Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(3)

The prefects all stay behind to get their badges while everyone else marches out of the assembly to their first-period classes. I watch them with their shiny, new fitted uniforms, their purses made from alligator skin and faces made from plastic. Looking down at my battered sneakers and blazer with loose threads, I feel a sting inside.

There are many things I hate about Niveus, like how no one (besides Jack) is from my side of town and how everyone lives in huge houses with white-picket fences, cooks who make them breakfast, drivers who take them to school, and credit cards with no limit tucked away in their designer backpacks. Sometimes, being around all of that makes me feel like my insides are collapsing, cracking and breaking. I know no good comes from comparing what I have to what they have, but seeing all that money and privilege, and having none, hurts. I try to convince myself that being a scholarship kid doesn’t matter, that I shouldn’t care.

Sometimes it works.

The badges are all different colors. Mine is red and shiny, with Devon engraved under Senior Prefect. The prefects teachers choose in senior year always have high GPAs and, as a result, are immediately drafted as the top candidates for the valedictorian selection, and while Chiamaka will probably get it, I’m still happy to even be considered. Who knows, if I can get Senior Prefect, what’s stopping the universe from granting one more wish and making me valedictorian?

I don’t usually allow myself to dream that much—disappointment is painful, and I like to control the things that seem more possible than not. But I’ve never been on the teachers’ radars before, or anyone else’s for that matter. I excel at being unknown, never being invited to parties and whatnot. Now that I’m here, and something like this is actually happening to me, I can’t help but feel it is a sign that this year is gonna go well … or at least better than the last three. A sign that maybe I’m gonna get into college—make my ma proud.

Ward finally dismisses us and I rush out of the hall, weaving through a small crowd of students still hanging about, and into one of the emptier marble hallways with rows of dusky gray lockers. I only slow when a teacher turns the corner. She gives me a pointed look, her sleek bob giving her face the same scary, judgmental appearance of Edna Mode from The Incredibles. Then she passes and I can breathe normally again.

The sound of a locker door slamming hard grabs my attention, and my head whips around to find the source. A dark-haired guy with sharp, heavy makeup around his eyes and an expression that says Fuck off stares back at me. Josh? Jared…? I can’t remember his name, but I know his face.

He’s the guy who came out last year at Junior Prom, walking in holding his date’s hand. His guy-date’s hand. And it wasn’t that big a deal. People were happy for him. But all I remember was looking at him and his date, hand in hand, and feeling this overwhelming sense of jealousy.

Prom is one of Niveus’s many compulsory and meaningless events, and so, like a masochist, I watched them all night, from the benches at the side of the hall. I watched them slow-dance, arms wrapped around each other like they were naturally safe there. Like nothing bad would happen to them. Like none of their friends outside of school would hurt or mock them. Like their parents wouldn’t stop loving them—or leave them. Like they’d be okay.

My chest had squeezed as I’d held on to that thought. My vision blurred, the lights in the room becoming vibrant circles. I had blinked back the tears, quickly wiping them off my cheeks with the sleeve of the black tuxedo I’d rented, still watching them dance—like a class A creep—looking away only when it got too painful.

“What?” A deep voice cuts into the memory like a blade. I blink to find the guy at the locker is staring at me, looking even more pissed off than before.

I turn quickly, walking the opposite way now, not daring to look back. Because, one, Jared? Jim?—that guy—scares the shit out of me, and two … My mind flashes back to prom, their intertwined fingers, their smiles. I screw my eyes shut, forcing myself to think of something else. Like music class.

I climb the steps to the first floor, where my music classroom is, burning the depressing memory and tossing its ashes out of my skull.

My body tingles when I see the dark oak door with a plate engraved Music Room, and the sadness melts away. This is my favorite classroom, the only place in school that’s ever felt like home. There are other music rooms, mostly for recording or solo practice, but I like this one the most. It’s more open, less lonely.

“Devon, welcome back and congrats on becoming a prefect!” Mr. Taylor says as I step in. Mr. Taylor is my favorite teacher; he’s taught me music since freshman year and is the only teacher I ever really speak to outside of class. His face is always lit up, a smile permanently fixed to it. “You can get started on your senior project, along with the rest of the class.”

My classmates are lost in the world of their own music, some on keyboards and others with pencils firmly gripped in their hands as they write down melodies on crisp white music sheets. We were supposed to start planning our senior projects over the summer, ready to showcase when we got back. But I spent most of my summer occupied with my audition piece for college, as well as other not-so-academic things.

I spot my station at the back by one of the windows, with a keyboard on top of the desk and my initials, DR, engraved in gold into the wood. Not many people take music, so we all have our own stations. I’ve always loved this classroom because it reminds me of those music halls from the classical concerts online: oval-shaped, with brown-paneled walls. Being in this room makes me feel like I’m more than a scholarship kid. Like I belong here, in this life, around these people.