Ace of Spades

by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

  “How did you know about computer 17? I never told you about that.”

  He pauses, and then dimples appear as he shrugs. “You must have told me.”

  I didn’t. I know I didn’t.

  I purposely left out details like that. I didn’t want to involve him at all in the stakeout. I didn’t want him to get hurt.

  “Weird. I don’t remember saying it to you.”

  “Strange how memory works, isn’t it?” he says after a long pause, his voice faltering a little.

  The only way Terrell could know that is if … is if he’s in on it too. It’s convenient that he showed up just when this all started, claiming to know me. Maybe he was placed to watch over me like I’m a lab rat, paid by Niveus to pretend to like me.

  I’ve been so stupid. Trusted a complete stranger, who, despite everything, is probably working for Aces. The pictures of the purple tube. Pictures of me outside Dre’s apartment. Everything about Dre. Maybe that’s how Jack knows Terrell too … Maybe they were working together, trying to ruin my life, hurt me, for whatever reason.

  Why can’t I remember you, Terrell?

  I take out my phone, trying not to look panicked. “Looks like my ma needs me home,” I lie, which gets his attention. I move off his bed, standing up at the same time he stands up from the chair.

  “Want me to walk you home?” he asks.

  I force a smile, shaking my head. “I think I need to be alone right now.”

  He nods. “Do you know what you want to do about Niveus?”

  I don’t say anything; I can’t bring myself to. I can see him trying to understand my sudden shift in mood, looking at me, unblinking, like he wants to say something.

  I just want to leave, so I say, “I’ll see you, okay?” We lock eyes, his face confused and a little sad.

  I’m breathless as I spin around, rush out of his room, down the stairs, and through the front door. He calls after me, but I don’t stop or turn or listen. I just run—again.

  * * *

  When I get home, Ma is standing over the cooker, boiling potatoes. She looks at me, her eyes filled with love as she opens out her arms for a hug.

  I put my bag down, throwing Terrell’s hoodie down with it, and go to her, letting myself finally cry, knowing my ma is not a fraud like everyone else.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?” she asks, and I don’t know what to tell her.

  The school you have to work three jobs to keep me at is incredibly fucked up and racist.

  No one asked for my permission before leaking my life to the world.

  Me and the boyfriend you don’t know about broke up … Oh yeah, and, Ma, I’m gay and I don’t want you to hate me for it, because I love you so much and I can’t live with you hating me, so please don’t.

  That’s what’s wrong; all those things, and then some. But I can’t speak; if I speak, I’ll tell her everything, and then she’ll hate me.

  So I just cry and cling to her. The bubbles in the boiling pot grow louder.

  “Vonnie, tell me what’s up. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  I shake my head. That’s what she says now, but she doesn’t mean it. If I had girl problems, I could tell her everything, but not this.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Ma.”

  “Boy, I’m going nowhere. Jesus keeps me alive and well. Tell me what’s wrong.” She pulls away and forces me to look at her.

  “I hate school.” What a fucking understatement. “And you work hard so I can go.” I can’t breathe, I can’t look at her. “I hate it so much. They look down on me, say things about me.” I’m crying so hard it shakes my bones, rattling my rib cage. My nose blocks and I feel trapped in my own body.

  “Vonnie, you only have a few months left … You should have said something ages ago; I would have pulled you out if I knew you’d be happier somewhere else.”

  “It’s only gotten really bad now. They keep talking about me.”

  “Saying what?” she asks, eyes glassy and concerned.

  I can’t do it. I feel so fucking sick. I’ve known I’m gay for years. I have known and I got comfortable with it—but at times like this, when I know life could be easier without my sexuality, I wish I hadn’t been born with the burden.

  “Do you know a boy named Terrell?” I ask, because I don’t want to have to tell Ma that the rumors detailing my sex life with a rich white kid from school and the dealer she told me not to be friends with are true. I don’t want to weaken her heart, cause her pain.

