“SELF-PORTRAIT”
by Brandy Colbert
SUNDAY TAYLOR SAT next to Micah Richmond her first day at the Brinkley School, and he was the first person who was nice to her, so she trusted him right away.
She also knew right away that he was different from her friends in Chicago. At her old school, she’d hung out with the church kids because they always seemed to want her around. They invited her to birthday parties and weekend barbecues and youth group meetings teeming with sexual tension. None of it was particularly fun—she’d always felt a bit like they were all in some unspoken competition for who could be the best Christian. But they were always kind.
She’d moved to L.A. a couple of weeks ago when her father got a new job. Both he and his husband seemed to be fitting in just fine, but Sunday was terrified of Los Angeles. It was just so different from what she was used to. The city was slower, more relaxed than Chicago. Here, people who were forty looked twenty, and it wasn’t all cosmetic surgery.
“Six months of winter ages you,” her dad had said as they dodged moms in yoga pants and college students buying kale in the natural foods market. “Life’s a lot easier when you don’t have to spend half of it shoveling snow and avoiding frostbite.”
They lived in the San Fernando Valley—what everyone called the Valley and what she soon realized was considered very uncool by half of Los Angeles. Sunday didn’t mind it. Her school was over the hill, in West Hollywood, so she got to see plenty of the city during the week. It seemed busier there—more traffic and people. Their street in Sherman Oaks was peaceful, so quiet and manicured it felt like a storybook neighborhood.
“Sherman Oaks is cool,” Micah said after asking where she lived that first day.
They had second period together too, so they ended up walking next to each other across campus. Sunday was grateful for it. The campus wasn’t particularly big, but it was clear that everyone knew everyone else. They kept looking at her, and she wondered if it was because she was new or because she was with Micah. Maybe both.
“Where do you live?” she asked, taking in his profile.
He was cute enough to warrant the stares of the other students. Micah was one of the few other black kids she’d seen since she got there. He had brown skin a couple of shades darker than her own coppery complexion, a lanky build, and a dimple in his cheek. The only looks she’d received so far had been curious at most, but she was still glad to have someone else around who looked like her.
“I stay over in Beverly Hills,” Micah said quickly, then: “What are you studying here?”
Brinkley was an arts-and-sciences school. Sunday had gone to private school back in Chicago, but it had a more basic curriculum. Looking at the roster of classes on the website when they were filling out her application, she’d been almost intimidated by the selection here.
“Visual arts. You live in Beverly Hills? Is it as fancy as it is on TV?”
He shrugged. “Parts of it, yeah. What type of art?”
“A little bit of everything. I mean, I want to study art history in college, so I’m taking those classes. But I’m signed up for studio art and sculpture this semester, too. Why are you being weird about living in Beverly Hills?”
“I’m not,” he said. “It’s just . . . people kind of judge you by where you live here, and I hate that shit.”
“People do that in Chicago too.” Sunday paused and then decided to change the subject. She didn’t want to piss off her first and only friend or acquaintance or whatever he was. “What are you studying?”
“Guess.” He led the way down the path to the building where their honors history class was located.
Sunday looked at him closely, tilting her head to the side and squinting her eyes like she saw people do when they wanted to look smart in art galleries. “Math?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I fucking hate that shit.”
“Hmm . . . English?” Maybe he was an undercover literary genius.
Micah laughed. “You probably won’t guess. It’s dance.”
“Dance? Like ballet?”
“I take classes in everything, but I want to choreograph. Contemporary. My piece last year won first place in the choreography showcase,” he said with a small smile.
“That’s really cool. I’ve never known any guys who dance.” It was all sports all the time at her old school. And in the Midwest in general. If you didn’t watch sports, people looked at you like you were absolutely un-American.
“Well, you’re in L.A. now. Everybody here does everything.”
They walked through the bustling hallways, and every few feet, people would wave or grin or fist-bump Micah to say hello. She wouldn’t have guessed him to be popular; maybe because he was so low-key. The people in the popular crowd at her old school were all virtually interchangeable. They wore the same expensive clothes and made appointments at the same expensive hair salons, and their families went on the same extravagant vacations, sometimes together. You could spot them by the glow of superiority that practically radiated around them.
A guy in a hoodie with surfer-blond hair shuffled over just before they walked into their classroom.
“What’s up, man?” Micah said easily, slapping hands with him.
“Not much, just uh . . .” He glanced over at Sunday and nodded, but didn’t finish his sentence.
Ah. The universal signal that her presence wasn’t wanted.
“I’m gonna go in,” she said to Micah, feeling the self-consciousness that had engulfed her when she walked up the front steps that morning flooding back in full force. It had started to dissipate once Micah introduced himself in first period.
“Save me a seat?”
