Beverly

Chapter 4

4

BLAKE, 1994

13 years old

I knew I was being unreasonable.

I knew that being a year older than Beverly meant we couldn’t be in the same class. Rules were rules, and no amount of pleading could change the fact that grade levels were rigid, separated by a clear, immovable line. No amount of logic could alter that reality, and logic was something I respected. It was how I made sense of the world, how I measured what was worth my energy. So I knew there was no rational excuse for digging my heels in the way I was.

Logic told me I had to accept it.

But logic couldn’t stop my stomach from twisting violently at the thought of stepping into class alone.

It wasn’t fear; I knew that much. It wasn’t the classrooms or the teachers or even the students that made my pulse quicken. I wasn’t intimidated by new faces. I wasn’t worried about making friends, about whether I’d fit in. I wasn’t even worried about the teasing that I knew was inevitable.

What bothered me—what had been gnawing at me all summer—was the idea of being untethered.

Back in the foster care system, I had mastered the art of being invisible. Staying quiet, staying out of the way, never giving anyone a reason to look at me too long or ask too many questions. I had learned how to blend in with the background, to sit in the corner of the room and become a shadow. It had been a survival skill.

But now?

Now, I wasn’t invisible.

Not to Mom and Dad. Not to Beverly.

And definitely not to so-called experts who dissected every move I made and every decision I came to.

The first year of my new life felt like a never-ending series of tests, evaluations, and endless scrutiny. They studied me like I was an anomaly, a strange case they couldn’t quite figure out. It was as if I was trapped inside some sort of experiment; I was constantly surrounded by psychologists, neurologists, educators—all of them eager to understand how my brain worked, why it was the way it was. They subjected me to tests that would make most people feel like lab rats. Aptitude tests. Problem-solving challenges. Analytical exercises. Brain scans. And the cycle would repeat.

They were obsessed with studying the way I processed information, how my mind jumped from one conclusion to the next, how I could see patterns where others saw chaos.

I came from nothing, and I wasn’t supposed to be where I was. I wasn’t supposed to have made it this far.

They wanted to know where my creativity came from, how my brain was wired so differently. But no matter how many times they poked and prodded at my mind, they never understood me. They didn’t know where the answers came from, didn’t know why I saw the world the way I did. They could collect all the data they wanted, but data meant nothing. You couldn’t just pick me apart and expect to find answers. It wasn’t that simple.

You could only look for patterns, try to break it down into something manageable, and in doing so, they would never truly understand what made me, me.

When they asked me about my earlier years and tried to dig into my past to figure out why I was the way I was, I couldn’t give them all the answers they wanted. What was the point?

They couldn’t understand what it was like to be invisible, abandoned by everyone around you, nothing more than a casualty in the eyes of those who were supposed to protect me.There was no reason to tell them I spent my days counting the holes in the window screen, or the blades of grass in the tiny backyard they locked me in for hours, or how I wandered for miles to a crumbling park when I was six, just to count the grains of sand beneath my feet.

Numbers were the only thing that kept me from drowning in the horror of my memories. They offered a way out, distracting me from the screaming, the blood, the face of my father—the one who had those same startling green eyes. Eyes that looked too much like mine. His gaze was always filled with fury, always reminded me of my place in the world.

The pain was constant, but numbers gave me a way to escape. They let me float above it, detached from the world, from the violence that had shaped my life.

When my stomach growled from hunger, when the foster parent I was stuck with preferred to snort cocaine rather than feed me, I would retreat into my mind, my nails buried in my teeth as I marked off another tick on the wall of the basement.

No one would ever understand that hollow existence. If I told them, they’d pity me—and I didn’t want their pity.

I didn’t need their sympathy.

I wasn’t some tragic story to be stared at from a distance.

Things only started to change when Arthur Price came into my life, at the moment when I was on the verge of being lost to the darkness of my own mind. He pulled me out of the wreckage and saved me in ways I didn’t know I needed saving. Arthur and Jenna took me and didn’t just give me a place to sleep or meals to eat; they gave me a home. It was as if someone had hit the reset button on my life. For the first time in years, I could breathe without feeling the weight of fear pressing down on me.

