The last bell spit the day out into the hallway. Bleach and old A/C breath rode the air. Backpacks bumped and slid, sneakers squeaked, somebody’s laugh cracked loud and then got swallowed by the crowd. Caine drifted with the current, shoulders loose, phone pressed flat against his thigh. He kept his eyes up enough to see over heads, down enough not to invite anybody in.
Mr. Landry was posted outside his door with a stack of graded papers, shirt sleeves rolled. He caught Caine with a small nod, that steady teacher look that read everything and didn’t make a show of it.
Caine slowed. “I ain’t got to the new one yet,” he said. “Been meaning to. I got time now.”
Landry’s mouth creased at the corners. “You do,” he said. “Countdown’s on. Just a few months.” He tipped his chin toward the seniors spilling past. “You nervous about leaving? After the year you’ve had?”
Caine shrugged. The hallway heat held sticky under the failing vent. “It’s just school somewhere else,” he said. “Same desks. Different smell.”
Landry huffed a quiet laugh. “Different smell is right. You come by if you want to talk through the all the first year stuff freshman gotta do. They’ll have you with an adviser, but you can never have too much advice. I’ll be here.”
“Bet,” Caine said. He glanced at the clock, then back to Landry. “I gotta get to the courthouse.”
Landry’s face sobered. He slid the papers under his arm and leaned closer. “You’ve come a long way from trying to steal my car,” he said. “Nobody can take that from you.”
Caine held the look a moment, something easy and appreciative moving across his face. “I hear you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
A janitor’s bucket rattled past. Somewhere down the hall a locker slammed hard enough to ring. Caine lifted two fingers in a quick goodbye and angled through the traffic toward the front doors.
Outside, the winter sun sat thin and low, late January light that looked cold but pressed warm on skin because the air never learned how to fully cool here. The lot smelled like hot rubber and fried food drifting in from somewhere across the street. The Buick waited dull and patchy under a sky the color of dishwater.
“Hey, big head!”
Janae’s voice cut across the line of cars before he saw her. She jogged up in slides, braids bouncing, the clink of bracelets bright against the parking lot quiet. He looked over his shoulder. Gave her a nod.
“You stopped answering my texts,” she said, a little breathless and a lot amused. Her eyes ran over his face like she was checking for tells.
“I gotta fix things with my girl before I leave,” he said, plainly. “Can’t have distractions.”
She made a face like he’d told a joke. “So, you fucked and now you loyal?”
He pulled the keys from his pocket. “Don’t act like you ain’t know what you was doing. I had a girl the whole time and you still wanted it.”
He popped the back door and tossed his bag in, the fabric thumping against the torn seat. The car reeked like old vinyl and a little like drywall dust that never fully washed out.
Janae slid sideways in front of the driver door, arms crossed tight, hip knocked against the panel like it was hers to lean on. She stared at him, chin tilted. Cars idled and creaked, heat ticking in their engines. A siren floated from somewhere farther down Canal and faded.
“Janae,” he said, plain. “Move. I ain’t got time for this.”
She sucked her teeth, held his eyes an extra beat, then stepped out of the way with a little spin that said this wasn’t finished on her side. He didn’t rise to it. He opened the door and got in.
~~~
Target ran too bright for a day that felt gray. Fluorescents hummed like bugs trapped in plastic. The big red sale signs drooped on the endcaps, all that post-holiday desperation marked down in peeling stickers. Angela and Paz worked the aisles like they had a plan, tossing shower liners and a set of thin towels into the cart, arguing over whether a dish rack with a rust spot counted as “still good.”
Mireya kept her hands on the cart handle. The plastic felt greasy no matter how she shifted her grip. She didn’t say much. Her brain wouldn’t land. It kept circling the same things until they blurred together—Caine leaving, the picture, UNO money she didn’t have, Stasia’s voice in her head.
Angela waved a bundle of hangers. “We need two packs. The velvet ones so your shirts don’t slide.”
