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is racing. Did he just give me his number? Oh my gosh …
    Damian drives slowly through town, crossing back over Union Street. I watch the ramshackle houses trickle past. Then the houses begin to grow nicer and the lawns better kept when we near my neighborhood. I can’t think of a thing to say. I’m still flabbergasted.
    But the silence between us is comfortable. When I’m sure he’s concentrating on driving, I turn to study him. His gray eyes are focused intently on the road. They are light against his caramel skin. He looks lonely, terribly lonely. And then it occurs to me that he is bereft, too, in a way. He lost his best friend. I haven’t seen him hanging around with anyone at school, certainly no one from his and Nate’s old gang.
    I don’t actually know anything about Damian, who his friends are, what his family is like.
    Turns out I hardly knew my brother, either.
    As all these thoughts are passing through my mind, I’m not paying attention when we finally pull up in front of my house. So, I don’t notice my mother’s car in the open garage, or my mother pacing back and forth on the front porch.
    “Uh, Cora?” Damian mumbles as he comes to a stop. “Cora,” he repeats, snatching me back to planet Earth.
    “What?” I reply, then, “Oh, no,” as I notice my mom noticing Damian’s car and me in it.
    My mother freezes, her eyes popping wide open with shock then narrowing with anger. She starts to stride toward the car, then stops, and begins waving her arm, motioning for me to get out of the car—Right That Instant.
    I nod at her, and turn to Damian. “I guess I’d better go.”
    “Yeah, it looks like it,” he says with a rueful smile. “Well, see you at school.”
    “Bye, Damian.” I swing around and start to open the door, then look back at him. “And thank you. Really.”
    I brace myself for the onslaught, straightening as I come face-to-face with my mom, who is marching agitatedly across the lawn.
    “What were you thinking?” As she approaches, I can see that her face is drawn and white. “Please. Tell me what were you thinking?” she shouts.
    “I—” I start; she won’t let me speak.
    “Do you know what that boy—what he did?”
    “Yes, Mother. It’s kind of hard to forget. So, why don’t you spare me?” I answer, cool as a cucumber.
    “He was in the car with your brother that night, and now you get into a car with him ? Into a car! I just can’t believe it.” Then, abruptly, she switches tacks. “Where have you been all afternoon? You had a dentist appointment! And you aren’t supposed to go anywhere after school; you’re supposed to come straight home. And you skip your appointment to go gallivanting around with that—that…” All of a sudden, she runs out of steam.
    The dentist. I forgot all about it. Too late—I’m not apologizing now, not when she is treating me like this, like a child. Like a prisoner.
    “That what ?” I yell. “What is he, Mom? Because I’m pretty sure he isn’t some monster. You know, I think Nate took care of messing up everything all by himself!” I am really shaking now. “And you know what, you can’t keep me locked up in the house all the time, like Rapunzel! You can’t!” All of the heat that has crept up my neck and into my cheeks blooms into a hot fountain of tears that now courses over my face, spilling around my collar and down the front of my jacket. Hot, then cold.
    At that moment, my father’s car pulls into the driveway, and he gets out of the car. Great, perfect timing.
    “What’s going on here?” he asks in an empty voice, drained of life, as he slowly walks over to us. Family huddle.
    Mom whirls around, rallying for his sake. “I was home early to take Cora to her dentist appointment, only she never came home. Then, she shows up almost two hours late in Damian Archer’s car.”
    My father stares at me mutely.
    “Well, what do you have to say to her, Daniel?” My mother’s voice has risen to a decibel that