SAFIYA

JANUARY 17, 2022

Fact: I’m a trespasser and a thief.

Lie: Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Alternative fact: Two wrongs could make a right.

What I wanted to do: Skip fifth period and head straight to Hardy’s office and tell him that Nate was the one who’d plastered copies of my column with that Swallow your poison quote on it and texted the quote to me, too.

What I wanted to do: Go to the police and tell them that not only was Nate the hacker and the one who’d spray-painted the swastika on the school, but he was also the one who’d sent the threatening note to my mosque. And me. Show them the page he’d ripped out of the Nietzsche book. Make them believe me.

What I did do: Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I brooded. A lot. And yelled at myself for being TSTL, too stupid to live, my biggest complaint about fictional characters doing ridiculous, illogical things. In a way, I got it now, though. Sometimes it felt like there weren’t any smart choices. I couldn’t go to Hardy. It was too easy to imagine how quickly the entire conversation could go sideways:

Me: Nate is the one who did it. All of it.

Hardy: And you are basing this on…?

Me: The fact that he quoted Nietzsche in class and that he had the ripped page from the Nietzsche book in his locker.

Hardy: And how did you happen to come across that page?

Me: …

Hardy: Isn’t that page from a book that you also checked out from the library?

The real version would probably be worse than my imagination. I’d end up implicating Rachel, too, which I obviously would never want to do. And risk getting expelled.

So instead of reporting a possible crime, I was in the journalism room pretending to work on my next column, which had been assigned to me like a punishment. At least the newspaper was up and running, even if we were still under Hardy’s petty oppressive rules: no school politics, no columns about racism or white supremacy. “Think positive. Think school spirit,” he’d lectured. A swastika got painted on the school, but We’ve got spirit, yes, we do! Make it make sense. My next Be the Change column had to be about the highly “controversial” topic of recycling.

Usman scooted his chair over to my computer. One of the best things about the journalism classroom was the wheelie office chairs. Sometimes when we were here late putting a special issue to bed, we’d have chair races down senior hall. Hardy would’ve murdered us if he’d seen that. These days Ms. Cary might have helped him.

“What are you doing?” Usman asked, glancing at my blank screen. He was wearing a rainbow-colored kufi today.

Asma and I had given Usman the CliffsNotes version of our visit to the police department, but I hadn’t shared every single one of my sinking feelings and suspicions with him. I was starting to feel guilty about pulling everyone into this mess. I was risking my own expulsion, but what if they got suspended for helping me? “Oh, uh, deep in thought about how to write a riveting column about the need for more blue recycling bins in common areas in the school.”

“Sounds Pulitzer worthy.”

I looked up at Usman’s smile. “There might even be a documentary.”

“Thank me when you win an Oscar.”

I laughed. “Count on it.”

I tilted my head toward the computer so Usman inched closer to me. Ms. Cary was across the room, but I didn’t want her listening in. For all we knew, she was reporting everything to Hardy. Even if she wasn’t, I didn’t need to be advertising my recent locker breaking and entering escapade. The page from the Nietzsche book wasn’t exactly incriminating evidence except of defacing a book, which is terrible but not like hacking, texting threats, Nazi graffiti evil. Nate was in London when the threat to my mosque was sent, but that wasn’t real evidence. I needed to put him closer to the scene of one of the crimes; it was a place to start, anyway.

“Did you upload all the photos we got during the fire? Like, of the crowd when the Clef Hangers were singing?” I asked Usman.

“Yeah, I even got pictures from some of the yearbook kids and organized all of them while you were suspended, in case hell froze over and Hardy let us write about it.”

“Perfect.”

“They’re all boring crowd shots.”

“Boring crowd shots are exactly what I want.” I gestured toward my computer and then scooted out of the way so Usman could open the folder. About thirty thumbnails of the photos popped up.

“What are you looking for?”

“I’m trying to follow Asma’s cold case rules. Treat everything like evidence.”

Usman knit his eyebrows together, confused for a second, then smiled and nodded. “You’re looking for who had an alibi when the swastika was painted.”

I pulled up the first photo and magnified each section, zooming in as much as possible. Usman turned to the computer next to me and started looking through different photos. The school was small enough—only about three hundred students—that it wasn’t a giant crowd we had to look through. And the park across the street, within very specific boundaries, was the designated meeting spot for the entire school in case of fire.

Usman and I spent the rest of the period poring over every inch of the shots we had. I didn’t have the attendance data for the day, but I knew that both Nate and Joel were at school, since I’d spied them making snide remarks as some ninth-grade girls passed through senior hall. They’d seen me watching and sneered at me.

Neither of them was in the group shots.

