Chapter 7
Mom:
Yep, thx. I tap out a reply from my spot on Deanna’s bedroom floor.
I consider writing something that makes it a little more obvious that I’m over the constant reminders and that word—good.
She never lets me out of her sight, then acts like I can even consider being anything else.
My discharge agreement left the specifics of how I spent my free time to my mom and so far, that’s been “somewhere she can see me.” But she’s been letting me practice driving with her—I did some loops in a parking lot before she dropped me off. I’ll take what I can get.
I toss my phone on the plush blue rug a little harder than I’d meant to. It bounces onto the wood floor, landing just under Deanna’s color-coded bookshelf.
“Whoaaa,” Deanna says, looking down from her window seat. “You okay over there?”
I sit up and nod. “Yeah, just my mom,” I say. “Sorry about that.”
She smiles. “It’s okay, they’re all like that.”
After Deanna asked me to come over, I spent a ridiculous amount of time figuring out how to ask my mom since it was the first time I would be going anywhere alone.
But I had nothing to worry about. She was thrilled at the idea of me hanging out with Deanna—who is apparently on the “approved” list—to do homework.
I’m happy for the space to do and say whatever for a change.
And I have no intentions of being bad … I never really have.
Ping. My phone lights up under the bookshelf and I assume it’s my mom again. Instead, I’m surprised to see Kayla’s name when I grab it and look at the screen.
Heard you’re at Deanna’s. She doesn’t know the truth abt you, so don’t say anything!
I read her text twice before registering what she’s saying.
“What is that face?!” Deanna asks. “Your mom again?”
“Nope, just Kayla,” I say, trying not to let my tone betray how I really feel.
“Ohhh. I was asking because my mom hovers like nobody’s business. So you don’t have to be embarrassed or anything,” she says with a shrug. “I mean, how many times has she come in here already?” She motions toward the door.
It’s true. Since I arrived twenty minutes ago, Deanna’s mom has come in twice—once to show me upstairs, and another to check in on us.
“Oh, trust me, if this wasn’t for a project, I would be in the house … where my mom can hear my every footstep.”
Deanna chuckles. “So annoying.” She pauses like she wants to say something but isn’t sure if she should.
“What?” I ask, curious.
“How’s it going with you and Kayla? We all sit together at lunch, and I haven’t seen you.”
“Oh no, it’s all good,” I say quickly. But my face must be giving me away.
“Is it really?”
I sigh, trying to find a way to put it that doesn’t throw Kayla under the bus and make her even more angry with me. “I think Kayla just wants me to make my own way at school.”
Deanna purses her lips. I recognize the expression from class. She does it when she’s thinking about the right answer to one of Ms. Taylor’s questions. “I’ll talk to her,” she says.
“No, Deanna, don’t.” My words come out all in a rush.
“Okay, if you’re sure?”
“I’m sure. It’s fine,” I say. It’s nice that Deanna wants to help, but talking to Kayla about me could cause more trouble than it’s worth. The whole reason she warned me off Deanna was because she didn’t want me encroaching on her territory.
“All right,” Deanna says, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get started.” She pulls her journal into her lap. “Do you want me to go down there? Or do you want to come up here?”
I hesitate. I’m fine with either, but I’m sure she has a reason for asking. “I guess I’ll come up there?”
She senses the hesitation. “I mean, you don’t have to. I was just thinking that it’ll feel more like a real interview if we’re across from each other.”
I smile. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” I grab my journal and pen and join her at the window on the soft blue bench. The sun is streaming in, warming my back. I scoot a little, making sure to leave enough room between us.
We’d originally set up at her desk, which is next to the door. She didn’t say why, but she’s not allowed to close it. I could relate—doors at the center were always kept open, except the ones you could escape through. We ended up near the window because it was the only way to get privacy.
Deanna’s mom pops her head in again. “You girls want anything from the kitchen?”
Deanna looks at her, then at me. “You want something?”
I don’t know what to ask for, and I don’t want to sound stupid. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Just some snacks and soda, please, we have a lot to do,” she says.
Her mom’s brown eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles. “Okay, sweetie, be right back.”
When her mom is out of earshot, Deanna turns to me. “See?” she says. “Hovering.”
I position myself against the window, blocking the sun with one hand and trying to rip out a page with the other.
“Need help?” she asks, amused by the struggle. She holds the journal for me as I rip out the page I’ve written my questions on.
“This is your copy,” I say, pushing the paper toward her.
“Who are you, really? Good question.” She looks up at me. “Do you know who you really are yet?”
“Is it weird if I say barely?”
She shakes her head. “We couldn’t be friends if you said anything else,” she says with a smirk. The idea of being friends with her disarms me. We smile at each other just as her mom comes back into the room with a basket of snacks and sodas.
“Don’t ruin your appetite,” she warns Deanna as she plops it down between us.
Deanna rolls her eyes as her mom leaves.
“I haven’t had one of these in forever!” I shriek, pulling a brownie with candy pieces from the pile.
Deanna looks at me strangely, probably for being so excited about an everyday snack, then turns her attention to the basket. “I shouldn’t even be eating this stuff.” She sighs, throwing a candy bar back. Her mood has changed.
“You’re gonna make me eat this alone?” I hold the brownie up like a prize.
After some thought, she picks up a brownie too. “I guess it’s okay since we’re sharing the guilt.” She moves her brownie toward mine.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I reply as our brownies touch.
