Page 39 of Wings of Ebony
“You don’t look fine. You’re panting like a racehorse and your lips have, like, no color.”
“I said I’m fine.” I hop up for a better view. “That’s our stop up there. Come on.”
Familiar buildings of East Row slink into view, orange in the streetlight. I sit up, soaking in the sight of home. My insides twist like a knot, half nerves, half anticipation. I know I’m asking Bri to risk a lot. The last thing I’d want is to get her in trouble over something I had her do. But I had to ask. I need answers from Ghizon.
The streets are full of people coming and going. Buses roaring past, construction forever ongoing, and cars with rattling trunks cruising past at ’bout two miles an hour so everyone sees them. No tall suits, strange tattoos, or people on our trail so far.
Keeping my eyes peeled.
Trying to not think about the fact that if someone does spot us, I can’t do shit.
We step off at the bus stop in front of my old high school behind King Patty and Shipley Do-Nuts. Brown sugar and cinnamon swims in the air and my stomach churns. My school building’s still there withthe same faded brick and broke gym windows. The detached trailers running along the side of the auditorium where I took Spanish and AP Lit are still there. Funny how they call ’em “temporary buildings,” but they been there as long as I can remember.
Tasha and I cross the street, walking alongside the chain-link fence outside Jameson High. The tar-top track is purple with white stripes, school colors. Saturdays in winter, or Houston’s version of it, with flyaway pants and spikes, flood my memory. I first met Julius freshman year running the hundred-meter dash. He was there “making moves,” as he’d say, and I caught his eye.
Memories of the old building hold me there, staring. Funny how leaving and coming back after so long feels like a lifetime’s passed. I’d expected something to be different, but nothing’s really changed. Same shit, just a different day.
I grab Tasha’s hand as we cross another busy street as if she’s little, likelittle little. Habit, I guess. But she doesn’t pull away.
“Who was that you called earlier, anyway?” she asks.
“Bri, my girl from Ghizon. She’s gonna come through, help us figure this out.”
“Figure what out?”
Careful. Uhhhh.“This tattoo thing.” I twist the end of my shirt. “She’s on some next-level engineering type shit. Trust me, she’s great to have around. We’ll put our heads together on this.”
She looks at me funny, but she doesn’t say anything else about it.
The green-trimmed row-style buildings I used to call home grow larger in the distance and heaviness moves in like a cloud. Being back here to see T was hard enough, but actuallyfacingMs. Leola, the last person I saw before being snatched from everything I knew, is…
My heart stutters in my chest.
A lot.
I blow out air and my pulse slows a little.
As we get closer, the steady rhythm of rope thwacking the concrete and chants of double-dutch ring in my ear. Colorful beads dangle from the ends of the girl’s braids, flapping with each jump. The two ropes swish past each other, slapping the pavement.Thwack.Her friend on the side chants between licks on her blue Kool-Cup.Thwack.She keeps hopping, faster each time. She’s pretty good. I smile, smoothing my sweaty palms on my pants.
The numbers on the houses get smaller as we walk past. Until we spot the one that used to be ours.Keep moving.Ms. Leola’s is a few stoops down.
My feet stick to the ground.
Broken steps at the foot of my old home torment me with a flood of memories.
Keep moving, Rue.
I can’t.
It almost feels disrespectful not to stop and sit in the moment. Moms died there.Rightthere. I can’t just walk by, I can’t just pretend…
A lump rises in my throat.I won’t break.Tasha’s feet don’t move either. Her eyes are glued to the door and her arm to my side. I should leave, stop staring. Stop twisting the dagger, dancing with the pain.
I can’t. I’m fixated on the door, the stoop that used to be mine.
I step closer. Sounds fade and motion slows. My fingers find the rail leading up the step. A step I walked up to come home millions of times. Its chipped paint is coarse against my palm. I rub myhands, expecting to see red. When the paramedics and Ms. Leola pulled us out Moms’s house, I refused to go, and held on to this rail. But my hand slipped because it was slick—slick with Moms’s blood. There was so much, I remember that. My chest is heavy—my tongue, thick.
The door bursts open and a woman I don’t recognize stares at me. “Can I help you?”