Paz snorted. “Girl, velvet hangers with empty pockets? Put them back.” She flicked one with a nail. “Dollar store. Boom.”
Mireya pushed the cart forward. The wheel with the mind of its own squeaked and then surrendered.
“Mmhm.” Angela side-eyed her, then set the hangers in anyway. “I’m not trying to live in a bando. Apartment gotta look cute.”
“You ain’t got cute money,” Paz said, but she was already pulling a shower curtain with lemons off the rack.
Mireya gave a tiny smile that didn’t settle.
They drifted through aisles of fake plants and plastic laundry baskets. Angela reached past Mireya into the cart and shifted things to make it look like organization. “You good, Reya?”
“Yeah.”
Paz glanced up from a bin of clearance throw pillows. Her face said she didn’t buy it. She didn’t push. Neither did Angela. The silence laid down between them and stayed.
At checkout, the conveyor belt crawled with flat boxes and a frying pan that would probably warp on the first high heat. Mireya kept her eyes on her phone. A text from Caine lit the screen. She swiped it away like it burned and caught the next one from Leo before it disappeared. She killed the notifications and opened TikTok out of muscle memory.
The videos spun up quick. A woman in six-inch heels flowed upside down on a pole, the camera tilted so her hair became a curtain. Another girl did a slow floor split, money pattering like rain around her. Captions rolled—how to start, best clubs in the South, “if you broke, say that.” Mireya’s thumb went still. The algorithm had heard the music bumping in the house as women flew around poles and men threw money. She locked the phone and slid it into her back pocket without looking at Angela or Paz.
The cashier read off the total. Angela split it, Paz dug through her bag for a card that might clear. Mireya pulled the cart away. “I’ll grab the car.”
Outside, the air carried a damp chill. January pretended to be winter for an hour at a time and then gave up. The sky hung low, the kind of gray that made the strip mall sign look heavier. The parking lot beeps and engine coughs swelled and thinned. A police cruiser rolled the far row, slow and bored. Mireya kept her head down and hit unlock.
Angela and Paz pushed through the sliding doors laughing about something Mireya had missed, each steering a wobbly cart.
“Road trip,” Angela said as soon as they were close enough to hear. “Before school starts. Pensacola. Or Houston. Somewhere with a pool.”
“I’m broke,” Mireya said. The words came out flat. She popped the trunk. The seal along the trunk lip stuck for a second, then released with a wet sound.
“We can split it,” Paz said, hauling the frying pan up and over. “I got my next two checks. It’ll be fine.”
“Fine for who?” Mireya said, softer than she meant. She nodded at the towels. “I gotta save every penny so I can pay for books.”
Angela bumped her hip into Mireya’s, gentle. “Come on. One night. Two at most. Before we gotta be adults for real.”
Mireya pictured Felix and Stasia’s face, the offer of more money. Her phone buzzed again in her pocket. She didn’t check. “Maybe later,” she said. “We’ll see.”
They loaded the trunk in a practiced rhythm. Paz tucked the lemon curtain between the baskets so the plastic wouldn’t split. Angela fished around, then lifted a shoebox. On top of the dress Stasia had chosen like a mirror she held up.
Angela cocked her head, grinning. “Bitch, you went got you a sugar daddy?”
Mireya laughed, abruptly, easy. She rolled her eyes and tipped her chin at the rest of the bags. “Hurry up so I can go get Camila.”
Paz turned one heel in her hand, checking the sole, the light catching on the lacquered curve. “These are at least two hundred.”
“You can have them for one-fifty,” Mireya said, still laughing. She took the box back, set it on top of the towels, and brought the trunk down until the latch caught.
She walked around to the driver’s side. The door handle stuck for a breath like it always did, then gave. She got in the car.
~~~
Late January poured thin light through the high windows, a pale slice that couldn’t touch the cold. The courtroom breathed refrigerated air, the kind that crawled under clothes and settled at the bone. Paper rustled like dry leaves. The seal on the wall stared down, promise and threat stitched into one emblem.
