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THE BUS’S ENGINE WHIRRED as it zoomed past us on our trek to school. It had been days since I’d last felt that feeling. We were being watched. After yesterday’s strangeness and the recent threat to Giovanni, we couldn’t let our guard down.
I tried to play it cool and scan the area around us inconspicuously to avoid freaking out Giovanni over nothing. Unlike the times before, though, I discovered the source.
My heart pounded at the sight of him. I looked away. Evidence. We needed evidence.
Retrieving my phone, I grinned at Giovanni and walked backward a few paces ahead of him to snap his picture.
“Do not make me look old,” he said, assuming I was playing with filters on my camera.
“Do you remember what that man looked like from yesterday?”
Giovanni’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the strap on his bookbag and frowned. “It does not matter right now.”
“If he’s watching us from across the street, it does. Look. Is this him?” I zoomed in on the photo. The man with sunglasses sat in an SUV similar to the one I’d caught a glimpse of last night.
We snaked around a group of kids crowding the sidewalk.
Giovanni held the phone closer. His skin paled. “That is him.”
A rush of cold coursed through me at the idea that he had come to take Giovanni.
I reached for Giovanni’s hand. He shoved it into his pocket and hurried up the steps. I chased after him.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
Refusing to acknowledge me, he moved to the next place in line and took out his phone to play a game while he waited his turn through the metal detector.
I stormed off and joined the end of the line with four people between us. Imani called my name. I couldn’t catch a break!
I twirled the braid resting on my shoulder and scrolled through my phone, pretending to be too busy to hear her. Persistence, though, was Imani’s trademark trait. Of course, she’d noticed the sudden distance between Giovanni and me—an unusual sight these past two weeks. Since the party last Friday, our seemingly unstable relationship was the talk of the school. Why would Giovanni feed their desperate little minds with more pointless speculation, though? If he didn’t want me anymore, why not tell me in private? Why give me a stack of love letters, then make a scene of rejecting me in public?
“What’s goin’ on with you two?” Imani asked, filing into line behind me.
“Nothing. He’s just sleepy today and doesn’t wanna be bothered. So...leave him alone, alright?”
Smirking like she knew something I didn’t, Imani stepped out of line to seek out her friends.
I chewed my bottom lip and pondered how to help him. He was scared. That had to be the reason he reacted that way.
Instead of following him to his locker, I detoured to the main office to report that creepy man outside, using the photo on my phone as proof.
“Thank you,” the secretary said. “We’ll let Officer Jenkins know.”
That took care of Giovanni’s stalker outside of these walls, but what about to and from school or at his house?
MY PHONE RANG ONCE I arrived at my locker. Another unknown number I had to answer in case it was a potential client.
“Hello. Is this Joy?” a man’s deep voice said.
“Yes.”
“Hey. I, uh, my name’s Angel. I saw your ad. I’ve got two medium-sized mutts that need to be walked.”
“Okay. Could we set up an appointment for this afternoon around three-thirty? I’d like to meet them and talk about pricing. I’m in school right now.”
“Sure. I’ll text you the address.”
“Kay. Thank you.”
I put my phone away before it got confiscated and smiled to myself. My first dog walking job. It wasn’t official yet, but my funds were in dire need of a boost.
I glanced over my shoulder at Giovanni’s lonely locker. The smile faded from my face. What was the point in having good news if I had no one with which to share it?
Being ghosted hurt equally as much as Elijah’s direct approach, but at least with him, I knew where I stood.
I pulled the fat culinary book off the top shelf in my locker and slammed the metal door shut, trying to conceal the worry and pain lighting wildfires around my heart.
I glared at Imani and her friends watching me at the end of the hall, ready to celebrate another one of my tragedies.
“Hey, Joy,” Mariah said with a poisoned tone. “So, you and Giovanni aren’t together anymore?”
I moved around the tall, athletic girl in my path, refusing to answer her questions.