I didn’t finish my recycling column during journalism class because I was too busy scanning through all the photos from the day of the fire, so I was working after school. There wasn’t conclusive evidence, but every new possible clue pointed toward Nate. Trust your gut was another of Asma’s solving-a-crime rules. I couldn’t get the connections out of my head. But I also couldn’t run to the police again or to Hardy without something definite.

We weren’t allowed to be in the journalism room by ourselves anymore, and even the tiniest of stories had to be approved by Ms. Cary, unless they were things that Hardy had directed us to put in, like sports scores or any of the three stories he’d “asked” us to write about Winter Ball. Basically, Hardy’s draconian rules had destroyed the concept of breaking news for the Spectator. It’s not breaking if it’s stale as a two-day-old open bag of chips. Which, I would probably eat anyway.

“And done. My Be the Change column is in your inbox,” I said to Ms. Cary as I handed her the pages. “And here’s a hard copy.”

She looked up at me, her face drawn. “I’m sure it’s a winner,” she said, her voice kind of far-off.

“It’s boring and stale, so I’m sure Hardy will approve.”

Ms. Cary gave me a tight smile and opened her mouth to speak but then snapped it shut. She turned to look out the window. Journalism class was on the first floor, and the windows along the western wall looked out onto the park and my favorite bench across the street. It was getting dark already, and the park was mostly empty now save for a few joggers. Lit by the harsh white light of the new LED streetlamps, we watched as a plastic grocery bag caught on the wind and floated like a balloon through the air until it was snagged by the slender end of a tree branch. With the tree swaying in the wind, its limbs curved in a single direction, it looked like the entire tree was grasping for the bag, stretching to keep it captive.

“That would be a great image to go with your recycling piece,” Ms. Cary said.

“Where’s a photographer when you need one?”

Ms. Cary reached for the DSLR camera that she kept locked in her bottom desk drawer. She adjusted some settings and then held it out toward me. “Today, the photographer is you.”

“I’m okay with my camera phone, but I usually—”

“You’ll be fine. I switched it to manual and set the aperture and shutter speed. Hold it as still as you can. You’re editor in chief; sometimes you need to wear more than one hat.” Ms. Cary smiled. She looked relieved to be talking about newspaper-y things that had nothing to do with getting censored or suspended.

I dragged myself out of my chair and took the camera. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

“I’m going to step out to the faculty lounge while you get the shot. I’ll meet you back in the classroom. Don’t forget to take your ID with you to get back into the building.”

I wrapped my scarf around my neck and pulled my black beanie over my ears. I was only going to be a minute, so I didn’t bother to put on my coat; besides, I was wearing my dark-blue wool turtleneck. Growing up in Chicago winters built up your cold stamina.

But when I stepped out, a gust of wind swept through the wide weave of my sweater, and I instantly regretted not taking my jacket. So much for being tough. I shivered and hurried across the street to grab the shot. There was a stark beauty to Chicago winters, emphasis on the stark. It was quiet, and some leaves scuttled by on the street as if they had tiny legs of their own; some were plastered against dirty mounds of snow. In the distance, a jogger bobbed in and out of the spotlights cast by the streetlamps. The caught bag made a rustling sound as it fought against the tree. Plastic grocery bags had pretty much been eliminated in Chicago, so whoever had let this one go was old-school.

Ms. Cary was right. The shots were great. Poetic, in an ironic, we’re-destroying-the-earth kind of way. I snapped at least five decent ones. Maybe I’d add another line or two in my column about how many plastic bags you save a year by using a canvas tote. I also grabbed some shots of the school entrance—it looked so moody and gothic, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a few images for future footage in case we needed stock photos for something.

Obviously, I couldn’t leave the plastic bag in the tree, but it was too high for me to reach, even if I jumped. Figured a school custodian could help me lift the bag off the tree or lend me a broom so I could snag it. I crossed the street, my head down and shoulders hunched, scrolling again through the photos I’d taken.

“I know what you did.”

I stopped short of the sidewalk.

It was Nate, standing on the top of the curb, partially in shadow, his shoulders squared and his hands in fists at his sides. Joel was next to him in his trademark fatigues, looking vaguely bored, as always.

Nate wore the black coat and leather gloves that I’d seen in his locker earlier. Goose bumps popped up all over my skin, and I suddenly felt a little dizzy. I had to force my feet to stay firmly planted as I stared up at the two guys cutting off my path. How did Nate know? Had one of them seen me? Was this all a bluff to scare me? A million thoughts tangled in my mind.

“What I did? You mean take photos for my next column? Wow. Excellent sleuthing,” I said, holding up my camera, trying to make my voice sound firm.

Joel turned to Nate, rolled his eyes, and faked a snore. “Text me when you’re done with… this,” he said, tilting his head toward me. Then they exchanged one of those weird silent dude head nods and Joel walked off into the darkness. I wasn’t sure if Joel’s leaving made things better or worse. All I felt was a chill down my entire spine.