Caine sat still at counsel table. Back straight. Hands flat. Markus stood a step ahead of him, shoulders easy, voice ready. Across the aisle, Jill Babin stacked her filings into a blade-straight tower. William Roussel lounged a half-inch back from the table mic, elbows wide like he owned the air between them.
Markus didn’t waste time. “Judge Kennedy, months of back-and-forth have left us at the same wall. We’re renewing our request to modify probation to permit a transfer under ICAOS and, pending approval, immediate compliance with any conditions the receiving state imposes. Since our last setting, Georgia Southern has extended a firm scholarship. The window to enroll for fall has opened. Delay isn’t neutral anymore. It’s decisive.”
Babin lifted her chin. “And the State continues to oppose. Mr. Guerra remains a threat to the public. Louisiana should not export its problems and call it progress. We have a responsibility to protect our communities. Sending him across state lines to a campus environment only multiplies risk.”
Markus didn’t look over. “Your Honor, the State’s talking fear. We’re talking structure. There’s a transfer compact for a reason. Mr. Guerra is looking to attend college and better himself. The only crime he’s going to be committing is turning in an assignment late.”
Judge Kennedy held up a palm, easy. “Mr. Guerra.” The drawl softened consonants into something near friendly. “This scholarship. Athletic?”
“Yes, your honor.”
The judge rubbed his chin, thumb dragging across sandpaper stubble. A flicker in his eyes like he’d just stepped into a memory. “Got a fraternity brother from over that way. He’s a man of the cloth now. Back at Ole Miss? Lord. Another story.”
A ripple of quiet laughter lived and died in the gallery. The judge let it pass.
“Alright,” he said, voice turning to hardwood. “I’ve heard y’all argue yourselves in circles. Time to stop.”
Babin opened her mouth. The judge didn’t look at her.
“Office of Probation is ordered to initiate and submit the ICAOS transfer request for Mr. Guerra within one week. If Georgia accepts the case, this court will modify conditions accordingly to reflect supervision in the receiving state.”
Markus’s breath eased out like a knot letting go. “Thank you, Your Honor.”
Babin stepped forward, ready with another line of polished alarm. “Your Honor, the State—”
“The matter’s decided, Ms. Babin.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “You may note your objection for the record.”
Her jaw clicked shut. Roussel’s stare drifted over Caine like a smirk that hadn’t found its mouth.
Judge Kennedy turned his gaze back to Caine. “Son, I’m going to suggest to those boys in the Peach State that you put time in at Pastor Hadden’s church while you’re there. Keeps your feet on ground. When you get a chance, ask him about homecoming ‘78.” The corner of his mouth almost smiled. “You tell him Judge Kennedy sent you.”
“Yes, sir,” Caine said.
“That said,” Kennedy added, the drawl thinning into steel, “don’t confuse mercy with blind trust. You violate in Georgia, Louisiana’s still got a bed with your name on it. The Farm isn’t going anywhere.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” He glanced to the clerk. “Enter the order. Anything further?”
Babin tried one last reach. “State would ask the Court to—”
“No, ma’am.” He stood. “We’re adjourned.”
The word hung there, heavier than a gavel. Chairs scraped. The bailiff called the next case. Caine rose with Markus. Across the aisle, Babin was already collecting her stack by feel. Roussel finally found his smile and let it land.
Caine didn’t give him one back. He just looked. Calm. Unmoved. Then he turned.
The hallway hit warmer by a degree, same old courthouse blend of bleach and somebody’s fried lunch hitching a ride on clothes. A siren floated thin from the street. Power moved here in paper, not volume. Paper cut deeper.
They walked out the courtroom and out into January light, brittle on the sidewalk. Traffic hissed on damp patches. They headed down the street to Markus’ office.
In the building’s lobby, an elevator dragged them up through the tired cough of old cables.