“It must be true, then,” she said to my back.
I had nothing to prove to anyone, especially not the status of my relationship, whatever it might be.
MY TEETH CHATTERED from the combination of freezing air conditioning and a sweaty body from running the longest mile of my life. I joined the disorganized crowd of other sweaty girls rushing through the locker room door, eager to get cleaned up and changed.
The locker rattled on worn hinges. Where were my clothes? I had folded them and set them on top of my messenger bag and sneakers. Suppressing the urge to throw a tantrum and wildly accuse the girls closest to me without proof, I sat on the bench and contemplated who the culprit could be. Within seconds, Imani’s face popped into my head.
Marching around two locker barriers, I found her. “Hey, Imani,” I said in a perky voice.
Shaking out the shirt she planned to change into, she gave me her back and mumbled, “Hi.”
“Have you seen my clothes anywhere? Someone broke into my locker.”
“No.” Imani stepped out of her sneakers, refusing to face me.
“I just want my stuff back.”
“I didn’t take your things,” she said, finally meeting my eyes.
“And what about your friends? You guys have been buggin’ me nonstop lately. What do you think Ms. Lane will do when I tell her that?”
“Tell her whatever you want. I didn’t touch your stuff,” she insisted, crossing her arms and pushing past me to change in peace.
I followed. “Wait. Didn’t you come inside to use the bathroom during class?”
Laughter echoed in the bathroom near the locker room entrance. “Somebody’s clothes are in the toilet,” a squeaky voice announced.
“You better hope they’re not mine.”
Imani glanced at me over her shoulder with raised eyebrows and gulped.
“Whose clothes are in the toilet?” Ms. Lane screeched.
I forced my way to the front of the crowd to see for myself. The khaki pants and navy polo fabric puffed up in the toilet water.
“They’re mine.”
“How can you tell?” Ms. Lane inquired.
Grinding my jaw, I zeroed in on Imani. She retreated before I could launch my accusation. “Someone stole them out of my locker.”
“Any idea who did it?” Ms. Lane stood like a superhero with fists on her motherly hips, ready to carry out justice.
“No.”
“Come on. Don’t cry.”
Some of the girls giggled at her ignorant statement.
I was hot, sweaty, and furious. What she perceived as my crying face was my I’m-gonna-kill-Imani face, but killing people was against school policy and the law. I had to deal with her another way.
“Don’t worry ‘bout your clothes,” Ms. Lane added. “I’m sure I can find something for you to change into in my office.”
I ENTERED THE CAFETERIA with my chin up, ignoring their smiles at my oversized and mismatched loaner clothes. They could laugh and crack jokes all they wanted. I didn’t care.
Mariah and Kai’s lunchtime friends dominated our table. They even chased off the boys who’d been occupying the other end since the start of the school year. I swallowed my irritation and scanned the room. Giovanni was nowhere in sight.
Mariah sat on the edge of the table—her newly claimed territory. “What are you wearing?” She let out a high-pitched cackle.
“Uh, Joy. Why are you dressed like a clown?” Kai inquired.
“Someone stole my clothes out of my locker and stuffed them in the toilet. This is all Ms. Lane had that sort of fit me.” I looked down at my baggy, purple shorts and sun-yellow tee and huffed.
Kai squinted at Mariah with suspicion. “You did it, didn’t you?”
She laughed and crossed her arms. “Now, why would I do that?”
Rolling my lips inward, I wagged my head and glared at Boris sitting in my spot with a self-entitled simper on his face.
“You’re in my seat,” I said. “Can you move?”
Boris sneered at me. “I know you ain’t talkin’ to me. Look at ya. Tryna steal my do.” He touched his own French braids and grinned, exposing his overlapping teeth. “Go on. Speak up.” He cupped his ear to hear my comeback better. He was deaf in his left ear.
The longer I stared at him, the more I decided it wasn’t worth my precious energy to make him move. They could have our table.