Nate turned back to me, narrowing his eyes. “Where were we? Oh, right. Be. The. Change.” He spoke slowly, stretching out the pauses between words.

“Yeah, okaaaay,” I said. “Ms. Cary is waiting for me to bring back the camera. So if you’ll excuse me, I don’t have time to stand here while you slowly enunciate the name of each column in the paper.”

He stepped off the curb toward me, the scowl on his face much clearer in the beam of the streetlamp that spilled onto the pavement. I inched backward, away from him and out of the light. “You’re very funny for a scholarship rat who’s about to get kicked out of school for being a thief.”

My stomach clenched and my knees shook. My eyes darted past Nate to the school doors, but no one was on the steps and no one was coming out. The sidewalk was empty. We were alone. “Are you having paranoid delusions? What are you even talking about?” I muttered.

“Shut up!” Nate yelled. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so worked up before, so loud, not even that one time in Current Events when he was defending the hacker. The hacker I thought was him. He took another step toward me.

“What do you think I stole?”

“You know what it was.” He gritted his teeth.

“Was it your sense of humor? Because that totally wasn’t me.” I pretended to laugh, but maybe mocking him wasn’t the best idea. Words were all I had, though.

He wasn’t going to admit what he’d done. And I wasn’t going to admit what I’d taken. But we both knew the truth. How did he know I’d been in his locker? A guess? If I was making huge leaps of logic, maybe he was, too? My brain was screaming at me to get inside the school, and I was suddenly very aware that I’d left my phone in the journalism classroom.

I steeled my voice, hoping it wouldn’t betray the fear that was pulsing through me as he edged nearer and nearer. “I don’t have time for… whatever this is.” I gestured at him and tried to harden the muscles in my face so I looked tough, or at least not utterly terrified. A gust of wind blew some stray hairs into my eyes. I moved to brush away the strands. As I readjusted my cap, Nate closed the distance between us.

“You broke into my locker and took something from my pocket, and now you need to give it back.” He was so close to me, I could smell stale cigarettes on his breath. I’d never seen him smoke, but I’d also never been this close to him. I moved left to try to sidestep him, but he blocked me.

The wind kicked up, and that woodsy incense smell that had been following me mixed with the smell of Nate’s cigarettes. And I felt a whisper in my ear: Run. He’s so close.

I sucked in my breath. “Back off,” I said, but I don’t think my voice sounded as strong in real life as it sounded in my head. I took a step to the right, and he mirrored my movement. He shoved his face even closer, ’til it was only inches from mine, my breath fogging up his glasses. For the first time I noticed tiny scratch marks and maybe a bruise near his left temple, partially obscured by his frames.

While my brain whirred and I scrambled to figure my way out of the situation, he started laughing. Laughing. Like he’d heard a joke. Like I was the joke. Like my fear was funny.

“Move!” I screamed, and shoved my hands against his chest to get him out of my way. The camera, which I’d strung across my body, bounced and came back hard against my hip. I winced. Nate stumbled back a step or two, clamped down his jaw, and balled his right hand into a fist. I swore he was going to hit me, but instead someone pulled the collar of his coat and jerked him away. Nate’s glasses flew off his face as he tripped, stumbling back, then forward, before he fell to the ground.

Richard was standing behind him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, asshole?” Richard moved to stand between me and Nate, blocking my view for a moment.

“Taking what belongs to me,” Nate said as he stood up, brushing himself off. Without his glasses, his face looked boyish except for the dark circles under his eyes. He stepped toward us, but Richard put his hand on Nate’s chest, blocking him. “Get your hand off me,” Nate spit. I followed his eyes to his glasses, which were lying a couple feet away from me. I picked up the black plastic frames and handed them to Richard. My hands were shaking. My entire body was shaking. Adrenaline pulsed through me so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

Richard took the glasses and motioned for me to head back into the school. I wasn’t going to argue. Hurrying up the steps, I turned to see Richard handing Nate his glasses and saying something to him with this look of rage on his face. Their words were lost in the wind. But Nate’s head hung low, like a kid getting yelled at by their parent because they got caught in a lie. Richard gestured for Nate to leave, and Nate swatted his arm away but took off, walking down the street and getting into a parked white Mercedes.

Richard jogged up to join me on the steps and put his hand on the small of my back as we walked into the school together. His hand felt warm and steady against me. My brain spun. The moment felt like a flash. It felt like forever. It felt like… WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED. We walked into the warmth of the school—it was the most relieved I’d ever felt walking into school. I stepped into Richard’s arms, and he wrapped them around me. I released the breath I’d been holding since the moment I looked into Nate’s angry eyes.

“Are you okay?” Richard whispered in my ear, and kissed the top of my head.