“Sit,” Markus said, already tugging a folder from the credenza and flipping it open on the desk. The letter of intent waited there, blue tabs like little flags. “Read every line. Do not sign a thing you haven’t.”
Caine read. Name. Terms. Dates. The numbers weren’t his lane. That would come later.
“Pen,” Markus said, sliding one across.
Caine signed. The scratch of the tip sounded bigger than it was. He sign-dated in the corner, then once more on the NCAA eligibility acknowledgment.
“Alright,” Markus said. “Fax.”
They walked it over to the machine. The glass still had a fingerprint in the corner from someone else’s emergency. Markus keyed in the number from the contact sheet. The machine whirred, coughed, took the page like it had a grudge against paper.
Caine watched the bar crawl across the tiny screen. Heard the distant dial, the handshake, the thin buzz of a connection finding itself. One page, then two. Confirmation stuttered out, thermal paper curling as it landed.
Markus tore it free and checked the header. “Received.”
Caine nodded once.
Outside the window, the city carried on—sirens threading lanes, a bus sighing to a stop, somebody arguing on a corner, the river pushing by with no idea who had just signed what. The air in the room felt the same. The difference lived inside the paper, in a code the right office would read and answer.
~~~
The yard at Hunt was bright and mean. Winter sun sat on the gravel while the river wind cut through khaki. Men drifted in loose clusters. The chain-link hummed when gusts hit it.
Dre sat with the Black row, back to the wall, eyes half-lidded. The heat on his face lied about the cold in his bones. Bleach and dust rode every breath.
Jamaal leaned into his shoulder. “Ain’t that dude who got walked down in the city last month your cousin?”
Dre shifted just enough to look at him. “Who you talking’ about?”
“One my homeboys wrote,” Jamaal said, mouth barely moving. “Said a nigga named Percy got hit in front his mawmaw house. Said that’s ol’ boy you tried to shoot at.”
Across the yard, the Latino table sat in a hard square of sunlight. Cards slapped. The sound carried. Dre watched a king get turned and palmed away.
“Yeah, that’s my mama brother son. I did shoot at him. Him and the white bitch DA he was talking to,” Dre said. He kept his voice flat. “That nigga was a snitch.”
Jamaal clicked his tongue. The wind lifted his cap. “Good he dead then.”
Dre’s hands settled on his knees. Skin across his knuckles looked thin. He stared at the veins there, then back to the table in the sun.
Ricardo had left with a few words.
“Front y’all mawmaw house,” Jamaal said again, like the address was proof. “That’s crazy, nigga.”
A guard’s shadow passed. A plane scratched white over the gum trees. The wind smelled like old pennies. Dre swallowed it.
He let silence sit between his teeth. At the table a dude in a green sweatshirt laughed, then folded and refolded his cards.
The gravel held a shard of green glass. He pressed it with his boot until it disappeared. The sun slid behind a thin cloud and the yard pulled in. Talk thinned.
Jamaal spat to the side. “Street clean itself sometimes,” he said. “Ain’t nobody gon’ cry for a rat.”
Dre breathed through his nose. The sun came back and put shine on the wire. A card slapped and the laughter died quick. One of the older Latino men met his look, then went back to his hand.
It wasn’t grief. It was something heavier that sat where grief should be. A knot of old blood. He kept his face quiet. In this place the only safe thing to show was the sky.
Dre turned his palms up to the sun like it could burn clean what it never reached. He didn’t need to hear more.
~~~
Late-January light drooled in through the blinds, thin and gray, the kind of New Orleans night that made the air feel stuck. The living room held the day in a low hum — traffic hissing wet on the street, a neighbor’s TV bleeding trumpet and organ, the faint vinegar of mop water still in the corners. On the rug, Camila sat cross-legged with a fistful of colored pencils clutched like flowers, her curls springing soft against her cheeks.
Caine was on the floor with her, long legs stretched out, back to the old couch.