I marched out of there, desperate for quiet and isolation. The door closing behind me silenced Mariah’s taunts and the chorus of voices straining my last frayed nerve.
The original three occupants of the table we shared inside had found new accommodation outside. The stocky, black boy of the trio nodded at me as I traipsed across the walkway. His friends—a Latino kid with a nervous smile and a small Asian boy—twisted around to gawk at me. Raising my eyebrows, I tightened my lips and looked away.
I found a place of my own on the lumpy ground under the oak tree and hurried to dig my earbuds out of my bookbag before one of the boys took the others up on their dare to talk to me first.
Leaning my head against the bark of the tree with music blaring in my ears, I stared at the mass of clouds blocking the sun. My thoughts turned to Elijah and Storm—two losses my heart could never overcome. Giovanni hovered over that short-list, eyeing the spot I had reserved for him from the start.
I texted him. No reply.
I closed my eyes. Loneliness and solitude smothered me in hugs and kisses, their celebratory welcome of an old friend. Having no one else, I absorbed myself in the familiar comfort of their embrace and swiped the tears rolling out of my eyes on the back of my sleeve. I peeked around the tree, straining to see through the cafeteria’s tinted windows. It was hopeless. He probably wasn’t even inside.
I sat there, agonizing over the moments we shared and the million ways I screwed it up. Everything my hand touched, I cursed somehow—another famous family trait I could thank my parents for.
The little sparrow I would give my bread crusts to landed a few feet away. Pecking the grass nearby, he paused to look at me with his head cocked to the side. I dried my face quickly.
“I didn’t get lunch today,” I told him, rummaging through my bag for the oatmeal cookie I’d saved from culinary that morning. Tossing him a piece, I watched as he hopped closer for a taste. Unimpressed by my offering, his beady eyes watched me expectantly. “It’s all I’ve got,” I said, holding my empty hands in the air for him to see.
“Who are you talkin’ to?” one of the boys behind me asked.
I pointed at the adorable creature.
“You can sit with us if you want,” the Latino said.
Smiling regretfully, I said, “Thanks, but I was just about to go back inside. Maybe next time.”
Once on my feet, I brushed twigs and leaves off the back of my pants and passed through those doors again, each step heavier than the last.
I TRIPPED INTO THE library at the sight of him, pulling Giovanni’s attention from his computer screen. The door shoved me forward, highlighting my clumsiness to him and a few other students milling around the library, in case they missed it the first time.
Giovanni looked away like I was some casual acquaintance. Forcing down the expanding knot in my throat, I hurried to my favorite secluded corner and settled on the floor.
As I poured my heart out into my notebook, the pen engraved the paper with each angry or bitter thought I wrote. The tears clouding my sight fell onto the pages, softening the paper, and distorting the words.
I hated him. I hated myself. I hated my life.
“Joy,” he said, crouching beside me. “Did you not hear the bell?”
Like he cared.
I swiped the moisture from my face and shrugged indifferently.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and left.
I drilled my eyes into the coded words I’d written: They always leave. Giovanni was no exception.
I STARED AT THE UNINSPIRING drawing of a bowl of fruit I had begun last Friday. It was due that day, but my heart wasn’t in it.
“Joy, you a’ight?” Kai asked.
I studied him through narrowed eyes. He studied me back.
“I don’t—I’m tired,” I said, skimming through my other sketches for inspiration.
“You can’t let Mariah get to you.”
“She’s not. It’s...It’s been a rough day. That’s all.”
“Anything I can do to help?” He scooted his stool and easel closer.
I shook my head. “Thanks anyway.”
“Mind if I watch you draw?”
He never asked for permission before. Normally, he’d move whoever was in his way and glance over my shoulder while he did his own work.
“If you want. Just don’t expect me to talk, okay?”
He smiled charmingly. “I never do.” Under his breath, he said, “This is gonna be good.”
