He grabbed the “oh crap” handle above his door like I’d suddenly swerved toward a ditch. “I . . . I suppose.” He kept glancing through his window like he was waiting on some other ride to come get him.

“Dawg, we can look that up on your phone right now.”

“No, we can’t.” He fished something like a clamshell from his pocket. Took me a second to realize it was an old-fashioned flip phone. I remembered Dad having a phone like this when I was a little kid, a decade ago.

I said, “That works?”

“At the most basic level. I can call my parents. They can call me.”

That they still made phones like that was amazing. I didn’t get on him about it. It could be a money thing. Maybe all his people could afford. Only, his clothes told a different story. Always pressed. Always smelling like soap and cologne. Not everyone at Green Creek High was as fortunate. Those shoes he’d been worried about ruining might’ve cost more than my Xbox.

Then “wet dreams” popped back in my head, and derailed my flip-phone deductions. “Look it up on my phone.”

I grabbed my cell from the cup holder, handed it over. Though, from experience I didn’t want to tell him about, I was sure wet dreams were pretty normal.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to look it up. I want a professional opinion.”

MJ? A professional? If we were talking the Harlem Renaissance . . . sure. “I’m not asking that question in class. Not in front of everybody.”

“Do it after class. Or before. I don’t care.”

“No! Why don’t you ask yourself?”

“I’m not allowed.”

“Says who?”

“Pastor Newsome! No one in Purity Pledge is allowed anywhere near that Healthy Living class. Except you.”

My thoughts began circling the opposing curriculums of Purity Pledge and Healthy Living I’d discovered the other night, the tug-of-war. It was the pastor’s doing, then. Not a total shock that a church didn’t want kids learning about sexual stuff—but saying the kids in the congregation weren’t allowed to take the class? I said, “Okay, but Wikipedia. Or Google that shit, bro.”

When I glanced right, and I saw him staring at the scrolling scenery and clutching the fabric of his pants with nervous little pinches, I backed off. “Your people really that strict?”

The window fogged when he spoke. “I do my homework on a computer in a nook next to our kitchen. My dad installed three different Safe Browse programs on it. Anything those don’t block, he reviews by checking my browser history and cache when I’m done for the night.” Jameer faced me, shrugging the way you do when you’ve told an old, boring story. “My parents are that strict.”

Lindy Blue, and Instagram models, and Call of Duty Killstreak videos, and everything else I ever surfed on my Mac . . . I never worried about how much Mom and Dad knew about private time in my room. But, I never really expected them to go all Homeland Security, searching my personal stuff for unsanctioned activity. “Is it like that for everyone in Purity Pledge?”