Every Variable of Us, page 22
“You came up with the worst plan ever. Didn’t you suggest robbing some dude working the late shift at the McDonald’s in Olney? You do know that guy probably only had, like, fifteen dollars on him, right? I mean, he worked at McDonald’s.”
“Not my best idea, a’ight. The point is you didn’t let me do it. Instead you came up with that dope plan to sneak into ol’ man Grady’s crib and steal his annoying-ass dog. Then when he offered a reward we gave it back. We made two hundred real quick. You’re always thinking of clever shit like that to get us out of a problem.”
“I don’t think that makes me smart. It just means I’m good at ripping off old people, which is not what I want written on my tombstone.”
Her face drops with a hint of sorrow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Britt this empathetic. “I guess when we stopped talking I didn’t have you there to talk me out of doing dumb shit.”
“Like stealing from Devon?” I hope she hears the disappointment in my voice. Because that really was dumb as fuck.
“Like stealing from Devon,” she confirms. “That’s cool they got your back like that, though. It still sounds nerdy as fuck and I’ll never understand why anyone would ever volunteer to do more schoolwork, but I’m happy you found something outside of ball. You’re my girl, Lex. I want you to blow up. Like, one of us should get the fuck out of here. And let’s just be real, we both know it was always going to be you. My ass ain’t ever leaving Hargrove.”
“That’s not true,” I reply. Although part of me knows that it probably is. If Britt’s selling in Crew territory and skimming Devon’s supply, then she’s already in too deep. People don’t come back from that. But this isn’t the life I want for her. For my friend. “You can leave too. It’s not too late to stop working for Devon and get your grades up. You’ll probably have to go to summer school and repeat again, but I can help you. Aamani can help too. She’s an amazing tutor. The girl’s like a Hindu Stephen Hawking.”
“Do you hear yourself? Me going to summer school, studying and shit. Nah, I’m good. I’ll leave that nerd shit to you and your nerdy-ass friends.”
It pains me to concede, but I get it. College isn’t for everyone. And you can’t just stop going to school for months and then decide to become a Rhodes scholar. It doesn’t work like that. If Aamani and STEM have taught me anything this year, it’s that school is like everything else in life. It requires hard work and dedication to succeed. You can’t half-ass it. I just wish we never fell out of touch. I wish I didn’t act so petty. Maybe I could have steered her down the STEM path like Aamani did me. Maybe I could have saved her from a life of Molotov cocktails and stealing backpacks of drugs from rival gang members. Yeah, Britt was out of pocket for the way she treated Aamani and how she turned on me for joining STEM. But maybe that was just her way of admitting she needed me more than ever. Maybe the only one who failed here is me.
“No matter what, you’re always going to be my girl.” It’s the only way I know how to say I love you. “Bad girls for life?”
She daps me up. “Bad girls for life.” Then she tosses in, “You fucking nerd.”
We trade smiles.
Her smile folds over. “And who the fuck is Stephen Hawking?”
Chapter 17
I’m in no mood to sleep on a mattress that smells like burnt bacon that was marinated in spoiled milk, or to listen to Crackhead Marvin hold a full-blown conversation with himself about how the system’s rigged to keep a Black man down as he takes another hit from his crack pipe. So I pray to Jesus that Mom and Randy are out making terrible life choices.
Please, universe. Just let me have this one thing.
I have seventeen missed calls and texts from the team when I turn my phone back on. I had purposely turned it off so I wouldn’t have been tempted to ditch Britt. The majority of them are from Aamani, and a few from Brian and Mrs. H. I even have a missed call from Lindsay. She was the only one to leave a message.
I feel like such a dick for failing them.
Lindsay’s message is a good minute and a half long. I hesitate, thinking maybe I shouldn’t listen to it. I mean, what good is going to come from it? I doubt she’s about to sing my praise for a minute and a half or be like, “So the team pooled our money and entered you in a raffle that you won. You are now the owner of a new Ferrari!”
I take a breath and press play.