“What’s ‘gonna be good’?”
“Whatever it is you’re about to do. I can always tell when you get that look.” He mimicked my brooding face and poked out his bottom lip. “I can’t do your lips, though. My lips are pretty, but they ain’t that pretty,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes.
“How come you never wanna hang out wit’ me after school?” he asked. “Don’t you miss dancing?”
I sighed. “I thought you said you didn’t expect me to talk.”
“Well, excuse me,” he sang. “That’s okay.” He unzipped his backpack. “You can text me your answer later.”
Ignoring him, I flipped my sketchbook to the next page and stumbled on an incomplete drawing of Giovanni’s eyes.
“That’s what you’re gonna draw or paint or whatever?”
“Kai!”
“What?”
“You said you’d shut up.”
I inserted my earbuds and reviewed picture upon picture of Giovanni on my camera. It was no use. No photograph could capture the full extent of his warmth and humor. He was the best friend I had always wanted. Still, I had an unconquerable urge to get him out of my system as quickly as possible.
I scrolled to the last picture and tried to swallow the tennis ball trapped in my throat. It didn’t budge. The sun cast its warm glow over him. His gaze, too pure for this world, pierced my soul—those eyes.
Entranced by a sad Jorja Smith song, I sketched his perfect face, hoping to purge myself of every feeling he’d inspired.
I STEPPED BACK TO ADMIRE the drawing. The longer I peered into his eyes, the more painful it was to have to part with it. His portrait was the closest to the real deal I had left. But I had no choice. Snapping a few photos of it, I set it carefully onto the table with everyone else’s work.
I glanced around the room in a disoriented state of mind. The students surrounding me were not from my period. Still, I found myself wishing I would have worked slower. Then, I would have missed all of English class.
I stumbled past Mrs. Powers’ desk.
“Don’t forget your note,” she said.
I thanked her with a forlorn smile and dragged my feet en route to the last class of the day.
With my head low, I made my way to the desk in front of Giovanni’s, avoiding his stare. He willed me to acknowledge him as if I’d attended this class to indulge his every whim. I wasn’t a toy he could take out to play with and discard whenever the mood struck him. I regretted leaving art class. At least there I could listen to music and escape everyone who wanted nothing to do with me.
THE LAST BELL OF THE day rang out ten minutes ago. Giovanni and I were the only students left.
“Joy,” he whispered.
Ms. Corbin’s green eyes glared at him for distracting me. “Excuse me. Giovanni, you can go. Joy needs to finish her work.”
His stare burned through me until he stepped into the hallway.
I reread the same line I’d written eight more times, my thoughts too entangled with Giovanni for any of it to make sense.
Ms. Corbin dismissed me for the day, eager to get home herself, but I lingered for as long as possible. My whole body ached to imagine the inevitable face-to-face awaiting me outside of her room.
Once I made it through the school’s main doors, I sank my teeth into my morning delight, Mrs. Vitali’s pastry. I chewed the first fruity bite to keep the tears away when Giovanni popped out from behind me, frightening me so badly I nearly choked and peed myself at the same time. I cursed him under my breath for making me drop my treat after I’d managed to get one solitary bite out of it, kicked it furiously out of my path, and sped up my pace. My heart, though, had its own agenda. It craved him desperately.
“Joy. Wait. Please.”
I groaned internally over the power he still held. My feet stopped at his command. The enormous fountain across the street trickled joyfully into the space of time it took for either of us to say a word.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. Glaring at a line of red ants filing into a dirt mound in the cracked cement near our feet, I asked in a quiet voice, “What do you want?”
He stood there, gawking at me.
Grinding my teeth, I crossed my arms and tapped my foot impatiently. “What?”
He forced my arms to my sides, as if making my stance less hostile would undo my agitation, and watched me like a familiar stranger. “I want to explain. I–I did not want you to be in danger. That man came here for me.”