For the first time, I didn’t have to hide, didn’t have to pretend everything was fine when it was anything but.

I had to relearn how to feel, how to be human. I spent too much of my childhood locked away inside my own head, cutting myself off from everyone, pushing away the people who tried to get close. I was impenetrable, closed off, because I was scared—scared of being hurt again, scared of letting anyone see the mess I’d become. And when the experts started talking about my potential, when they told Arthur and Jenna that I was wasting it, I could feel myself retreating all over again.

They said I needed to advance, that my brain was a gift I wasn’t nurturing. They wanted me to skip grades and move ahead. They wanted me to leave everything I had just started to rebuild and throw myself into the kind of intellectual treadmill that would keep me trapped, constantly chasing something more.

But I didn’t want to be pushed any harder, to be treated like some kind of lab rat who could never catch a break. I wanted a life . I wanted to be me , not a mind for them to dissect.

To my surprise, Arthur and Jenna understood that.

They wanted me to live, to experience the things I had been denied and robbed of for so long. They didn’t want me to be a genius for the world. They wanted me to be a kid, to live a life that wasn’t defined by expectations.

They always fought for me, even convincing the school that I didn’t need to skip a grade. After plenty of discussions and negotiations, the school administration finally agreed to let me be in Beverly’s class.

On the first day of school, the hallways smelled of floor wax and cheap cologne, buzzing with the murmur of voices, occasional laughter, and the rhythmic clang of locker doors slamming shut.

It was overwhelming—not in the way that made me want to shut down, but in the way that made me hyper-aware of everything around me.

I walked a step behind Beverly and Tiffany, my hands shoved into the pockets of my cargo shorts. The fabric was stiff and slightly scratchy—new, just like my Abercrombie Tiffany didn’t matter to me. But Beverly did. And right now, she looked furious.

A scoff slipped out of her. “You think reading makes someone weird?”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, he’s cute, but he’s just…different.”

I could feel Beverly’s frustration rising. She was about to argue, about to tell Tiffany where she could stick her judgments, but I cut in before it could go any further.

“It’s fine,” I said as we came to a stop in front of the cafeteria.

She turned to me, brows furrowed. “No, it’s really not.”

“Yes, it is,” I insisted.

Her jaw tightened. She wanted to argue. More than that—she wanted to sit with me. I saw it in the way her gaze flickered toward the empty spot at the cafeteria table, the way her fingers twitched as if she were ready to grab me and pull me there.

But I wouldn’t let her.

If Beverly sat with me, she’d be setting herself apart, making herself a target for the whispers that followed me wherever I went. I couldn’t bear letting them think less of her.

I glanced at Tiffany, then back at Beverly. “Go sit with your friend.”

Beverly hesitated, her mouth opening and closing as if she were about to protest. For a split second, I thought she would insist, that she would take a seat beside me just to prove a point. But then she exhaled sharply, frustration flickering in her expression before she gave me a slow, reluctant nod.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Suit yourself.”

I watched as she walked off with Tiffany, her back straight, head held high.

She didn’t look back, didn’t once glance in my direction.

I took my seat, opened my book, and didn’t read a single word. My eyes tracked the words on the page, but they blurred together because my mind was elsewhere, stuck on the feeling of being left behind.

The cafeteria buzzed around me; laughter, kids shoving each other for fun, the occasional clatter of a lunch tray being dropped. It was too loud, too chaotic.

Across the room, Beverly kept glancing in my direction, her fingers tapping against her juice box the way they did when she was either irritated or nervous.

She didn’t want to be sitting over there.

She wanted to be sitting here.

She wanted to be beside me, just like always.

I told myself that was a good thing. That it meant she wasn’t embarrassed by me. But it didn’t change the fact that Tiffany’s words still lingered in the air.

He’s just different.

What did that even mean?

