Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(61)

But it’s not her, it’s Terrell.

You disappeared on me yesterday.—T

He messaged me yesterday too, but I ignored it, hoping that if I pretended not to see the text I could erase how embarrassing the whole conversation at his house had been. After our exchange yesterday, I decided to go home. Facing him directly after that would have been too awkward.

Sorry for disappearing, hope your sister is doing better.—D

Immediately, he texts back.

She is.—T

We’ve only been friends for a few days and already I’m being clingy and annoying. What the hell is wrong with me?

Want to come over now? You can bring me your music.—T

I look down at my homework, the sound of the cartoons drowning out the yells from the good angel on my shoulder as I slip my sneakers on and put my assignment sheets away.

I couldn’t focus anyway, I reason, as I type back a response.

Will be over in 10.—D



* * *



Ten minutes later, I’m lying back on Terrell’s bed. It’s really comfortable, in a don’t have to share with nobody way. I miss the days when I was an only child and didn’t have to share a bed with my brothers.

Terrell is seated in front of me, listening to my audition piece. I feel nauseous watching him.

What if he says my piece is bad and that I should scrap it all?

Sometimes I feel like the time I’m spending perfecting this audition piece is pointless. With the way things are going, if this Aces bullshit reaches Juilliard, I don’t think it will matter how good my audition piece is. They won’t want a student who’s been accused of all the things Aces has accused me of.

Especially since none of the accusations were entirely false.

Terrell’s shoulders move under the black cotton of his hoodie, and I watch them out of the corner of my eye. He almost seems to be dancing. I want to laugh, but I don’t want to alarm him and disrupt whatever flow he has.

“I know what’s missing,” Terrell says, turning to face me now. His voice startles me, but I try not to show that it does.

“What?”

“Drums.” He takes the headphones out of his ears and passes my player back to me.

Drums?

“Really?” I ask, because it seems so strange to me. I know how to play them—kind of—but I haven’t had to since freshman year band practice, which I quit as soon as I could. Working with others isn’t something I like doing when it comes to music. I’m not even sure if the Juilliard composition faculty would like that.

“It’s too soft without them, like that white-ass school you go to.”

I nudge him. He nudges me back.

The piece has the keyboard and the clarinet. I guess I can see where he’s coming from.

“You might be right…,” I say, voice trailing off. My thoughts once again occupied by the posters in the hallway. My face. Chiamaka’s face. It’s hard to ignore the lack of white faces on the posters. It’s hard to ignore the obvious thing tying Chiamaka and me together now: our Black skin.

There’s so much cramming my mind. I don’t feel safe at school, or anywhere, really—like I’m constantly having to look over my shoulder.

I learned when I was younger to keep how I really felt buried, deal with feelings later, on my own. I’m good at burying things in deep boxes in my mind. I’m good at being okay most of the time. Until I’m not, and the boxes burst open and I explode.

“Hey … Terrell,” I say quietly, fingers edging toward one of the boxes in my head.

“Yeah?” he says.

I close my eyes, feeling like I’m floating away, somewhere far from here. I sniff, thinking about what to say next. How to phrase it.

“Something weird happened at school today, something really, really fucked up.”

“What happened?” Terrell says, already sounding worried, which is so Terrell. He cares.

I pull out my phone.

“The person who’s been spreading stuff about me and that girl, they put these posters up today. I took some pictures,” I say, showing Terrell.

He looks at my phone, eyebrows bunched up, expression growing more and more pissed.

“Have you told anyone?” he asks, tearing his eyes away from the screen and looking at me. I look down quickly, picking imaginary lint from my pants, trying not to make eye contact with him.

“I told Mr. Taylor, my music teacher, today. He said he’s gonna help us find out who put the posters up. Chiamaka and I are breaking into the school on Sunday to catch them in the act and stop them before it gets any worse—if that is even possible.”

Terrell nods slowly. “Those pictures … They look scary…” His voice trails off. “Just be careful breaking in. Whoever’s doing this could be dangerous. Are you sure you guys will be okay alone? I don’t mind tagging along, if you want.”

I nod. “We’ll be okay,” I tell him, even though I don’t mean that at all. I just don’t want to drag Terrell any deeper into this. But honestly? I’m terrified. This is our only option at this point, but the situation seems to be spinning out of control—it feels like suddenly everything is at stake. And we have no idea who our opponent is.

“It sounds like proper CSI work,” he says, pointing his finger guns at me, coming close to my face with them. I turn his fingers toward him but Terrell pushes them back toward me, and I find myself smiling.