Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(108)

I think about the boy, Rhys. How much unwarranted suffering he could face at that school. Like we did. Like our ancestors did.

I think about how many Black spirits have been killed by white supremacy and lies. How many of us were experiments. Worthless bodies in some game.

I think about Henrietta Lacks, whose body they used, mistreated, and tossed away, but who changed medicine forever. Who never got her revenge for the way they stole her cells, as if they were entitled to her body. Because she was Black and a woman, and in that combination, she, to them, meant nothing.

To me, she and all the other spirits broken by this world and its systems are the reason I get up and do this every day.

I walk into the room.

There he is, my final patient. Face hollow and sickly. Green and blue veins all over his arms and neck. Lying back, eyes peering up at me.

He’s dying.

I close the door behind me and I smile.

We lock eyes and I move forward, approaching his bed, glancing at his heart rate through the monitor.

I can hear the sound of the beeping from the machine as the lines zig and zag slowly.

I drum my fingers on the machine, turning to face him now. He moves his mouth to speak, but no words come out.

And they don’t have to.

The shock in his eyes is evident.

“Hello, Headmaster Ward,” I say.

? THE END ?





AUTHOR’S NOTE



Dear Reader,

I wrote Ace of Spades at a very dark time in my life. I had just started university, which for many reasons was difficult: I had no friends; I really hated myself; and I was slowly climbing out of the sunken place and realizing just how bad things were for people who looked like me. I was reading more books, talking to more people, and having the realization that the circumstances I grew up in were no accident, but a system that was created to work against me.

I grew up in South London, in a place we call ends, which in American terms would translate to the hood. My town is known for its diversity and massive Black population. My high school was at least 90 percent Black, and it wasn’t until I got to my university in Scotland that I realized how much my community in London meant to me.

Since starting university, for the first time in my life, I could go days without seeing another person of color. I would walk around the campus and feel people watching me, like they all knew something about me, and it put me on edge. For the first time, I was getting weird questions like, “Is that your real hair? Can I touch it?!” and having everyone in the lecture hall glance at me during the lectures on slavery and the colonization of Africa.

I genuinely felt like something insidious was happening, and while technically no one was really out to get me in the way Aces from my book is out to get my characters, there was something sinister happening. Something beyond my control, that had everything to do with the violent systems in place that I noticed every time I went to class or even walked around campus.

Systems that made it rare that people from my background were able to come to university and thrive without any issues.

In my first year, I had also just started watching Gossip Girl for the first time and became deeply obsessed with it, bingeing all of the seasons in a matter of weeks. After watching the show, I remember wishing there were more Black people. I was so in love with Blair Waldorf and her characterization, and I just thought it was such a shame that there were hardly any prominent shows like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars where these hilarious, mean female leads were played by Black actresses.

From then on, the idea for Ace of Spades started to form, and before I knew it, I was in my second semester of university and I had a first draft.

This novel deals with a lot of important topics and themes, such as classism, racism, and homophobia. It is also allegorical in many ways—which I hope you pick up on as you read. But one thing I was adamant on was keeping the setting as neutral as possible. With stories, it is so hard to ground readers without specifying a city or neighborhood, and so while there are mentions of places that are vaguely familiar, the story is meant to have no concrete ties to any one place.

I want people to read this book and not see the issues discussed as something that only affects some, but see that anti-Blackness is in fact a global issue: one that can’t be diminished or pinned on one country or group.

I started Ace of Spades as an eighteen-year-old freshman—lonely, depressed, and with a lot of questions about the world and myself—and through writing this book, I felt as though I was able to guide not only my characters on their journeys, but also myself. Writing this book was like a form of self-therapy, and I hope that it is the same for Black people that pick this book up.

The universe has a weird way of working, and it feels almost like fate that Ace of Spades will be published at the end of my senior year. It’s like I have grown and developed alongside these characters, and I’m excited you get to meet them!

I hope that in reading this story, you see that despite the darkness we are plagued with, which often feels inescapable, that not only are happy endings possible for Black people, but that we deserve them.

With love,

Faridah





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



There are so many people to thank and not enough trees in the world to express my gratitude, but still, I will try my hardest—using as little bark as I can.

I want to first thank my mum for all that she has done for me. She always encouraged me to be creative, abandoning the classic Nigerian saying, “If you’re not a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, you are a disappointment.” And instead, she valued my happiness above all else. With my mum by my side, I never felt like a disappointment. Growing up, life was difficult at times, and she always made things better with a story. At bedtime she’d recite Nigerian folklore or make up a cool adventure, and so I learned to love storytelling from her.