“I fucking knew it. I knew something like this was going to happen,” Lindsay starts, sounding ten notches beyond enraged. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but let me be clear when I say that you let everyone down today, including me. This is exactly why I didn’t want you joining the team. I don’t think you understand that STEM is all I have. Because unlike you with all your basketball friends, Brian, Aamani, and Matthew are the only friends I have around here. Nobody wants to talk to the supposedly rich and stuck-up white girl. Both of which I’m not, as you now know. The world might be a terrible place for people with your skin tone, but Hargrove is a terrible place for people with mine. So it really pisses me off when you pull the shit you pulled today. You hurt my only friends and put the one thing that gives me peace, where I feel safe, at risk. I hate you for that.” Static of dead air comes over the line. For a second I think she hung up, but then she starts back up with a vengeance. “Everything just comes so goddamn easy for you. You stroll into STEM, take Brian’s spot, and everyone falls in love with you despite you not knowing shit about science, technology, engineering, or math. You already had a shitload of friends and a life. Why’d you have to come along and take mine? You don’t even care about them. They deserve better. We deserve better. And you made Matthew cry. I hope you’re fucking happy about that.”
Well, shit. That hurt.
Is it me or is there a pattern here that I’m missing? Like maybe, just maybe, I’ve been so programmed by society to accept being a stereotype that I’d begun to stereotype everyone around me. Am I really a narcissistic asshole? I don’t know. Maybe I am. But who is she to judge? She doesn’t know half of the shit I’ve been through this year.
It turns out life doesn’t see race or creed. It’s content to fuck everyone over equally.
Now that’s equality for your ass.
The sad part is I don’t know if I’m even capable of changing. I don’t know how to be anything but what society has built me up to be. I’m drowning in Hargrove. Every time I try to move beyond it, it pulls me back in like quicksand. The harder I pull away, the harder it tightens its grip. And the decision I made today may have just sealed my fate.
When I turn onto my block, the first thing I see is Aamani in her STEM uniform, arms crossed, pacing in front of my stoop. And she. Looks. Pissed.
And I thought Lindsay hated me.
Aamani doesn’t wait for me to reach the stoop. As soon as she sees me she starts marching toward me like a battalion heading for enemy lines. She stares me down. We meet in the middle of the block across the street from Mr. Edmore’s Deli. Kalhil and a few others are smoking a blunt on Mr. Grave’s stoop. They puff then pass, and look up to us for entertainment.
Staring down a heated Aamani is kind of terrifying. I now know how the US Army felt staring down the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
Sorry for all the war similes. We’re studying WWII in Mr. Hilbert’s class. This is the kind of thing that happens when you actually pay attention.
“Let me see your phone,” she demands, holding out her hand.
“Why?” There’s no way I’m handing over my phone—the one bill Mom always finds a way to pay—to a pissed-off girl who’s staring at me like she wants to use me as a human sacrifice.
“Give me the damn phone,” she doubles down.
I stand corrected and hand over the phone.
She presses the home button and my wallpaper ignites the screen. “So it does work.”
“I can explain,” I begin, trying to deescalate the situation before she spikes my phone like Odell Beckham Jr. in the end zone. “See, what had happened was . . .”
She gives me the hand. My eyebrows shoot to the top of my forehead. Surprised. I know she did not just do that. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m here because I wanted to look you in the eye when I say you and me are done. After all me and the team did for you—we accepted you, helped you apply for scholarships, invited you into our lives—and this is how you repay us, by screwing us over the first chance you get?”
“I-I had to help Britt,” I eventually spit out. As soon as her name leaves my mouth I realize it’s not going to help my case. I probably should have thought that one out a little more. But she’s put on the full court press. I’m trying not to turn the ball over here.
“Wow.” She turns and starts to walk away. “Bye, Felicia.”
I look on, gasp. Did I just get bye, Felicia-ed?
Kalhil and the rest of the high stoop burst out laughing.