Different from who ? Different from what ? Different was neither inherently negative nor positive—it simply was.

What’s “normal,” anyway?

Who gets to decide what’s considered normal?

People talk about it like it’s something you can just pick up, like it’s something you can just grab and wear. But “normal”—the way everyone’s supposed to be—what does that even look like? Is it the way people speak, dress, behave? The way they fit in with what everyone else is doing? Is it some made-up standard, some unwritten rule we’ve all agreed to live by? Maybe normal is just a bunch of expectations that we’ve all collectively agreed on without ever questioning whether we really have to follow them.

Trying to force yourself into someone else’s version ofnormalis futile. It’s like trying to make a tree grow sideways. It’s not meant to grow that way, and that’s okay.

What if normal is the thing that’s weird?

Maybe everyone is so busy trying to fit into some mold that they forget what it means to stand out. To be the version of yourself that no one else can be.

Being different isn’t the problem. The problem is trying to change yourself to be like everyone else. To make yourself smaller so you can squeeze into a box that wasn’t made for you. And even then, when you manage to force yourself in, they say that you don’t quite fit in it.

So yeah, Tiffany said I was different. Maybe I was.

So why was my jaw still clenched? Why did the words still gnaw at me, making my skin itch and my thoughts spin?

I turned the page of my book, pretending to read, pretending I wasn’t listening to the conversation happening just a few tables away. Tiffany’s voice drifted over, amused and casual.

“Are you seriously mad at me right now?” she asked.

“I’m not mad,” Beverly answered, but I could hear the edge in her voice.

“You totally are.”

A pause.

Then, softer, but firm, “I just don’t like when people talk about him like that.”

I felt something in my chest tighten, but I didn’t know if it was relief or guilt. Would she always be like this? Always quick to defend me, always ready to go to war for me if she had to, even when I didn’t ask her to? I didn’t want her to.

I didn’t want her fighting my battles. Not over this.

I turned another page.

Didn’t read a single word.

Tiffany laughed. “Relax, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

A scoff. “There isn’t a good way to mean it.”

Tiffany didn’t respond right away. When she did, her voice was lower, less certain. “I don’t get you sometimes.”

I could imagine the look Beverly gave her, unimpressed and unyielding. “You don’t have to,” she said simply.

Another pause.

And then the subject changed.

I exhaled slowly, my grip on the book loosening.

She wasn’t sitting with me.

But she wasn’t letting anyone talk about me, either.

That was?—

“What are you reading?”

I blinked, confused at first, then slowly turned my head, half-expecting to find someone else standing behind me—the person he was actually talking to, maybe.

But no, it was me.

His eyes locked onto mine, one dark brow raised in a way that seemed almost amused, or maybe just curious.

I gave him a quick once-over. He was about my age, maybe slightly shorter, dressed in a Chicago Bulls jersey over a white T-shirt, loose jeans, and white Reeboks. His dark, wavy hair fell just above his ears, casually messy, as if he had run a hand through it and then forgotten about it entirely.

“I said, what are you reading?” he repeated slowly, as if I might need a second to catch up, which I did.

I hesitated, caught off guard by the fact that he was talking to me, not some invisible person behind me.

“Ah, crap.” He blinked rapidly, like a deer in headlights. “Uh—sorry,” he blurted. “I… Um… I didn’t know you were, you know… Uh?—”

I raised an eyebrow, more curious than confused, but he continued before I could ask what he meant.

“I mean, uh, deaf, right?” His voice lowered a little, and he shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Like, you’re deaf, not like, ‘oh, I can’t hear you because it’s too loud’ deaf… But, like, real deaf…Look, I-I’m sorry,” he rushed on, clearly backpedaling, his face flushed bright red now. “Not that you’re deaf. I mean, that’s fine, it’s cool! I didn’t mean anything bad by it, I swear. I just, uh—” His words tangled up as he sputtered. “I can still talk to you, right? Wait, of course I can, I’m talking right now. That was a stupid thing to say. I’m just sorry for asking, and asking and asking and, like… I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable?—”

I couldn’t help it. The poor guy was trying too hard to fix whatever imaginary mistake he thought he’d made.