  Ma looks shocked. “You remember Terrell?” she asks.

  Ma knows Terrell?

  “I … know who he is, but I can’t remember him.”

  She turns, putting the oven off, before moving toward our dining area and taking a seat on one of the lawn chairs. I stay where I am.

  Ma looks at me. Straight at me. “I wanted you to come to me about your sexuality in your own time. After the Terrell incident, you couldn’t remember, and I didn’t want to bring it up.”

  My sexuality?

  I rush over to the trash can in the corner and throw up. My body is finally doing what it’s threatened to do this whole time. It’s all water; I haven’t eaten today. The lawn chair scrapes against the ground and then Ma’s there, rubbing my back, over and over.

  I hate this feeling so much. What does she remember that I can’t?

  “We don’t have to talk if you’re not ready, Von.”

  I shake my head.

  It’s out there now. No turning back.

  The tears mix with my running nose as I bend over, hovering above the trash, trying to breathe.

  “I’m gay,” I choke out, daggers diving into my gut, shaking my entire being. I’m not sure if it was loud enough for her to hear.

  “Yeah, I know,” she says, and something washes through me. I’m not sure if it’s relief. More tears mix with the nastiness that is snot. I stretch my hands out to the table next to the trash can for tissues, but Ma hands me some.

  I wipe my face harshly.

  “Ma, what happened with Terrell? Why c-can’t I remember him?” I ask. My throat is achy and dry as I turn to face her. She avoids my eyes, walking over to the fridge to get a bottle of water and handing it to me.

  “Most things I heard were from Jack.” Ma wipes her face with her dry wrinkled hands. “What I know for certain is that you went to school, and you came back soaking wet, with a huge bump on your forehead and blood all over.”

  Goose bumps prickle my arms as the image of me engulfed by the water flashes: a little boy who looks a lot like Terrell dragging me back, screaming that cracks the walls of my brain.

  “I asked Jack—about what happened, why you were wet, bloody, beaten. I don’t usually ask; I know you don’t like me to ask, but you’re my child and you were hurt.” Her voice breaks at the end, but she looks at me, hard-eyed, like she doesn’t want to show weakness. Even her back is rigid.

  “Jack told me about you and a boy. Terrell Rosario. And how you kissed and got caught by the wrong guys,” she tells me. My chest squeezes.

  An image appears again, all grainy in my mind, like an old home video … My old middle school playground; Terrell’s face, his hair shorter, no dreads, just curly kinks.

  “Wait—” Terrell says.

  I move back, scrunching my eyebrows up.

  “What?” I say. I need to go home, help Ma with dinner.

  He moves closer, eyes looking around cautiously.

  “Remember how you told me that you sometimes think about guys—about holding their hands?” He reaches out and threads his fingers through mine. “Holding them.” He moves closer, and my breath catches, heart unsteady. “Kissing them … I just wanted to tell you that I do too. I think about doing that with you. All the time,” he finishes.

  “I cried and prayed for you, Von.” Ma’s voice tears the memory apart, the brown plastic film from the videotape unraveling in my mind. “I prayed you would be okay,” she continues. “But I knew this neighborhood and
I knew that school was too poisonous, especially if what Jack said was true. After that, you didn’t want to talk about it, hid away in your room, and eventually, I assumed you forgot … blocked the memory.”

  I did forget.

  She wipes my face. Wipes away the tears, the snot, and whatever else sticks.

  “You don’t care that I’m gay?” I ask, because that’s what scared me most. I feel a little lightheaded as she shakes her head.

  “Don’t do drugs, stay out of trouble, do well in school, date whoever you like. That was the only thing I ever said to you.”

  I’m crying again, body jerking forward as the tears spill. Mama pulls me into her arms. I never thought the conversation would happen this way.

  “I love you so much, I just want you to be happy,” she says quietly.

  You too, Ma. I want you to be so happy.

