Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(90)

@DLikesTunes: #NiveusPrivateAcademy exposed: This school sabotages its Black students. Every Black student who has attended since 1965 has been targeted and forced to drop out. I was one of the most recent victims. Here’s proof.

I attach the images I took of computer 17—the acrostic, the names, the checklist. Then I add the picture of me and Chiamaka’s scratched-out yearbook photos.

I still feel sick looking at it, but I’m finally controlling something, even if it amounts to nothing.

I hit send and the tweet floats away.

I drag myself into the shower and then downstairs, where my ma sits, eating toast, dressed in her work clothes, like every morning.

“Morning, baby,” Ma says when she sees me.

“Morning, Ma,” I say, walking over to the counter to make myself some toast.

“How was your sleep?” she asks.

“Good,” I say.

“Good.”

There’s silence as I wait for my toast.

It pops out and I butter both pieces before taking a seat opposite her. There’s more silence as I chew, spacing out as I try to block the thoughts that kept me up in the first place.

I watch her, wondering why she lied and did it so easily. I didn’t think Ma lied to me, but I guess we all lie.

Is it selfish of me to be angry? To want answers? To tell her that while she was working hard to keep this roof over our heads, I was fantasizing about someone who never cared about us. And that his absence really hurts, even though I don’t want it to.

Ma rises and puts her dish in the sink before walking over to me, and giving me a tight hug.

“Going to get Eli and James up for school now. Are you leaving early today?” she asks, still holding my face after the hug. I feel tears well up again for no reason.

I nod.

“Okay.” She lets her hand drop and I immediately miss the warmth. “I love you,” she says as she moves toward the stairs. I watch her until she’s out of sight and I’m in our dark kitchen, alone again.



* * *



I arrive at Chiamaka’s house at one o’clock on the dot. I ring the buzzer on the gates, then walk through when they release. The sharp sound of heeled shoes and the front door slamming shut makes me focus on Chiamaka. I meet her halfway, where she startles me by forcing her bag into my arms.

“Hold this for a moment—I need to fix the strap on my shoes.”

It literally seems like she just woke up and rushed out. Not that I know much about girls’ hair or clothes and how they’re meant to look, but hers definitely scream I woke up like this.

“Thanks,” she says, taking her bag back. “Get in the car. The news station isn’t too far from here, half an hour’s drive tops,” she tells me as she clicks toward this sleek black car like it’s nothing. I watch her open the car door and throw her bag in.

I move toward the passenger side, only to be stopped by her hand on my arm.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing, I just think you should drive…” She hesitates before handing over her keys. “Here.”

“You want me to drive your car?” I ask, dumbfounded.

“Yes,” she says, like there is nothing weird about her suggesting that.

“I can’t drive,” I say, handing the keys back.

She looks annoyed. “And why is that?”

“I don’t have a license.”

She sighs loudly. “But you can drive, right?”

I drove my first car when I was twelve. It was to get Ma to the hospital, back when we still had a car. She was giving birth to my littlest brother, Eli. Sometimes I’d drive Dre’s car when I’d do drop-offs for him.

“Yeah, I can—”

“Get in.”

We have a miniature stare-down. The bags under her eyes and her tangled hair are in hyper focus now. She looks really tired.

I sigh. “Okay, fine.”

She mutters “Thank God” before tossing the keys back at me, narrowly missing my face. I nearly make a comment about that, but I figure it isn’t worth being insulted again and also she clearly isn’t doing so good, so instead I silently unlock the doors and watch as she walks over to the passenger’s seat, slamming the door shut.

I get in, closing the door and clicking my seat belt into place. I press a button and the engine bursts to life. If this was another time, another day, a different context, I might’ve commented on how cool her car is.

“Wait,” she says. I look over, watching her chest move up and down rapidly. It calms after a few moments. “Okay, you can go.”

I place my hands on the leather wheel of her car and my feet on the pedals.

Even though I have little faith in this plan, I can’t help thinking, This is it. This is finally it.

I press down, and the car starts to move out from the front of her house. The gates open immediately and before I know it we’re racing down her street, filled with white picket fences, large black gates, and perfect rooftops with perfect families beneath them.

“Let’s repeat the game plan,” she tells me.

“We go to Central News 1—” I begin.

“We go to Central News 1, we speak to the person at the desk, telling them we have an appointment with that journalist I called yesterday,” she interrupts. “We show the journalist the files, with the printouts, the picture of the yearbook and the posters. We show them the texts—wait, you do have the posters, right?”