“ Relax ,” I snorted, “I’m not deaf.”

His eyebrows shot up, and his shoulders visibly relaxed as if he’d just been holding his breath for a minute straight. “Right. Okay. Good. So…” he started again. “So, what are you reading then?”

“Uh—” I glanced down, half-remembering what page I was on. “Jurassic Park.”

He nodded slowly, like he was impressed. “That’s the one with the dinosaurs, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head, laughing. “Nah.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, then shook his head. “Nah.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Sure it does,” he said, still laughing. “ Yeah ,” he repeated, “I know what book you’re talking about. Nah , I didn’t read it.”

I stifled a snort. “That’s not how words work.”

He pulled out the chair across from me, dropping into it without hesitation. “Only words I trust are 2Pac’s,” he quipped, stealing one of my chicken nuggets like we’d known each other for years.

“You only trust 2Pac?” I huffed out a small, reluctant laugh.

“Only words that speak to me,” he answered with a smirk, popping the chicken nugget into his mouth.

I watched him for a second before glancing down at my book. “So what, you don’t mess with fiction?”

“Meh,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “fiction is just lying with extra steps.”

“That’s a terrible take.”

“Nah, it’s facts,” he said, grinning. “People out here making up stories when real life’s already wild enough. Why read Jurassic Park when I got my Uncle Reggie? The Man is built like a dinosaur, I swear to God.”

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “What?”

“He got this long-ass neck. Like a brontosaurus. You ever seen a dude where you look at him, and you just know he gotta buy special shirts?”

I shook my head. “That’s not a real problem.”

“It’s a real problem when your mama sends you to the store and you gotta find a 3XL tall. Man’s out here built like a lamppost.”

I shook my head again, flipping a page in my book just for something to do. “That’s crazy.”

“Crazy is him trying to squeeze into a normal car like he ain’t six-foot-eight,” he said, shaking his head. “Had to take the seat out just to fit.” He popped another chicken nugget into his mouth, nodding at my book again. “Wait, does that book really have dinosaurs in it?”

Raising a brow, I nodded. “Yeah. But it’s not like the movie. The book’s more—” I paused, trying to find the right word.

“Wordy?” he suggested, raising a brow of his own. “Boring?”

I shot him a look. “Scientific,” I corrected. “ Detailed .”

“Same thing,” he said with a shrug.

I exhaled through my nose, shaking my head. “It’s more about how everything goes wrong. People think they got everything under control, but they don’t.”

He considered that, nodding slowly. “So it’s about people being stupid.”

I sighed, feeling the urge to argue, but the truth was, he wasn’t wrong. “Pretty much.”

“That does sound kinda fire,” he said, stealing another nugget.

“Told you.”

He pointed at me. “Alright, you win this round, Jurassic Park.”

I couldn’t suppress a small flicker of amusement.

I wasn’t used to people like him—people who didn’t walk on eggshells around me, who weren’t stiff with uncertainty, as if they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me before deciding if I was worth talking to.

He was unapologetically himself, making jokes at my expense, but in a way that didn’t sting. I had been on edge at first, waiting for the punchline to turn mean, for the joke to shift into something else. But it never did.

He leaned forward, holding out his hand with the kind of confidence that said he already knew I’d shake it. “Jamal.”

Tilting my head slightly, I gave his hand another glance. “Jamal, huh?”

He nodded, giving me a sly grin. “Jamal the Great.”

“ Jamal the Great ?” I laughed. “Alright, you’ve got my attention.”

He grinned, now holding my hand. “Well, I aim to please. So, what’s your name, Jurassic Park?”

I rolled my eyes but gave his hand a firm shake. “Blake. And I’m not fully convinced you’re as great as you think.”

“Challenge accepted,” he said with a self-assured smirk.

I smirked back, already regretting my words.

This day wasn’t going at all how I expected.

* * *