“Yeah. No. Sort of.” We moved apart, holding up our IDs for the disinterested guard, who waved us through.

“What was that all about? Why did he think you had something of his?”

I stopped and looked into Richard’s eyes. Under the yellow tinge of the annoying fluorescent school lighting, his pale-blue eyes had almost a liquid-crystal quality to them. Like water about to freeze. A part of me wanted to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t. There were too many loose ends, too many other people who could be implicated. And honestly, I didn’t want him to think I was ridiculous. I shrugged. “I dunno. Like I told you, he was going off in Current Events one day. Maybe he’s mad about my column? Or, like, my existence.”

Richard nodded and gave me a soft, apologetic smile as we turned to walk down senior hall. I needed to drop off the camera. My brain was still trying to make sense of what had happened. How had Nate figured it out? Had he been stalking me, waiting outside the whole time, waiting to confront me? I shuddered. If Richard hadn’t been there, I’m not sure what I would’ve done. “I’m so glad you showed up, but how did you know?” I asked.

“Luck. Swim team meeting ran late, and I was leaving school when I heard him yelling.” Richard tugged at his blue swim team hoodie that had Captain embroidered across the left side of the chest. “I’m helping out next year’s cocaptains.”

I smiled, almost automatically, because the energy for a real smile felt a million miles away. “That’s nice of you.”

“I try to make myself useful.”

“You definitely did tonight. Did I thank you yet? Sorry if I didn’t. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t shown up.”

Richard pulled me into a tight hug. I took a couple deep breaths. It felt good to breathe in the clean-laundry smell of his hoodie. His arms felt safe, and my tightened muscles finally started to unwind.

“Nate is such a loser. I’m pretty sure he’s all bark and no bite,” Richard said.

“His bark was scary.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t bother you again,” he said as we pulled out of the hug and stepped toward my classroom. “I’ll make sure of that.”

The door to journalism was shut, but I could see Ms. Cary inside, gathering up her things. I turned the knob to head in but paused. “Do you think I should say something? Like, to Ms. Cary?”

Richard scratched his head. “Are you going to tell her Nate accused you of stealing something? Oh… wait. Did he touch you? If he did, I swear I’ll—”

“No. No. But I shoved him when he got in my space.” I sighed.

Richard rubbed his forehead. “Be careful. You wouldn’t want him to turn it around on you. I’ll tell Hardy what I witnessed, but he keeps blaming you for everything, and I’m worried he’d take it out on you again.”

I gulped. It was self-defense. But it was also Nate’s word against mine. I knew whose side Hardy would take, which one of us would get the benefit of the doubt and which one of us already had two strikes against them and was the scholarship kid. Dammit. It felt so scary in the moment. Like I wasn’t in control. Like anything could have happened if Richard hadn’t shown up. Nate was in my face and in my space. He was totally in the wrong. But I’d broken school rules, too, more than once. None of this was fair. I wanted to scream and grind my heels into the floor. “No, I guess you’re probably right. We weren’t even technically on school property.”

“I’m sorry. It sucks. Forget about that loser. Can I walk you home? He’s going to steer clear of you, but—”

“Okay.” I grinned. My parents wanted me to call them when I was done so they could come get me, even though we lived so close. I could tell they were trying to keep their fears sort of hidden, but I knew they were scared. But they knew Richard, and his company would be nice. “I need to upload the pics and grab my stuff. You’re welcome to hang in the journalism room.”

“I forgot something in my locker. I’ll meet you back here in a few.”

He stepped away, and I walked in to show Ms. Cary the photos I’d taken. She seemed pleased. I made a comment about how it was strange that plastic bags floating in the air always felt so beautiful when they were basically litter, and it made Ms. Cary laugh. I let my parents know I was walking home with a friend and didn’t need a ride. I also dashed off a quick group text to Asma and Usman, telling them I wanted to talk, but I didn’t give them all the details of what had gone down with Nate. How could I put all that in a text? My shoulders, my entire body, suddenly felt stiff, achy, like I’d been hit by a wall of tired.

When I glanced up, I saw that Richard had returned and was concentrating on his phone, dashing off a text. I hadn’t thought about how that whole scene outside with Nate could’ve been weird for him, too. When he glanced up and saw me, his brow relaxed and a huge smile swept across his face.

I walked out of the classroom and straight into Richard’s arms. We ambled toward my home, him holding me close, holding me up. It felt good. Solid. He smelled like the outdoors, like woods and dry leaves on a crisp day, but with a stale whiff of Nate’s cigarette smoke on him. I tried to focus on the comfort of being next to Richard, but my mind was back in front of the school, the scene on repeat in my head. Nate’s twisted, angry face. His clenched fists. Richard stepping in. Nate stumbling. My heart pounding, one question screaming in my brain: How did Nate know I took the page?