Tia Townsend is a 14-year-old black girl, and she and her best friend Marcelle are the only religious Christians in their high school, often earning stares from their classmates. One day in Sunday school, Marcelle is drawing in her textbook, and Tia decides that the passages written to appeal to teens are silly. Tia is disillusioned with religion because unlike other girls her age, neither Tia nor Marcelle have been able to speak in tongues, a rite of passage that is meant to demonstrate that the speaker has been taken over by the holy spirit. When Tia laughs at Marcelle’s drawings, the Sunday school teacher punishes her, taking her in the closet and lecturing her. The teacher insists that Tia must pray and then cry for Jesus, but when she finally lets Tia go, there have been no tears. Tia leaves church with her guardian, her great-aunt Roberta. Tia tells her aunt that she wants to go and live with her mother, something that she has been afraid to say. Her aunt pretends not to hear her.

Tia has only seen her mother once since her aunt took custody of her when she was seven. Tia remembers her mother’s kindness, but Roberta tells her that her mother was just high.