And just like that, the warmth in his voice convinced her that she was going to be okay.
* * *
Sunday settled easily into their new friendship. She didn’t feel particularly desperate for friends; she would have happily blended into the background for a while. But Micah was nice, they had three classes together, and she’d been eating lunch at his table since he’d invited her on the first day.
She wondered if the other students thought they were dating. At her old school, people seen talking too long, too closely, or too often would be immediately questioned. But here, nobody seemed to think anything about her hanging around. And she didn’t feel anything for him—not really. It was almost like they’d known each other their whole lives, but there wasn’t a spark. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever had a spark with anyone, but she hoped she would know when it happened.
On the first Friday at her new school, Sunday showered and got ready a bit earlier than normal. She had to make sure she caught her dad and Ben before they left for work. Well, only her father would be leaving. Ben did his graphic design projects out of the spare bedroom they’d turned into an office. But they both got up early and had coffee and breakfast together each morning, even on the weekends.
“Morning,” Ben said from the stove where he was poaching an egg. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.” Sunday made herself a bowl of instant oatmeal and sprinkled blueberries on top. Fruit was one of the things Los Angeles did better than Chicago. Her father had seemed positively delighted the first time he’d seen the produce all lined up in the market, practically sparkling in the bins. “Where’s Dad?”
“He had to go in early.” Ben’s back was turned toward her, and she noticed that his ash-blond hair was starting to get a bit long. He was older than her father, but he acted younger; less serious, anyway. “What’s up?”
“I’m going out with some friends after school, so I don’t need a ride,” she said. “I mean, if that’s okay.”
It was always okay in Chicago, but they knew all her friends back there. And no one was worried because she was always hanging with church kids.
She could see the skepticism in Ben’s posture before he even turned around. “New friends? Why haven’t you mentioned them?”
Sunday shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t really have a reason to until now, I guess. It’s only been a few days.”
“Are these friends actual friends or a boy?”
She swallowed a spoonful of oatmeal. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”
“And you know what I mean.” He carefully transferred the poached egg to a plate and moved the pot from the hot burner. Then he wiped his hands on a dish towel and turned around, leaning against the sink.
“My friend Micah invited me to hang out with him and his friends. We eat lunch and have a bunch of classes together. That’s it.”
“What will you guys be doing?”
Sunday shrugged. “Maybe a movie. Getting a bite to eat.”
Ben nodded. “All right. Home by ten.”
“I’m sixteen!”
“Eleven. And call us if you need a ride.”
“Fine.”
Ben’s discipline and rule-setting had never been strange to her because Ben had almost always been around. Sunday’s parents were teenagers when they had her, before her father began dating men and her mother realized she didn’t want to be a mother. She wasn’t in Sunday’s life anymore, but Ben had been there since she was eight years old. Half her life.
And things would soon become even more official because Ben was going to adopt her. They’d all talked about it right before they moved. Ben had brought it up shyly, like he was afraid she’d say no. She had cried from happiness when he asked if it was okay, if she wouldn’t mind him being her father, too. He’d always been so good to her; if anything, she felt like she should be asking him if he was sure.
“I’m glad you’re settling in.” He walked over to kiss the top of her head. “I just want you to be careful.”
She spooned up another bite of oats. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Let’s make that a promise, Sun,” Ben said, stealing a blueberry from her bowl.
* * *
Micah met her at her locker after the last bell.
“Ready?”
Sunday put away the books she wouldn’t need over the weekend and slammed the door shut. “Yeah, where are we going?”
“My house,” he said, leading the way to the parking lot. “I told everyone to come over in, like, an hour.”
“Are your parents out of town?”
“No, they’re just never home and don’t give a shit what I do.” He shrugged. “They don’t really give a shit when they’re home, either.”
Sunday couldn’t imagine a life like that. Her dad and Ben seemed to be aware of everything she was doing at all times, even though she was never really doing anything they’d object to.
Micah slowed in front of a silver Mercedes. A black guy Sunday had never seen was leaning against the hood, arms crossed and brows furrowed. He turned his glare on Micah as they approached.
“Is this your car?” She didn’t mean to sound so incredulous. After all, this was Los Angeles, and the rest of the cars in the parking lot certainly weren’t shabby by comparison. But Micah had been so strange about admitting he lived in Beverly Hills, she was surprised to see he drove such an obviously luxurious car.
“About time you showed up,” the guy grumbled.
Micah ignored her question and the guy’s comment and sighed. “Meet my brother, Eli. E., this is Sunday.”
The frown on Eli’s face relaxed into an almost-smile as he looked at her. “Hey.” He paused. “Your name is Sunday?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten that question this week, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Sunday shrugged. “I sit next to a girl named Whisper in studio art.”