  * * *

  I check my text messages when I’m in my room, after I sat with my ma for what felt like hours. I’m seated on the bed with my brothers, who are watching some cartoon and arguing. The sound of slaps and yells agitates me.

  I checked your messages when you were asleep, that’s how I knew about computer 17. I’m sorry, I just wanted to help.—T

  It’s okay.

  I’m not sure if it is okay, I’m not sure if I trust him anymore or if that excuse is even real, but I’m too tired to be angry at him. Besides, he’s my only real friend right now.

  Sorry again.—T

  The memory of us in the middle school playground replays over and over in my mind, then the memory of us kissing, how nice it felt. Terrell holding my face, kissing me like kissing me was a good thing … Followed by blinding pain my brain won’t even allow me to remember in full. But I see their fists, I hear them shout. And I know in that moment that kissing me is bad, very bad. I feel dirty. They made me feel so fucking dirty.

  And then I’m on the beach, the sand getting in my sneakers, the waves calling out to me. The water crashing violently, with its arms wide open. The sea is so perfect to me, it makes me feel at peace—but it’s nothing like that, not in the slightest. It’s chaotic, it swallows lives and people. The waves scream, hit, beat the sand down, like the sand is an abomination. And even though the sea is this monster, I’m drawn to its chaos. I grew up on that shit. That chaotic shit. It’s all I recognize.

  My pa and his major fuckup, my ma and her fuckups—with her messy, abusive boyfriends who left us when her clothes would burst from her swollen belly—to me and my fuckups. My everyday fuckups.

  And so, I stepped into the sea, let it pull me in. Give me that familiar familial fucked-up embrace.

  My phone dings and Chiamaka’s name pops up.

  Where are you?—C

  I go off my and Terrell’s chat screen and to Chiamaka’s. I have so many messages from her.

  My brothers jostle me as they begin to wrestle.

  “If you guys don’t stop, I’m gonna tell Ma, and you two will get your asses beat,” I say, which immediately stills them, as always. Ma isn’t even a scary person; she hardly beat me as a child, and she doesn’t beat them. But Ma has this look, one that makes you think she could whoop your ass without hesitation.

  I refocus my mind on texting Chiamaka back.

  I left school early, I tried calling but you didn’t answer.—D

  Because I dropped my phone in Morgan last night, only just got it back at lunch. Anyway, I know how the girl I saw yesterday and Aces and Niveus are connected. I’m going to send you an address. Meet me there. I need to do something. And then we need to talk.—C

  It’s been a rough day, and to be honest, I don’t have the energy to talk about this or anything right now, but I guess I have no choice. There isn’t any time to waste. And I want to hear about the gaps in this crazy reality, how everything is connected.

  Understanding what’s going on is the only way to stop it.

  Okay.—D

  I text, forgetting to ask her when she wants me to arrive. I start tapping out another reply, but I’m interrupted again by the buzz of my phone, followed by a text tone that makes my heart skip and my brain fuzz.

  Wind chimes.

  32

  CHIAMAKA

  Monday

  I storm all the way to Belle’s house after school, skipping detention. Nothing matters anymore, not school, not detention. I’m done, unofficially dropping out; I can’t go back there, not after what I discovered today. It’s what they wanted, us dropping out—disappearing. I have no idea what this means for my future, for college, but we need to deal with Aces … Niveus, now.

  My face and chest are tight from my earlier tears as I knock on Belle’s front door.

  She answers, giving me a huge smile and looking slightly confused by my unannounced presence. I don’t bother returning her smile because I’m not here to smile or laugh at her jokes or watch a romantic comedy and pretend.

  I’m here for answers.

  “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming … Would have cleaned up a little,” Belle says, still sounding stuffy. I notice she’s wearing pink silk pajamas, and she looks really awful. At least she wasn’t lying about her illness. We walk through her foyer and into her kitchen. Hers is bigger than mine, with white marble everywhere and high-tech everything. I remember how Dad complains about kitchens these days, and how technological they are. One can’t even open a fridge normally anymore, he always says. Which is an exaggeration—I mean, if he wants to open the fridge, he could always buy whatever model Richards probably has.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I want the truth,” I tell her. She pulls out a seat for me, but I remain standing.

