"Students like you don't get scores this high."

May arrived the way it always does at the end of a school year — too fast, too warm, full of things that feel like endings even when they aren't.

Marcus got his AP exam results on a Thursday afternoon.

He was sitting at the kitchen table when the email came through.

He read the score once.

Then he put his phone face-down on the table and sat very still for a moment.

Then he picked it up and called his mother.

She answered on the second ring.

"What happened?"

"Five," he said.

"AP Chemistry.

I got a five."

Silence.

Then: "Marcus."

"And a five on AP English.

And a four on AP History, which — I'll take it."

He heard her exhale.

Not a word.

Just the sound of something releasing.

"Come home," she said.

"I'm making dinner."

---

He stopped at Jada's locker on the way out.

She was reorganizing it with the focused energy of someone who reorganizes things when she doesn't know what else to do with her hands.

She'd been doing a lot of that lately.

The investigation had been hard on her in ways she hadn't fully said out loud yet.

"AP results," he said.

She looked at him.

"And?"

"Five in Chemistry.

Five in English."

Her face did something complicated — pride and relief and something that looked a little like she might cry, which she clearly had no intention of doing in a school hallway.

"You absolute—" She stopped.

Shook her head.

"Good.

That's good, Marcus."

"What about yours?"

"Four in History.

Five in Literature." She turned back to her locker.

"Don't make it weird."

"I'm not making it weird."

"You're looking at me like you want to make a speech."

"I just want to say—"

"Don't."

"Jada."

She closed her locker.

Turned around.

Looked at him with the expression she used when she was paying full attention and didn't want you to know it.

"You didn't have to do any of it," he said.

"The folder.

The photos.

Going to Okafor in October by yourself.

None of that was your responsibility."

"I know."

"Why did you?"

She thought about it for a moment.

Really thought about it, the way she did.

"Because Priya cried in the bathroom," she said.

"And I was the only one who saw."

He nodded.

"That's enough of a reason," he said.

"I know," she said.

And for the first time in a long time, she looked like she actually believed it.

---

Dinner at the Carter house that night was rice and chicken and the good plates Diane only used when something mattered.

She set three places.

Marcus looked at the third one.

"Who's coming?"

"Nobody." She put a glass of water at each place.

"I always set three.

Force of habit." She paused.

Then she moved the third plate to the counter, gently, and set a small vase of flowers there instead.

Marcus watched her do it.

Didn't ask about it.

Some things you understand without needing them explained.

They ate.

They talked about college applications — two early decisions still pending, one acceptance already in hand.

They talked about AP credits and what they might mean for his first semester.

They talked about Jada, and Priya, and the seven families, and what the district had promised and what it still owed.

After dinner, Marcus washed the dishes.

Diane dried them.

They did it the way they'd done it for years, without talking, the radio low in the background.

When the last plate was put away, Diane folded the dish towel over the oven handle and stood at the kitchen window for a moment, looking out at the yard.

"She's going to fight the termination," she said.

"The union filed a response last week."

"I know."

"It might take another year."

"I know."

"Does that change anything for you?"

Marcus thought about it.

"No," he said.

"She already walked out of that school carrying a cardboard box.

Whatever the paperwork says, that already happened."

Diane was quiet.

"She looked at me in the hallway," he said.