He gave her a full smile this time and an almost-laugh. “Touché. You rolling with us?”
Eli didn’t look so much like Micah. He was bulkier and missing a dimple, and he seemed cranky for no reason. But she instantly liked him, just as she’d instantly liked Micah.
As it turned out, Micah’s definition of fancy varied vastly from hers because their house was exactly the type of home she pictured when she thought of Beverly Hills. They had to pass through a set of security gates, where the guard at the booth greeted Micah like they were best friends.
Their house wasn’t the biggest on the street, but it was objectively impressive. There was a sprawling emerald-green lawn and a long circular drive and elaborate detailing on the outside that made her think the inside was probably even more gorgeous.
“This is totally Beverly Hills fancy,” Sunday said accusingly as she got out of the passenger seat.
Eli climbed out behind her. “Micah likes to pretend we’re poor. It’s better for his image.”
“Shut the fuck up, E.,” Micah said, slamming his door.
Sometimes Sunday wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. Her father and Ben had considered adopting a child from the foster care system years ago, and even went so far as to discuss it with her, but they ultimately decided they were happy with one child. They always said she was such a good kid they didn’t want to jinx it. Most of the time Sunday felt glad, but sometimes even sibling rivalry made her a little envious. Having a brother or sister was a connection she’d never know.
Micah left her alone with Eli while he went upstairs to drop off his backpack and the bag with all his dance gear that he lugged back and forth each day.
“Your house is great,” Sunday said, gazing around the foyer. Her voice echoed back to her.
“Yeah, it’s one thing our parents didn’t fuck up,” Eli said.
She followed him to the kitchen, which was three times the size of the one at her new house. Eli opened the door on the giant refrigerator and waved her over. “Want something to drink?”
The fridge was fully stocked. Sunday felt almost dizzy as she stared at all her options. It looked like they were throwing a full-on party later. She finally chose a can of ginger ale and stepped aside as Eli slipped a bottle of Bud Light off the shelf. He twisted off the cap and took a long swallow.
He noticed her staring and raised an eyebrow. “You want one?”
Sunday shook her head.
“You don’t drink?”
“Not as, like, a statement. I just never have.”
“That’s cool.” He took another sip, then said, “I only drink.”
“What?”
Eli hopped up on the counter next to the sink, swinging his legs back and forth so the heels of his sneakers bumped against the cabinets. “I mean, I don’t do anything else. Like smoke weed or take molly or whatever.”
Sunday sipped her ginger ale and nodded. Eli was still watching her, and she got the feeling he wanted to say more. But then Micah walked in.
“I’m fucking starving,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “You guys want to order pizza or something?”
Eli looked away.
* * *
People started trickling in about an hour later. Most of them Sunday knew from her lunch table, and she felt a little more at ease when she realized she wouldn’t have to sit in a room full of complete strangers.
Eli was friendly enough with everyone, but he didn’t seem to have any friends in the crowd, and she suddenly wondered how old he was. He didn’t look significantly younger than his brother, but he seemed to instinctually defer to whatever Micah wanted. Then again, he’d seemed totally comfortable cracking open a beer earlier, and he hadn’t stopped drinking.
They moved the pizza boxes and a bunch of drinks to the game room. Sunday’s eyes widened as she took in the enormous screen where they projected TV shows and movies onto the wall like a small cinema, the various game consoles in the cabinet beneath it, and the pinball machines and shuffleboard and poker tables scattered throughout. She wondered what her dad and Ben would think about this room. Her house had plenty of space for the three of them, with big, open rooms and a huge backyard, but the lack of a fourth bedroom meant they had to combine the guest room with Ben’s home office.
“Having fun?” Eli strolled up behind her just as she’d lost another game on the Twilight Zone pinball machine.
Sunday startled. No one had come up to her all afternoon—they waved from across the room or smiled when she squeezed past them, but that was it. Nobody besides Micah and his brother seemed remotely interested in getting to know her. And Micah had been hard to keep up with all afternoon. He kept disappearing, sometimes alone but often with one or two people.
She shrugged, unsure of how to respond. Eli seemed like the type of person who would call bullshit when someone lied to his face. And besides, Sunday wasn’t exactly the best liar around. She was pretty terrible, actually.
Eli was holding two beers. He tipped the unopened one toward her. “Want one?”
“I still don’t drink,” she said, frowning.
“Cool, cool. Thought you might have changed your mind. It sure makes these things more tolerable.” He sipped from his bottle. “Want to take a tour of the house?”
Sunday wondered if this was some grand excuse to get her alone. But Eli didn’t seem like a creep. A little more serious than Micah, maybe—and certainly more surly—but not a bad guy.
“Okay,” she said, and followed him out of the game room.
