Instead she wished she could talk to Jesse. She missed him. She couldn’t deny the triviality of her feelings considering what he was going through, but more than missing him she wanted to know if he’d seen what she had when they’d been at the house. If anyone could understand, it would be him.

A few times, she’d gone to his house, lingering at his door in the hope he’d open it and talk to her. She shuffled her feet and kicked her heels and waited. Gnats covered the mesh of the front door screen. If only he would come to the door. That’s what she told herself, standing on the porch. She knocked at the door, and the gnats swarmed around her face. She swatted them away before knocking again. Jesse, just answer. Answer and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.

One day his uncle did answer. A thin man, with bones and skin hidden under clothes too large for his frame, he gave her a sneer. “You’re wasting your time coming around. Jesse’s not going back to that school. He’s doing homeschooling to take the GED.” Grayed stubble covered gaunt cheeks. “He don’t want anything to do with you or your little white friend. Both of you are trouble,” he said, taking a Swisher Sweet from his mouth and spitting on his porch.

“Will you at least tell him I came by?” she asked, urging. She stepped closer to the door, an attempt to see past in the hope Jesse was hiding in the shadows. “Will you?”

“Like I said, no use coming by anymore,” he explained as he blocked her from moving farther. “He doesn’t want anything to do with you. Took him long enough. You and your mother always snubbed your noses at black folks like us. Hiding in that house and acting like you was better. All high and mighty. Last I checked y’all black too,” he yelled before shutting the door.

Before long, Celine fell in with a pack of other girls, white girls who envied her for her beauty but called her trash when she wasn’t with them, and Mira spent the rest of the school year alone.

When spring came Mira found out she’d gotten a full ride to one of the state universities. The day she found out she went to Celine’s. They sat together on the bed in her bedroom, a place Mira couldn’t remember the last time she’d been inside.

Celine grabbed one of her pillows and wrapped her arms around it, clutching it tight across her chest. “College, huh?”

“I wanted to tell you. You were one of the only people I wanted to tell.”

“What about Jesse? Did you tell him too?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t. I haven’t seen him.”