“I know he did. Believe me. I get it! He’s got x-ray vision. He can see us through the walls.”
Giovanni lowered his head. “I did not want him to see how much you mean to me.”
“So, you were practicing not caring about me? You do know he saw me yesterday at your house, and who knows how long he’s been watching us before today? You just...ignored me the entire day. You got your message across loud and clear. Trust me...And Mariah did too.”
My stomach growled, reminding me of the wasted pastry. I detoured around him, eager to go home when the phone vibrated against my thigh.
Giovanni peeked over my shoulder. I jerked the phone out of his sight and read the text.
“Crap!” I was supposed to meet that client at three-thirty.
—On my way, I messaged back and hurried to the bus stop.
The bus was due in ten minutes, plus the twenty-minute ride to Selena’s would make me later.
I chewed my lip anxiously, trying to think up a solution when Giovanni took my hand and said, “Do you forgive me?”
Another message vibrated the phone in my free hand before I could reply.
Taking hold of my wrist, he angled the phone to get a look at the flashing number. “Who is that?”
I snatched my hand back and glared at the number. “Hold up.” I opened Giovanni’s messages and searched for the number he had sent me on Friday night to look into. He watched over my shoulder.
The numbers were the same.
“That man is messaging you? Why?”
My heart dropped as I switched message threads to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. They weren’t. Mrs. Vitali’s blackmailer had reached out to me.
“H–He called this morning about walking his dogs. I was gonna meet him.” I gasped. “And I was gonna meet him alone because you weren’t talking to me. What if he figured out it was me who got him in trouble?”
Giovanni’s eyebrows angled with worry. “What do you mean?”
“I told the secretary he was trying to call me over to his car. I don’t know if the cops caught him or not. I don’t see him anywhere, so...”
I typed a new message to the man.
—The bus is late. I might not be able to make it today.
—I can wait. See you when you get here.
My heart throbbed at the base of my throat as I searched Giovanni’s face.
“You are not going,” he said.
“I could check out the place from the outside and take a few pictures. That’s all.”
Another idea crashed into my brain. I opened a GPS app on my phone and plugged in the address the guy had given me to study the street view. I’d meant to scope out the area online during lunch, but with the constant distractions and drama, I forgot.
It was a brick row house in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, at least thirty minutes away by public transport. We’d hung up my flyers within blocks of Selena’s building and our school only—another clue that this man was a liar.
“I do not want you to go,” Giovanni said.
“But this is our chance to get the people blackmailing your mom. That is what we’ve been tryna do for the past few days, right?”
He twisted his hair so hard some came out. Staring at the strands between his fingers, he drew in a shaky breath.
I undid my braid and immersed his hands into my loose mane. “Try to relax,” I said, wrapping my arms around his middle.
Giovanni clung to me desperately.
“I know you’re scared,” I said. “But the only way to help your mom is to expose these people. We can’t do that by sitting at home.” I pulled away. “You said no cops, so we’re all we’ve got left. All we’ve gotta do is use him to get to your dad’s friend. Right now, let’s focus on getting more information.”
Giovanni swallowed and nodded slowly.
“Okay,” I sighed. “So, let’s stop at Selena’s first. I gotta get out of these clothes. They smell like a wet dog and an old person.”
Giovanni pinched the fabric of the banana yellow T-shirt and smirked tensely. “You look cute in these big clothes.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what they’ve been tellin’ me all day.” I rolled my eyes. “Am I allowed to hold your hand now?”
His smile faded. “Of course. Do you forgive me?”
I nestled under his chin.“If you don’t wanna be with me, at least tell me, and I won’t bother you anymore.”
He leaned away.
I stared at the white buttons on his shirt, fighting the urge to cry when he raised my chin and forced my eyes to his. “You never bother me. I’m so sorry, bella.”
Tears fought their way out despite my best efforts and dampened his sleeve. He rocked me in his arms until the bus came.