The Richmond home was probably the nicest house Sunday had ever been in. The art alone was enough to ease her anxiety of being at a party where she felt so out of place. Some of it was created by artists she didn’t know, but she spotted an original Rothko, an Andy Warhol sketch, and a painting by Aaron Douglas that she’d never seen but instantly recognized as his.
“Your parents have incredible taste in art,” she murmured, taking her time to look at it all as they wandered through the house.
Eli shrugged. “I don’t know anything about art.”
“I do.”
They were on the second floor now, wandering the halls that she figured must hold the bedrooms.
“What’s so special about it?” he asked, taking a long drink. He was on the second bottle he’d brought along, having abandoned the first one on a side table earlier, as if he knew someone would clean it up for him.
“Art?”
“Yeah. I mean, my parents bid on all this expensive shit, and then it just hangs here and they don’t even look at it.”
Sunday shook her head. “We go to an arts-and-sciences school. You really feel that way about it?”
“You’re an artist?”
“Sort of. But I mostly want to work with it. I’m interested in the artists and the time periods and genres they worked in. And the mediums they preferred and their inspiration and—” She cut herself off, embarrassed. Those were practically the most words she’d spoken since she’d arrived. “Sorry.”
Eli grinned. “I’m a math guy. Tell me more.”
They were sitting on the floor of his bedroom when Micah stuck his head in.
“You okay here?” he asked Sunday, not looking at his brother.
Beside her, she could feel Eli’s body tense. They weren’t even touching, just sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of his bed, but she felt the change in him instantly.
“Just trying to explain to your brother why art saves lives,” she said, only half joking.
Micah rolled his eyes. “Good luck with that. This one avoids culture like it’s a fucking disease.”
“Oh, just because I don’t want to go to all your little dance performances, I’m uncultured?” Eli narrowed his eyes. “Fuck off, Micah.”
Sunday had been in the middle of arguments before, but she’d never felt this level of animosity. Her father and Ben rarely disagreed in front of her, and the church kids back in Chicago didn’t argue like this. Sometimes they’d raised their voices, but it never got to the point where she was worried they might start throwing punches.
Micah ignored Eli, letting him have the last word. “Gonna go on a beer run,” he said, looking at Sunday. “Want to come with?”
There didn’t seem to be a right answer here. If she left with Micah, Eli would clearly be pissed. But he seemed so easily angered, and she didn’t really feel like being around that energy now. And she was here because Micah had invited her.
She slowly stood, avoiding Eli’s eyes. “Want us to grab you anything?” she asked, but he never answered her, and after a few seconds of silence, Micah nodded toward the hallway, signaling they should go.
Sunday couldn’t believe he would just leave all his friends to fend for themselves in that huge, nice house. She wasn’t sure Eli could be trusted to oversee things, especially in the mood they’d left him in. The art alone was worth millions of dollars. Did Micah trust all of them, or did he just not care?
“Do you guys ever get along?” she asked, looking out the windows. It was completely dark, and the neighborhood appeared different now that the sun had gone down. The houses were cast in haloes of light that made everything look even bigger and more ornate.
“Used to.” Micah sighed. “He’s a couple of years younger than us. I think he sort of expected everything would be the same once he got to high school—that, you know, we’d still hang out all the time.”
“What changed?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t really like my friends, I guess. They don’t like him much either,” he added with a wry smile. “And I think the dance stuff freaks him out.”
“Maybe he’s jealous.”
“He’s not jealous. We both used to do everything—play every sport, dance, play instruments. When we got older, I dropped everything but dance. Honestly, I think he stopped taking lessons because some of the guys at school were talking shit. Like, that he was gay or whatever.”
“Oh.”
Sunday wasn’t immune to some of the looks her father and Ben got when they were around certain people. They were different looks from when people seemed surprised or annoyed to see a black person in their presence. She could always tell when it was about her dad and Ben’s relationship because the glares ignored her and included Ben, who was white.
“I don’t give a shit about any of that,” Micah almost spat out. “I like to dance, and I’m good at it, and fuck anyone who’s bothered by it.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“Gay,” she said quietly, suddenly aware of how rude a question that was. It was personal, and even though he’d been exceedingly kind and welcoming to her the past week, she didn’t know if they were actual friends yet.
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Are you one of those people who’s bothered by it?”
“No, I . . . My dad is gay. I live with him and his husband.”
Soon she’d be able to say she lived with her dads—plural. Sunday wondered how long it would take to get used to that, but she liked the sound of it.
Micah nodded, back at ease. “That’s cool. And no, I’m not. But I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life answering that question because people can’t wrap their head around the fact that dancing has nothing to do with sexuality.”