  Belle looks at me, then the seat, then me again.

  “What questions?”

  She says it like she hasn’t got a clue. And I’d believe her too if I could just believe anything anyone ever says to me again.

  How do I begin to explain the incoherent questions that have been circulating in my brain since last night? Things I have been trying to link up. Questions that slap me into consciousness, hold my eyes open, beat my chest so that it feels bruised and aching; questions that plague me like the familiar face of a dead girl.

  “Do you think…” I stop. “Do you think that death is permanent?” I ask.

  Belle’s eyes widen. “Chiamaka, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, sniffing. “Answer the question.”

  “What sort of question is that?”

  “It’s one I keep thinking about, and I know it doesn’t make sense—not to an innocent person—but I think you can provide an answer for me.”

  We stare at each other, her face blank on purpose, her eyes dull but deliberate. I can’t believe I didn’t see through it before.

  I’m not as good as I used to be …

  “I’ll tell you a story I’m sure you already know. Almost a year ago, Jamie and I were in a car, driving back from his parents’ beach house, when we hit someone.” The images, clear as day, flash before me like they always do, as my head hits the dashboard and the worst night of my life begins once again. “Belle, on Sunday night, I went to school, waited in Morgan Library by computer 17, and knocked a dead girl to the ground. A girl I thought I’d hit and left to bleed out like an animal. So, I ask again”—my voice is shaky, face moist from tears that stain my skin—“do you think death is permanent? Or can corpses undie, roll out of graves, and find their way into Niveus?”

  Belle sits there calmly, her legs crossed, like what I just told her is equivalent to announcing there will be rainy skies or that the time right now is a quarter to five. My whole body rattles.

  The floorboards creak above us and I look up.

  “Chiamaka, I can explain,” she says, voice flat.

  I’m not as good as I used to be, otherwise I would see through a bitch and a liar so easily, like I could before.

  “Explain what? That your fucking sister is—”

  “Chiamaka, please…” There are tears in her eyes
.

  The problem with compulsive liars is that unless you’re up to their speed, it’s so hard to tell if anything is true or not. The resemblance to her sister is striking. I can’t believe I didn’t see this before. Now when I look at her, I just see Martha.

  “Since I saw Martha, I’ve come up with a hundred wild theories—blaming Jamie, thinking I was losing my mind. What’s fascinating is that not once did I think you had anything to do with it.”

  Not once.

  “Then I started to piece things together, and really it’s my fault for not being more suspicious when you came and spoke to me that first day after school. So when I speak to Richards and he’s telling me about Niveus being this evil institution, I start remembering things, like how it’s weird that there’s this camp so many of you guys go to every summer. I never even really questioned why you’d go to a camp just to be with the same people from school, but then … then I stumble across ‘Camp Aces’ in some old yearbook, and my theories start making sense. You’d need a camp for your sick games. You’d need a way—a place—to plan how you were going to ruin my life. Devon’s life.” My voice rises, which surprises me. I hate how vulnerable I feel right now.

  “Me kissing you was real, Chiamaka,” Belle says, with a catch of what I’m now sure is trained breath between real and Chiamaka.

  I shake my head. How could I be so irrational? Let myself like someone I don’t even know. Then again, I thought I knew Jamie, but he showed his true colors too. They are as bad as each other.

  “Why did you do it?” I ask. It’s a question with a double meaning. Why did you kiss me back? Why not just walk out of the classroom and never speak to me again—spare me the hurt. And also, Why are you a part of this? What is THIS?

  Belle looks away from me. “It’s not that simple. I need to explain everything—”

  “Why did you do it, Belle? What is the point of all of this? I have theories, but I don’t want to believe them. Believe that people could be that sick. But all the evidence doesn’t leave me with much choice. I want you to tell me now, why?”