I look around me, taking in everything I see, until I start to breathe this neighborhood, exhaling it, knowing it through and through. Little girls playing hopscotch written in multicolored chalk on the sidewalks. Older boys playing football on opposite sides of the cracked street, dividing them even more, degrees of separation between them. Parents sitting in lawn chairs on their porches, sipping cheap coolers. Fake smiles. Fake nods. Fake happiness.

When I walk into my room, I see that G-mo’s already made himself a ham sandwich and Ivy’s lying across the foot of my bed, flipping through a Game Informer magazine, her phone blaring “Hip Hop Ride” by Da Youngstas as loud as it can.

“Did you know there’s a new Call of Duty game coming out?”

G-mo’s eyes get wide and he lunges up from the floor to look at the magazine.

I shake my head and shrug. “Those games would be so much better with less CGI. I always get nauseous playing.”

“They need more CGI. I need to see more blood and guts,” G-mo says back through a mouthful of sandwich.

“It’s hot as balls in here.” I can feel the sweat already forming on my forehead.

I sit my backpack in the corner of the room and crack open my window since we don’t have A/C. The bill doubled this month, and Mama doesn’t make enough to pay it. Besides, there’s a nice, steady breeze out right now.

“I saw something and I don’t know what to do,” I say.

Ivy turns off the music and eases up off the bed a bit, giving me a concerned look.

“What?” G-mo whisper-yells. “Mr. and Mrs. Hornberg were having sex in the gym again? If so, you kind of have to expect that at this point. I mean, yo, look at their last name.”

“No. I think Tyler’s a drug dealer.”

“What the fuck? Like, for real?” Ivy goes, her nostrils widening.

“When he was with Johntae and his crew, I saw them exchange some package. I swear it was drugs or something.”

“Dude. What’re you going to do?” G-mo asks.

“I—”

There’s a knock on my bedroom door, which is cracked open. It’s Tyler.

“Hey, bro,” he says with this desperate look on his face, his do-rag still on. I didn’t realize he’d started wearing it during the day, so it catches me off guard for a moment.

I blink back my focus on him. “Hey.”

“You seen my ham? I don’t see it in the fridge. I hid the last piece so no one would eat it.”

Ivy snorts and covers her face with the Game Informer. I look back at G-mo, whose face goes from This sandwich is bomb to I’m fucked, and I roll my eyes before turning back to Tyler.

“Mama told you about hiding food,” I say, looking up at his fivehead.

“Yeah, but you know every time Mama buys something sweet, she’s always hiding it in her room, too. Soda, candy, the whole nine yards.”

I have a two-second crisis with myself on what to say back now. G-mo’s looking at me, pleading with his eyes, but I can’t lie to Tyler.

“G-mo ate it,” I admit, and a laugh slips out.

“Fuck you, Marvin! I thought we were never-snitch homies, like Harry and Ron,” G-mo shouts, jumping to his feet, swallowing the last piece of sandwich as if to destroy all evidence. “Look, Tyler, I promise, bro, I didn’t know it was yours. I had this really disgusting-looking whatever-the-fuck-it-was for lunch and I—”

“It’s cool,” Tyler interrupts him, and smiles. “It’s cool. I’ll get some from the store next time I go.”

Not sure where this sudden burst of kindness comes from, but I like it. This is the Tyler Johnson I know and love. Suddenly, I’m remembering when we were in elementary school, when we lived on the South Side and had to share a bedroom. Some nights, after Mama made sure all the lights were out and our eyes were shut, and Tyler and I knew Mama was in a deep sleep, we would sneak out the window to shoot some hoops with the court set we’d gotten the previous Christmas. One night, I played barefoot, and after a jump shot, I came down on a smashed beer bottle. I couldn’t see much, but I could feel wetness everywhere. After Tyler and I snuck back in, he cleaned out the cut with alcohol and peroxide, bandaged it, and helped me back into bed. I limped for a whole week, and every time Mama noticed she would say, “Boy, what the hell wrong with your foot?” Tyler said we were messing around and he accidentally stepped on it.

I breathe in and ask Tyler if he wants to go play ball later tonight.

He hesitates. “Not tonight—I’m busy. Another time, though, all right?”

Busy? What kind of busy? I can feel my throat drying, my eyes growing wider by the second, and it’s getting harder to shrug off my thoughts.

Before I can even ask him, just to reassure myself that it’s not what I think it is, that he’s dealing drugs or whatever, he stops me. “Oh yeah, Johntae is having this party on Friday and he said I could invite whoever I wanted. I want you three there. It’ll be lots of girls there. I’m tellin’ you, it’s about to be so damn lit.”

Ivy and G-mo shout, speaking over each other. “Holy shit? Us? Johntae’s party? Girls? We are in.”

My heart picks up its pace. Tyler’s standing there, grinning in my face, like he’s not best friends with the neighborhood drug dealer and everything’s fine, and it takes everything for me not to punch some sense into him. And Ivy and G-mo are behind me acting like some invisible person is twerking on them, shouting how we are going to get laid.

“No, we’re not going,” I say, interrupting their moment. Tyler’s smile wipes clean off his face, and he gives me this hurt look.

“WHAT?!” G-mo and Ivy say in unison, like it’s the single most bonkers thing they’ve heard in their entire lives. Like accepting a drug dealer’s invite to a party is the same as accepting an invitation to Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s wedding. Like it’s a fucking honor.

Then, Ivy adds, “Dude, why the fuck not? We’re going. We need to meet some girls.” She pauses. “Weekends are for parties and meeting girls.”

I blink.

My weekends normally consist of waking up, eating breakfast, doing chores, writing letters to Dad, reading letters from Dad, filtering through our old letters, more chores (because those are never done, according to Mama), getting ahead with homework, looking up photos of Megan Fox and Zoe Saldana, and unashamedly masturbating. But still. Johntae’s party isn’t worth the risk of ruining my chances of getting into MIT, if something were to happen.

“Fuck Johntae. Fuck his party. I don’t care.”

“Yo! You are legit tripping right now.”

“Why won’t you come, Marvin?” Tyler asks, still looking hurt. “Quit acting like that.”

I don’t turn around to look at G-mo and Ivy, but I hear all of their annoying pleading.

“I’m not going to a fucking drug dealer’s party, Tyler! One, Mama would beat the black off me if she found out, and two, nothing good can come from going.” I turn to G-mo and Ivy. “But if that’s what you two want to do, go the fuck ahead!” I throw my hands up.

Tyler walks closer to me, and he gets so close I can feel his breath on my face. He clamps his hands down on my shoulders. “Look, Marvin, it’s not easy without Dad around, and Mama can’t support us on her own. You see her struggling. Can’t pay the bills, let alone send you to college. Johntae’s going to help with that. So that’s all this is.”

“I call bullshit, Tyler.”

He exhales deeply with frustration, rolling his eyes. “You’re just like Ma. So negative. You know, you’re both like prison wardens.”

“What? Tyler, sound it the hell out. These. Are. Gangsters.”

There’s a pause. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I look back at Ivy and G-mo, and they’re glancing down, chins in hand, as if they’re soaking in the moment.

“I’m having Johntae text our phone the address. Show up, if you change your mind. All of you.”

There’s another pause as an electric volt shoots through my body, and a huge sigh slips out.

Tyler walks away, readjusting his do-rag. I stand in the same place until I hear him walk out the front door.