At the store Micah told her to stay in the car while he got the beer. “They always take my fake here, but you look young,” he said. “No point in pushing my luck.” He came back with three twelve-packs and a bag of chips and beef jerky.
They were quiet on the ride back to the house. Micah pulled into the drive, stopped the car, and turned to her.
“You’re the first person I’ve seen him talking to in a long time,” Micah said. “Eli. He doesn’t get along with a lot of people.”
“Okay.” Did he want her to be nice to his brother as a favor? She appreciated how kind Micah had been since her first day at Brinkley, but she didn’t owe him.
Micah didn’t say anything else. Just nodded and opened his door. So Sunday did the same.
* * *
The next week, Sunday saw Eli walking toward her in the hallway after the last bell. He was loping along with his head bowed and his thumbs looped through the straps of his backpack, elbows pointed down. She wasn’t sure if he was still mad at her, but she didn’t want to make things any weirder.
“Hey, stranger,” she said to get his attention before he passed.
Eli looked up, his face cycling through a range of emotions as he stopped and looked at Sunday: surprise, scorn, and then a resigned sort of happiness that she knew meant he was pleased to see her, even if he was doing his best not to show it. “What’s up?”
“Just heading to the studio,” she said, nodding toward the room across the hall.
“You have to make up an assignment?” He looked skeptically toward the door as if he thought the room might turn into a pumpkin after the last bell.
“No, some of us just go in there to work after school sometimes.” She paused. “Have you never been in there?”
“I don’t have art until next semester,” he said, and by the tone of his voice, he clearly wasn’t looking forward to it.
She smiled, shaking her head. “I mean, I know it’s not a chalkboard full of theorems or whatever, but you should come check it out sometime. It’s peaceful. All good vibes.”
He brushed a hand over his head and looked across the hall again. “Maybe some other time.”
Some other time turned out to be the next day and the next day and then the day after that. Sunday went to the studio immediately after her last class, and within five minutes, Eli had joined her. He didn’t talk much. When other people were there, he’d wander the studio, looking at the works in progress from other students—oil paintings propped up on abandoned easels, incomplete sculptures sitting on tables, and a whole mess in the corner that Sunday explained wasn’t actually debris but the components of collages.
When they were alone he sat beside her at the table, watching her work on her drawing. “You don’t get bored?” he asked as he took in the deliberate, detailed strokes she made with a stick of charcoal.
“Bored?”
“You have to do so much to get it right. It looks so tedious.”
“And math isn’t?”
“Math is fun,” he said with a grin.
Later, she walked with him to the performing arts building to wait for Micah, who was wrapping up a practice session in the dance studio. He also stayed after a few times a week, and since Micah was his ride, Sunday wondered what Eli had done to pass the time before he started hanging out with her.
Long horizontal windows ran down one wall of the studio. Sometimes the blinds were drawn across them, but today they were open, so Sunday and Eli could see right in. Micah was alone, and it looked like he was talking to himself as he worked on a routine.
He wore tear-away track pants and a white T-shirt drenched in sweat. His feet were bare. Sunday felt a little guilty watching him. She didn’t mind when Eli sat in the studio with her as she worked, but Micah’s choreography seemed too private. It didn’t feel like the sort of work that would be appreciated if someone saw all the moving parts, but rather something that should only be viewed once it was absolutely perfect.
“Why did you stop dancing?” Sunday turned toward Eli.
His shoulders went stiff. “What do you mean?”
“Micah said you used to dance. And now you don’t. Why?” She didn’t exactly think he’d admit to what Micah had said, that he’d quit because he was worried about how people would view him, but she wanted to hear it from him. Maybe it would help her understand him a little more.
“Because it’s stupid.” Eli shrugged. “He’s always bragging about winning contests or whatever, but it’s a waste of time. There are, like, a million people better than him who want to be choreographers.”
Sunday looked back in the room. What Micah was doing seemed to be anything but a waste of time. And if Micah knew he had an audience, he didn’t let on. After a couple of minutes, he crossed the room, turned on the stereo, and unleashed the choreography that was in his head. And it was gorgeous. Not just the steps, but the way Micah executed them. Sunday had noticed how he always seemed to be aware of the way he held his body, even when they were just walking across campus, but she never could have imagined he moved like this. It was as if his limbs turned into air, as if the music was woven into his muscles. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, wondering each time how high he would leap and how gracefully he would land.
“He’s a drug dealer.”
Sunday was so entranced with the performance that for a moment, Eli’s words didn’t register. She slowly looked away from the dance studio, turning toward him.
“What?”
Eli’s face and neck were ruddy, and she thought he was flushed from embarrassment, but later, she would wonder if it was from exhilaration instead.
“My brother.” He lowered his voice, even though no one else was around. “He’s, like, the school drug dealer.”