He kept his voice serious like this was a business meeting. “Okay, what we got here, mamas?” He pointed at the page where she’d drawn a purple blob with stick legs and a tilted crown.
Camila grinned wide. “Guess.”
He squinted hard, tapping his chin. “Easy. That’s a dinosaur.”
She shrieked into her hands, delighted. “No!”
“Aight, aight.” He touched the crown. “One of them big shrimp on Mardi Gras.”
“Noooo.” She laughed so hard her body folded. “That you.”
“Oh, my bad.” He nodded solemn. “Self-portrait. I see it. You nailed the eyes.”
She leaned into him, giggles hiccuping out, then put the pencil back to the paper like work called and she had deadlines. Caine watched her fill the page with fierce concentration. The floor pressed cool through his jeans. He let his shoulders loosen. For a minute, the room held only the scrape of pencil and Camila’s breath.
The apartment door clicked. A slip of cold air, a rustle of a bag set down. Mireya walked into the living room and sat in the chair on the far side, the one near the window where the blind’s pull-string rattled in any breeze. Hoodie sleeves pushed to her elbows, hands empty. She didn’t take off her boots. She didn’t speak. Caine felt her watching before he looked up.
He kept his tone even, steady like a plank set between two roofs. “Judge approved the transfer,” he said. “I signed my letter. I’m going to college.”
The room went quieter than before. Camila pressed hard and broke a pencil tip. Little gasp. She looked up, then back at her drawing.
Mireya held Caine’s eyes for a beat that stretched. When she finally spoke, it landed dull and certain. “I meant what I said, Caine.”
Caine nodded once, more to himself than to her. He checked Camila’s face, saw only the line between her brows beginning to form. He leaned closer to his daughter. Then he looked back at Mireya.
When he spoke, his voice shifted a shade and he tagged it the way they did when they had to cut the room in half. Spanish flowed freely, hoping to shield Camila from the argument. “I can’t do life without you. I need you.”
Mireya’s mouth trembled toward a smile that never arrived. She matched his Spanish. “You should’ve thought of that when you told me fuck my dreams. Only yours are important.”
Caine’s jaw worked. “You can do nursing anywhere.”
“Who the fuck is going to pay that? You?” Her voice rose and cracked in the middle. “Did you even look at how much it costs to go out of state? Of course, you fucking didn’t.”
A horn bleated outside, long and annoyed, then faded. Camila stopped coloring. She watched their faces, searching for a cue. Caine saw it, that shine building in her eyes like a rain that hadn’t started yet. He forced his shoulders to stay loose, voice leveled.
“No puedes alejar a mi hija de mí,” he said, his voice taken on the edge that he reserved only for the streets despite himself.
“I won’t,” she shot back. “I’m not. I’ll make it work even if I have to bring her to Georgia myself. But I’m not following you and I’m not staying with you.”
Caine felt the floor under his palm, splinters along the rug edge. He’d already measured this risk. He’d already counted the cost. “I fucking made this decision for us.”
Mireya leaned forward until the chair creaked. Her teeth were set like she could crack a seed on them. “No, you made it for you. Y solo para ti.”
The room held that. The humid clench of it. Somewhere down the block a siren unscrolled, not in a hurry, just reminding everyone it existed. Camila’s bottom lip trembled. Caine his eyes to his daughter and let his face soften.
“No, no. It’s okay,” he told her, switching back to English like flipping a light. “We good, mamas.” He picked up another pencil and twirled it for her. “Draw me something else.”
She hesitated, then took it, small fingers closing around the wood. Her hand moved slower this time. The line she laid down wobbled. She pressed too hard, stopped, started again, little breath catching quick like she might cry but didn’t. The sadness showed up not in her face but in the careful way she colored inside shapes that had no edges.
Caine watched her draw. The room held its breath. Traffic hissed outside. The blind’s pull-string tapped once and went still.
He lifted his eyes to Mireya. She met them across the room.
Neither of them spoke again.
Final few chapters before college