I grab her arm and spin her back around. “I had to help her. It was a matter of life or death. No lie.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “How long are you going to keep blaming everyone else for every mistake you make? It’s getting old. Britt’s always in trouble. There’s always something to run from when it comes to her and you. Let me guess, she did something illegal and turned to you to bail her out?” My mouth opens, but words don’t come out. “Thought so. Do you seriously not see that she’s using you? That just because her life is messed up and she has chosen a different path that it doesn’t mean you have to go down it too. You don’t owe her anything, Lex. But you do owe it to yourself to not screw up what can be your only chance of getting out of here.”
I shake my head. Bitter. “You don’t get it.”
She huffs. “I’m so sick of you saying that. ‘You don’t get my life.’ ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be Black.’ As if microaggressions aren’t the story of my life too. We’re living in a post-9/11, post-Trump world, where people with my skin tone and last name get labeled a terrorist or an illegal alien. You know, despite the little fact that I was born here. So don’t talk to me about not getting it. I fucking get it. I get that you’re too scared to stand up to Britt out of fear of breaking some unspoken street code, which is by far the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Maybe it’s the shitty day that’s put me in a shitty mood, or maybe there’s some truth to her words, but I explode.
“You don’t know my life! Britt’s been there for all of it. She was there to help quiet the nights when my stomach was rumbling; she was the shoulder I cried on when our foster dad beat the living shit out of us. You think dodging a few bullets at a party one night makes you know our struggle? Try dodging bullets your whole life. You’re standing here talking to me about your life being hard because of some small-ass microaggressions. Because people occasionally look at you wrong. You have a family that loves you. You have a future. Try not going to school for two weeks because your face looks like you just went twelve rounds with Floyd Mayweather. Or having to steal chips and a pack of gum from a convenience store and calling it dinner. So, no, you have no fucking clue about our struggle.”
I pause. Catch my breath. Then go back in.
“And you’re such a fucking hypocrite, you know that? Like, for real. You’re always on my ass about me being scared of being who I am. Yet here you are still in the closet. I mean, what the fuck? Your parents caught you kissing another girl and you still can’t be real with them. You’d rather live a lie and marry some rando with eyebrows the size of loofahs. So fuck outta here with that shit. Take a hard look in the mirror before you come at me about my life. Because I know who I am. I’m just another nigga from the block. Surviving. And you’re a fag from India. Deal with it.”
Her eyes swallow her face. That once flicker of stars that shone in her eyes full of hope and belief in me, perhaps us, has burnt out, extinguished by my words. Left behind is a corpse of the girl I’ve come to know and admire.
What have I done?
She brings her heavy eyes to meet mine, and blinking away the tears, says, “Fuck you, Alexis.”
I’m paralyzed as she walks away.
I slip under the covers. I don’t care if Mom and Randy come back from their bender and catch me here. I want to be safe tonight.
I think about Aamani: how she’s feeling, what she’s doing. My life’s been defined by watching people hurt the ones they’re supposed to love. Why do we do that? If this life is an endless pursuit of happiness, why do we induce so much pain? If life were a math problem, pain would be the constant variable and suffering the square root. Maybe happiness is just a myth regurgitated by greeting card companies, religion, and shitty rom-coms. Maybe it doesn’t exist.
My phone pings.
Brian: Okay. I get you’re avoiding us, but you have to tell me what happened to you today. We’re all worried about you. I promise I won’t tell anyone.
Brian’s chill. There’s no reason I should cause him or anyone else on the team further pain.
Me: had to help a friend. You can tell whoever you want. I don’t care
Brian: I’m glad you’re okay. And I hope your friend is okay. I’m going to stop using the word “okay” now.
It’d be easier if he hated me like Aamani and Lindsay. Him being so understanding only makes me feel worse about making them miss out on their chance to do something special, to achieve something they worked so hard for.
I wait a minute, looking up at the water stains on the ceiling. It’s a miracle this apartment building is still standing. When no new text comes, I reply.
Me: Did Matthew really cry?
Brian: For like a second. But he also cries at Return of the King and Infinity War when Spider-Man dies. You’re in good company.
My hand motions to chuck my phone at the wall in rage of knowing that I made Matthew cry. I consider not being able to afford a replacement phone. I pull my hand back real quick.
Me: My bad I fucked up and made you guys miss out on Nationals
His speech bubble pops up and the ellipsis flashes.