Sunday rolled her eyes. “I’m new, not gullible.”
“I’m not kidding, Sunday. He’s who everyone goes to for anything they need.”
“Anything?” She admittedly wasn’t the most well-versed in what people were smoking or swallowing, but her mind instantly went to the antidrug posters of severe addicts with boils on their faces and track marks along their emaciated arms.
“Mostly weed. Some molly. Mushrooms. Pretty basic shit, but . . .”
Sunday’s throat was dry. She was afraid to look at Micah again, worried he’d suddenly morph into a monster she wasn’t aware she’d been hanging out with this whole time. How could she have been so clueless? Why hadn’t he said anything to her?
She glared at Eli. “Why are you telling me this?”
He shrugged again. “Don’t you think you deserve to know?”
The music inside the studio stopped. Sunday looked in, catching Micah’s eye. He waved and held up a finger, signaling he wanted her to wait for him.
When he turned to grab his shoes and towel, she turned and walked out to the parking lot where Ben was waiting for her.
* * *
Micah was already sitting in first period when Sunday arrived the next day.
She said hello without looking at him, then felt him watching as she dropped her bag at her feet and slipped into her chair.
“Everything cool? You kind of ran off yesterday,” he said, tapping a pencil against the side of his desk.
Sunday glanced at his hands. She felt as if they should look different now that she knew what he used them for. But they looked exactly the same, and when she got up the nerve to meet Micah’s eyes, he looked exactly the same, too.
She shook her head, unable to come up with a response.
Micah leaned in close, bending at the waist so only she could hear him. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Sunday’s head whipped toward him, her mouth open.
“Eli told me you know.” Micah sighed. “He made it sound like it slipped out, but nothing is an accident with him. He really hates not being involved in what I’m doing.”
Sunday looked at him curiously, still silent.
“Like the dance thing . . . Maybe it’s because he was worried about what people would think, but honestly, he wasn’t ever that good.” Micah paused. “He would get so mad when the teachers praised me and didn’t say anything to him. And he’d go into, like, a full-on rage at home if they corrected him in front of the class . . . which happens to everyone in every dance class.”
Sunday frowned. She didn’t want to talk about Eli. “You couldn’t just say it? Like, hi, I’m Micah and I sell—”
“Knock it off,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you really have no idea how this works?”
Sunday’s eyes darted around the room, but no one was paying attention to them.
“I thought you’d figure it out,” he said in a softer tone a few moments later. “But then you didn’t, or I thought maybe you were just cool with it and didn’t want to talk about it, and . . . I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”
“Why?” she whispered. “I don’t get it. You don’t need the money.”
Mr. Moore arrived then, juggling an armful of books and a coffee.
“To be continued,” Micah said, turning to face the front of the room.
After the bell they walked like normal to their second class, but Sunday felt like things between them were anything but normal.
“I’m still the same person,” he said without looking at her.
Sunday considered this. She knew he was right and that she wasn’t being entirely fair by judging him. It wasn’t so much about the drugs. The idea of them made her nervous, and she wondered exactly how much and what had been stashed in his house when they were there. This reminded her of Emma Franklin, who was in their youth group back in Chicago. That is, until she’d gotten pregnant and stopped coming to meetings and hangouts. No one stopped inviting her, but it was understood that they couldn’t just pretend like everything was the same once her belly started swelling. Sunday hadn’t been particularly close with Emma, but she couldn’t help feeling like she’d been betrayed by her. Emma had worn a purity ring and pretended like she was as inexperienced with guys as Sunday, and then one day she was pregnant.
It wasn’t that Micah had betrayed her, but Sunday guessed she would have preferred to hear it from him instead of his brother.
“Why do you do it?” she asked again.
They stopped outside the building.
“Because . . . I don’t know, Sunday,” he said with a tinge of annoyance. “Because it feels good to not be the spoiled Beverly Hills kid everyone thinks I am when they hear who my parents are or see where we live. Because it’s so different from what everyone else knows about me. It’s not like it’s going to be a career. I’ll quit doing it after we graduate . . . maybe before.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He cocked his head to the side as he eyed her. “We’re good?”
Her father and Ben would kill her if they knew she was hanging out with the school drug dealer, but they’d never have to know if she didn’t tell them. Besides, it wasn’t like she wanted to be his girlfriend.
“We’re good,” she said. “But . . . is there anything else?”
Micah shook his head. “What about you? Are you really so . . . virtuous?”
“I’m not virtuous. That makes me sound like a nun.”
But she knew it appeared that way, and not for the first time, Sunday wondered if that meant she was simply boring.
* * *
Ms. Bailey was in the art room when Sunday walked in after school.
