Dad’s was a casual, “What’s up at the school with those pregnant girls?” I explained they technically weren’t pregnant anymore. And lied about not paying attention to any of it so he’d leave me alone. He accepted my explanation, went back to work at his computer.

Cressie hit me with a text that was a little strange.

Cressie: Lil’ Bro. #BabyGettersToo. You got details or what?

Me: Or what. Don’t you have college stuff to do?

Cressie: Do you think any of the girls would talk to me about it? Maybe Shianne?

Me: Talk to you? For what?

To which she never responded. Cressie was good for a nonconclusive text, and I wasn’t pressed to keep talking #BabyGettersToo. As far as I knew, we’d both moved on.

Ten days after Taylor Burkin set it all off, on a sleepy Sunday after I’d worked a closing shift at FISHto’s, Mom finally got around to asking. Newsome preached on accountability that day, how God’s natural order meant men and women had different roles and responsibilities during our time on earth. Though sleepy and yawny from work, I paid more attention than usual because the sermon seemed to align with our next Purity Pledge session.

At one point, Newsome said, “In Proverbs 5 we’re told that the lips of a seductive woman are oh so sweet, her soft words are oh so smooth. But it won’t be long before she’s gravel in your mouth, a pain in your gut, a wound in your heart.”

A few folks, Coach Scott among them, shouted loud amens, but all I could think was, wow, that sounded dark. And wrong. Somehow.

Mom squirmed next to me, the lines around her mouth made more pronounced by her new frown. Newsome had more to say on the subject, but she’d closed her eyes, mumbled her secret prayers for the rest of service. I twisted in the pew, checking reactions from my fellow Pledgers, the girls in particular. Mya was stone-faced, unreadable. Helena and Shanice seemed to be in another world. I couldn’t see Kiera’s face because she was a couple of rows up, but her dad nodded vigorously. Her mom, not so much.

Pastor Newsome kept it moving.

During the car ride home, Mom brought up the hashtag. “Is it true some of the girls from the pregnancy pact are publicly exposing the boys who were involved?”

“There wasn’t a pact, Mom.”

“Fine. What about the rest?”

My turn to squirm. I hated talking about this stuff with her. “Yeah. A couple have been talking on IG and Snap.”

“Those are internet apps?”

Close enough. “Yeah.”

“Are they being well received?”

“Internet apps” I was able to translate, roughly. I didn’t know what she meant about “well received.”

I said, “A lot of people are paying attention.”

“What are they saying? Are they supportive of the girls?”

“It’s all anyone’s talking about.”

“That’s not the same thing as being supportive, Del. Tell me the ways people are responding.”

Aggravation crept into her voice, and I wasn’t trying to bring on what me and Cressie called a Mom-Storm, so I opened my “internet apps” and scrolled through some of the replies on IG. “It’s mostly laughs and people instigating. Anything to keep it going. Some name-calling. Why you want to know?”