“You can start,” I say, picking up my journal.
I’ve decided to let her go first to hear how she answers the questions.
That way, I’ll know how deep I have to go with mine.
Her mouth is full, so she gives me a thumbs-up.
I scan the list of questions for an easy one to open with. “Where were you born?”
She swallows what’s left of the brownie before she speaks. “Victorville, California.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“May thirtieth.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Obviously blue,” she says, gesturing around her very blue room. “Pastel blue, to be exact.” She pauses and looks at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be putting the answers somewhere?”
She’s right. I haven’t written anything down. For a moment, I forgot this was a school assignment and not just us learning more about each other. “I’ll use my phone.” I grab it from the floor. “Okay, ready again?” I open a voice memo as I get back into my spot.
Deanna leans toward the phone balanced on my crossed knee. “Subject: Deanna Lowe, sixteen years old, born in California, birthday’s May thirtieth, and my favorite color is pastel blue.”
I snicker, trying not to ruin the recording with laughter. “Okay! Next,” I say, glancing at the list. I want to ask her something that might get her to say more. “Who are you most grateful for in your life?”
“Oh, you went deep,” she says dramatically. “I should have looked at the rest of these questions first!” Her expression becomes more serious. “I mean, I feel obligated to say my parents so I don’t sound like a horrible person.”
“You can say whatever you want,” I tell her. “I won’t judge you.”
She looks skeptical. I get it; we don’t actually know each other.
“Yeah, it’s definitely my parents,” she reassures herself out loud. “They are always breathing down my neck, but at least they care, you know?”
“Yeah, I sort of do,” I mutter, thinking about my mom.
“I guess they just don’t want to see me waste my life or, like, mess it up, since they’ve worked hard to give me a good one. So I’m grateful.”
She seems to be talking more to herself, so I don’t respond.
I think about my mom, who never let me forget all the sacrifices she and my dad made “even though they weren’t ready.
” How they had both dreamed of adventurous lives, but I came the year after they graduated so they both settled for the “stable” life they gave me.
I once overheard my mom say that my dad leaving kind of ruined the life she’d grown to love and the possibilities they were working toward.
When Deanna snaps back to the moment, she seems ready to move on. She picks up her page of questions and declares, “Your turn!”
I nod, understanding the instinct to change the subject when things get too heavy. We both seem concerned about saying the wrong thing.
I pause my voice memo. She starts hers.
“Subject: Jasmine Cooper,” she begins. “Wait, how old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
She clears her throat. “Sixteen years old,” she continues. “Okay, I’ll ask the same starter questions and then I’ll switch it up. Where were you born?”
“Lorial, New York.”
She makes a face.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m just surprised.”
“About?”
“Lorial is so different from Tinsley, that’s all.”
I understand what she means because it’s the same thought I had when my mom told me we were moving. “Very. I’m surprised you even know what it’s like there.”
“It’s not another planet.” She laughs. “Next, when’s your birthday?”
“September fourth.”
“Okay, Beyoncé!” she says.
I bow in my seat. Deanna giggles.
“And favorite color?”
“I don’t have one,” I say matter-of-factly. “I love black though.”
“Clearly,” she says, eyeing my outfit. “Very cute though.”
My cheeks get warm.
“Ready for a big one?” she asks.
Surprisingly, I am.
“What’s your biggest fear?” she prompts, looking directly at me.
I inhale deeply. Knowing what I’m carrying—the secret of where I spent the last year—I’d planned to give the kind of surface answers that would deter anyone from asking follow-ups. But now that she’s opened up, I want to respond in kind.
“My biggest fear,” I repeat, buying myself some time to think. “I guess … I guess it’s that I’ll never be as good as people want me to be,” I say, thinking of my mom, who might never forgive me if I don’t amount to something.
Deanna looks at me with wide eyes, and I worry I’ve revealed too much. I’m coming up with a joke to undercut the seriousness of the moment when she finally speaks.
“Seriously, Jasmine, thank you for sharing that,” she says. “That’s literally how I feel all the time.”
Now it’s my turn to stare at her. I don’t know how to respond to someone who can actually see me.
Director Brewster told me that “there are no good apples in a barrel of rotten ones.” She didn’t see us at all.
To her, I was just another uniform, taking up a bed until I was old enough to be sent to jail.
It’s quiet for a minute before I speak again. “My mom has a pretty clear vision of me in her head, and I feel like I spend all my time just trying to make sure I match that,” I say. “And based on our relationship, most of the time I don’t.”
Deanna nods thoughtfully, taking me in. The clouds shift outside, and then a burst of sun streams through the window, warming my face.
I find myself doodling in the corner of my journal just to avoid staring too long at Deanna’s brown eyes, which seem to be changing to hazel in the light. I feel her energy shift.
“Tell me, why did you really leave boarding school?”
I lock on her eyes. “Honestly, I’ve learned not to question my mom’s decisions even though sometimes I wonder if she regrets making this one.”
The truth.
Deanna places her hand over mine and squeezes gently before moving it away. Just a light touch to let me know she’s here, that she sees me.
The gesture is so kind, so touching, I feel like I could cry. Even though I tried to stick as close to the truth as I could, I’m still telling a huge lie by omission. And while I’ve said a version of this same thing dozens of times now, something is different this time.
Because Deanna might be the first person in so long—the first person since Amari, really—who I want to get to know, and who I want to know me.