She waved from her desk in the corner, then pushed her glasses up on her nose and went back to whatever she was scribbling in a notebook. Bailey was everyone’s favorite because she mostly left them alone, but she knew her shit when it came to art, and she always knew what their work needed for them to take it to the next level.
Eli walked in a few minutes later, after Sunday had unpacked the materials from her portfolio and spread them out on her desk.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down next to her.
“Hi.” Sunday picked up the piece of charcoal but couldn’t bring herself to start drawing.
“You know, it’s still cool if we hang out, right?”
Sunday looked at him. “What?”
“I mean, just because you and Micah aren’t friends anymore—”
She frowned. “Who said that?”
Eli’s eyebrows twitched. “Well, I just thought . . . I mean, you seemed pretty upset about what I told you.”
He glanced toward Bailey, but she wasn’t paying their conversation any mind.
“I was . . . surprised,” Sunday said with a shrug. “I’m not going to stop being his friend. It’s not like he’s pushing anything on me or selling to kids or something.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But what?” Sunday practically snapped. She wished he would just say whatever he had to say and get it over with.
“Nothing. Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, do you want to come over again sometime? There’s some more art you didn’t see—some stuff you might like or whatever.”
Sunday wasn’t feeling particularly fond of Eli at the moment, but she felt bad for him. He was younger than them and insecure, like Micah had mentioned. He was trying to smooth things over, and if it meant another chance to look at that Aaron Douglas piece, the one she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since she’d been there, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
* * *
She went to their house after school again on Friday, but this time it was just the three of them.
They made grilled cheese sandwiches, stuffing them with bacon and tomato. Eli heated up three cans of spicy tomato soup and they ate in front of the TV, where Micah queued up online videos of some of his favorite choreography.
Sunday expected Eli to complain about the videos or Micah’s overall presence, but he seemed to be in good spirits. She’d been skeptical about coming over, but she was glad she’d decided to. Everything seemed to be normal, or at least the normal she’d been used to for the last two weeks.
Micah scooped up the dishes, carrying an armful to the kitchen. Sunday turned to Eli.
“Can I look at the Aaron Douglas painting again?” She’d been trying to be patient, but this was the reason she’d come over, after all.
“The who?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled him up from the couch by his arm. Eli happily followed her to the staircase and up to the painting.
“He was a Harlem Renaissance artist,” Sunday said, leaning in closer to inspect the piece. “He was a painter and an illustrator who—”
Suddenly, Eli’s face swooped in front of hers, and he was kissing her. His lips were too wet and his breath was too hot, and everything about it was wrong. Sunday put her hand on his chest, pushing him away.
“What are you doing?”
Eli blinked at her, as if this reaction wasn’t something he’d ever considered.
“Eli, I . . .” She bit her lip and chewed for a moment. “I like you, but . . . not like that.”
“Oh.” He swallowed hard, his dark eyes focused on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry if I . . .” But she trailed off, because there was nothing to apologize for. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been nice to him and hung out with him after school. She hadn’t flirted with him or led him to believe she liked him. “I’m sorry, but I just want to be friends.”
“Sunday!” Micah shouted from downstairs. “I found another video I want to show you!”
She looked at Eli, who was standing with slumped shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s—” He brushed past her, thundering down the stairs.
A few seconds later, she followed, but Eli had already disappeared. She didn’t see him again that night, not even when she tried to find him to say good-bye before Micah drove her home.
* * *
Sunday had art class during fourth period, just before lunch. On Monday, like every day, Bailey greeted them at the start of class, going over what they should be working on and when it was due. Then she left them to their own devices, strolling through the room to track their individual progress and see if they needed help.
Sunday was still working on her charcoal drawing. Bailey had asked her to start with the bowl of plastic fruit sitting on the table up front. It was a pretty basic assignment, but she knew Bailey wanted to see what she could do in her room, and Sunday planned to give it to her farmer’s market–loving father when she was done.
Sunday was moving a little slower that day, still groggy from the weekend. She couldn’t get Eli and the kiss out of her mind, though. She hadn’t seen him since he’d run away from her at his house, but she hoped they could go back to normal. She hadn’t told Micah. She’d bet money that Eli was too embarrassed to have said anything, either.
“How’s the charcoal going, Sunday?” Bailey was at her elbow, holding a paper cup of coffee from the faculty lounge.
“Pretty good, I think?” Sunday unzipped her portfolio, rooting around for her sketchbook among the loose papers and class handouts.
She pulled out the book. There was something squeezed between the pages, leaving a gap in the middle. Sunday flipped it open, thinking one of her pencils or gum erasers had gotten wedged inside.
She didn’t understand what she was seeing at first. It was a plastic sandwich bag, the kind that zipped closed along the top. That much was clear. But as for what was inside . . .