Brian: No one told you? Germantown lost!
Me: For real? But Ridley sucks.
They really do. They only won two matches all year. Well, I guess three now.
Brian: Yep! Germantown is doneski! Heard they choked in the speed round. Noobs
My first thought is the universe is giving me a chance to make amends for today. Because Aamani and Lindsay can have a fit all they want, but there’s no way in hell I’m not going to Nationals and putting in work.
Me: So we’re in then?
Brian starts typing . . .
Brian: Yes and no. Yes because we now have identical records but own the tiebreaker. And no because Mrs. Hall told us there’s not enough in the school budget to send us to DC You wouldn’t happen to have any get-rich-quick schemes would you? Lol
I look over at the money I stole earlier. The corner of my mouth rises.
Chapter 18
The Crew’s stash practically covered the cost of the trip. Thank you, Crew, for being the most incompetent gang members ever. It also helps that Nationals are in DC, which is only two-and-a-half hours away. I sent the money to Mrs. H, marking the envelope as Anonymous. If I showed up making it rain it would’ve raised more questions than I was willing to answer. In the end, we only had to come up with a couple hundred dollars. Lindsay’s parents, being the Caucasians they are, came up with the idea to do a bake sale. I was quick to point out that unless there’s weed in the brownies, nobody from Hargrove is going to buy them. Thankfully they took my suggestion to heart and decided to have the bake sale outside a Starbucks in the suburbs. We raised the money in an afternoon. Those hipsters couldn’t get enough of Mrs. Ross’s brownies and Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s chocolate chip cookies. K.Y.W.P, people. K.Y.W.P.
So we’re going to Nationals. I’m a goddamn hero.
Okay, maybe that’s not entirely accurate. I’m, like, an unsung hero to half the team. The half that’s not Hindu or a white female. Both of whom are still not talking to me. Not even in practice, which is impressive since we literally have to converse during team questions. There has been a lot of middlemanning: “Matthew, tell Alexis this” and “Brian, tell the traitor who shouldn’t be here that.” That second one is Lindsay in case you couldn’t tell from the overdramatic teen angst.
Warranted? Yeah. Beyond petty? No doubt.
I do feel some kinda way for disappointing Lindsay. But Aamani? Well, she can be mad at me all she wants, because I’m still pissed at her for how she came at me. She was outta pocket for that. I don’t care how many matches I miss, I’m not about to let anyone talk to me like that. But the one thing that does bother me is how Aamani’s been acting toward the rest of the team. She’s been uncharacteristically standoffish and sullen. She even snapped on Matthew last practice when he quoted Lord of the Rings for the tenth time in five minutes: “Oh my God, Matthew! Just talk like a normal person for once! Please!” Something’s clearly bothering her beyond our fight. She wouldn’t just go off on Matthew like that because of me.
I know one thing, though. I don’t particularly care for this alternate universe Aamani. She should leave the bitchiness to the pros.
I’ve never been out of Pennsylvania. I’m not counting New Jersey. It’s not a real state, just crumbs of Pennsylvania and New York mashed into a dirty peninsula. There’s not even a toll to get into Jersey because they’re pretty much begging people at this point to visit.
Anyway, I had to forge Mom’s signature on the permission slip, which was easy considering her signature resembles an infant scribbling with crayon on a kids’ menu. The school provided us with one of the small buses, the kind the kindergartners ride. Our bus driver is an old Black man with curly white hair, who goes solely by Alan, as if he’s Prince. If his life were a movie, Danny Glover would definitely play him. Alan seems nice enough. He spends the whole ride down to DC talking to Mrs. H. Everyone else elects to brush up on any STEM questions they’re unsure of. I go over the past three packets. By the time we reach Maryland, Brian has given up on studying and has pulled out his Nintendo Switch, talking Matthew into a game of Super Smash Brothers. I hold out for about five minutes before the sound of Pikachu zapping fools is too much and I have to join. Lindsay remains committed and keeps studying, while Aamani throws on extra sulk and blocks her face with a textbook. Disapproving of video games? Now I know for sure some serious shit is going on with her.
