you should both confess. Or maybe you both refuse to do it.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.”

It never would, not when First Missionary was stuck in the old ways, with that old blood pumping through its veins.

Most of our classmates exited the lot by bus or car. Jameer’s heaving chest settled into normal breaths, and I didn’t know what else to say on the topic he dropped on me other than “I know how it is to have Newsome press you. I’m not mad you cracked. I can’t be. I can’t say if I were you, I wouldn’t have thrown Kiera under the bus. I don’t have much to say beyond that. I’m not there anymore.”