“What’s this?” Bailey frowned, setting her coffee cup on the corner of the table. She picked up the bag between her index finger and thumb, only looking at the contents for a few seconds before she sighed deeply. “Is this yours?”
“I don’t . . . I mean, this is my book and my bag, but I don’t know what that is.”
“Pack up your things and come with me, Sunday,” Bailey said, her voice harboring what had to be every ounce of disappointment in the world.
The room was completely silent. Everyone was watching, eyes wide and mouths open. Others were already on their phones, texting furiously.
Magic mushrooms. They looked like regular old mushrooms, with stems and caps, but these were the sort that made a person hallucinate. That’s what the head of school said when Bailey dropped the bag on her desk.
“Sunday, the Brinkley School has a zero-tolerance policy,” Ms. Ashforth said. She didn’t seem livid, like Sunday had feared, but she was unsmiling, and one of her eyebrows appeared to be permanently furrowed. As if Sunday didn’t already know how serious this was. Zero tolerance meant expulsion.
“They’re not . . . I’ve never done a drug in my life,” she said in a voice so soft she wasn’t sure they could hear her. “I’ve never even seen any.”
Ashforth exchanged a look with Bailey. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Then tell us where you got them or whose they are, and we’ll go from there.”
“I didn’t get them from anyone. They just showed up in my bag, I swear.”
Bailey sighed. “This will be so much easier for everyone if you tell us the truth, Sunday.”
“I am telling the truth,” she said, though she knew they didn’t believe her and probably never would.
“Do you have any idea who could have put this in your bag, then?” Ashforth again. “If it wasn’t you, we need to know where else to look. Otherwise, we’ll have to call your parents to come down here to talk about next steps.”
She didn’t even want to think about how angry her father and Ben would be. They trusted her, but more than that, she knew how much her father expected from her. She couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t explicitly stated how differently people viewed them because of their skin color—how she had to work twice as hard at everything she did, simply because she was black. There was a huge list of activities that Sunday had always known were not an option, no matter how forgiving other parents might be: getting pregnant, drinking and doing drugs—even bringing home a grade lower than a C (which, to be honest, he was pretty peeved at anything below an A). Getting caught with drugs—hers or someone else’s—was certainly at the top of that list.
Sunday knew without a doubt where the shrooms had come from. She wasn’t positive who had placed them in her bag, but in that moment, she felt Eli’s hot breath on her skin, his unwelcome lips pressing against hers. . . .
“Sunday?” Bailey prompted her. She got the feeling Bailey wanted her to be cleared from this just as much as Sunday did.
But she couldn’t speak. Even as she thought of Eli’s spitefulness, the way he’d tried to get her to stop liking Micah by revealing his secret, she knew she couldn’t tell. If she ratted him out, he’d tell on Micah, and Micah didn’t deserve that. He’d been doing his thing long before she got there—she couldn’t make everything come crashing down for him in just two weeks. He didn’t deserve it.
And she thought of Emma Franklin, the pregnant girl back in Chicago. The youth pastors, parents, and even their friends had tried to get Emma to reveal who the father of her baby was. But Emma never told. Sunday didn’t know if she was protecting someone in the youth group or maybe an older guy she was never supposed to be seeing, but Emma kept her mouth shut, and even after she virtually disappeared, the secret never got out. Sunday had always respected that, even if other people called Emma cowardly and immature.
Sunday wasn’t sure what her father would do; she’d never been kicked out of anything. Or been in any trouble, really. What if this meant she couldn’t get into any other private schools in the city? Or that she couldn’t study art in a place where people respected it? They’d searched long and hard for Brinkley, and there’d been a huge celebration when she was accepted. They had been so proud, her father and Ben. She didn’t want to think about how they’d look at her now. She didn’t want to think about the fact that they might not believe the mushrooms weren’t hers.
But most of all, she didn’t want to listen to that little voice at the back of her head. The one that said maybe it wasn’t her father at all who would be the most upset—that maybe this would disappoint Ben so much that he’d no longer want to adopt her. What if he decided she was too much trouble, that he didn’t want to be the official dad of someone stupid enough to get caught with drugs? She knew he wouldn’t announce something like that, but she also knew it would be much worse if they just became silent about the topic—swept it under the rug until they thought she’d forgotten about it and was too embarrassed to bring it up herself.
She wanted Eli to pay for what he’d done, but was it worth ruining Micah’s life too?
The second hand on the clock in Ashforth’s office ticked and ticked, counting down to the worst decision Sunday had ever had to make.
“Call my dad,” she finally said, her voice quiet.
Bailey closed her eyes and exhaled. Ashforth shook her head as she reached for the phone.
Sunday’s lips trembled but—with the last amount of dignity she could muster—she kept her mouth closed and held her head high.