Chapter 1Days I’ve Lost My List Journal
“FRANK SINATRA.”
“Which song?” Auden asks.
“Just write Frank Sinatra.”
“But Mr. Green wants us to be specific.”
Carter sighs. He’s sitting in the grass across from me, his arms hugging his kneecaps, arguing with Auden. I’m too distracted to pay attention, watching Carter roll up the sleeves of his T-shirt, the white fabric contrasting against his dark skin. I’ve never been grouped with him before, but now that we’re here, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything outside his physicality.
When he moved here sophomore year, I remember thinking he looked different from the rich white boys I’d always been surrounded by—them and their Bermuda shorts and collared shirts, him and his dingy T-shirts and baggy basketball shorts. I couldn’t look away. But when he finally met my gaze, he instantly dropped it. I don’t know. For some reason I thought he’d see me,
really see me, considering we have the same dark complexion, but no. He looked at me just as apathetically as he looked at everyone else.
“Huh, Quinn?”
I look up from the stubble on Carter’s chin to find him staring back at me, his brows pinched, like he’s wondering if I’m mental.
My cheeks warm as I cover my mouth with my fingertips. “What was the question?” I ask Auden, too afraid to look at Carter again. This is the third time he’s caught me gawking today.
Auden shifts his eyes impatiently. “Any soundtrack suggestions for our JFK screenplay? The project we’ve been working on for hours now.”
I lower my hand to the base of my throat. Right. I swallow and look for answers in the cloudless sky. “What songs do we have so far?” I stall, plucking a few blades of grass.
Auden checks the list in his lap with an exasperated sigh. That’s the thing about Auden: he’s sweet, but he has absolutely no chill. I’ve been grouped with him before, and the second we got our assignment, he started dishing out commands. He’s also the type to do all the work in a group, because no one ever follows his orders just right. People tend to take advantage of that. I’m trying my best to not become one of those people, but Carter . .
Get ahold of yourself, Quinn!
While Auden continues reading songs from our soundtrack list, I pull my red spiral out of my backpack, then flip past my to-do lists and my how-tos, all the way to the back section for miscellaneous lists. If I can get my thoughts about Carter all out at once, then maybe I can focus on JFK’s assassination.
CARTER IS . . .
- Cool. In every respect of the word.
- Attractive. As. Hell.
- A “real Black guy,” as I’ve heard it put around the halls of our predominantly white private school, which makes me wonder about the authenticity of my own Blackness. I’ve never heard anyone call me a “real Black girl.” In fact, I’ve only ever heard the opposite. I bet he never has to deal with white people telling Black jokes around him. Must be nice.
- A back-of-the-classroom, forehead-perpetually-glued-to-his-desk kind of
- A player? I’ve heard rumors about him and Emily Hayes getting busy at a party last year. It’s never been confirmed, though.
- Kinda antisocial. He doesn’t typically hang around the white kids at school, which means he doesn’t have many friends. I only see him talk to Olivia Thomas. Every time I see them laughing together, it makes me wish I had Black friends too.
“Hilary.” I peek up from my list into Carter’s curious eyes. “You know we can only turn in one list for the group, right?”
He can’t see my journal, but it feels like he knows I’m writing about him. Cheeks on fire, I slam it shut. “That’s not what I’m doing.” I drop my gaze to the glossy red cover. “And please stop calling me that. I’m nothing like her.”
He’s been calling me Hilary ever since he got to my house today. He stepped out of Auden’s Nissan Versa, looked up at my house like he was Will in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and said, “Yoooo, I didn’t know you lived like this. Over here living like Hilary Banks and shit.”
I think I’m at least an Ashley.
student—really adds to his mystique. He never shares his thoughts in class, so suddenly having access to them must be why I’m so shell-shocked right now.
- Not materialistic, like the other boys at our school. He couldn’t care less about brand names. If it still works, it’s good enough for him. I like that. I consider myself pretty low-maintenance too.
- Conscientious of how he smells. I can smell him from here, and it’s nothing like the obnoxious colognes the other boys wear. Carter simply smells clean.
- Unwilling to date girls from our school, which is quite disheartening.
He looks at me, amused, his arms resting on his knees. “I guess you’re smarter than Hilary. But I bet you’re just as spoiled as her. All you gotta do to get your way is cry ‘Daddy.’”
“Excuse me?” I say, taken aback. “I am not spoiled.”
“And you sound just like her, too!” He laughs, throwing his head back.
“I do not!” I lower my voice. “I don’t sound anything like her.”
He shakes his head, playfully tsk-tsking. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Hilary.”
I roll my eyes like I’m annoyed, but honestly, I’m buzzing off his attention. I’m not used to Carter doing much more than glancing at me and immediately looking away.
“Who’s Hilary?” Auden asks, reminding us that we’re not alone.
“That’s way before your time, buddy.” Carter stands up, pulling his white tee down over the band of his black basketball shorts. He steps toward me, his body blocking my sun. “I need to use your restroom real quick. Show me where it is?”
I could easily give him directions (through the foyer and living room, it’ll be the first door on the right), but he’s offering me an opportunity to be alone with him. How could I refuse?
My pulse blares in my ears as he follows me to the back door.
“Excuse me. Where are you going?” my mom asks from her chair on the patio. She’s been scrolling through her phone, “chaperoning,” as if we’re not all seniors in high school, two months away from graduating.
“Just showing Carter to the bathroom.”
She turns back to her phone. “Okay. Come right back, Quinn.”
I stop myself from sighing. I mean, I get it. She’s not used to me having a boy in the house who isn’t our neighbor, Matt. Especially not a tall, dark, and handsome Black boy.
When the door shuts behind him, I’m acutely aware of how big and empty the kitchen is. How we’re completely alone. How, as I lead him into the living room, I have no idea where his eyes are. I run my hair from the back of my neck over my shoulder.
“Nice house you got here, Hilary.”
I turn around and walk backward past the spotless white couch and the wooden end tables. “Why are you still calling me that? Didn’t we establish that I’m smarter than her?” I’m smirking, playing his little game.
But then he says, “Are you, though?”
My back hits the doorframe of the half bath. “Is that a joke?”
“I mean”—he shrugs, making his way toward me, gazing at the living room furniture—“getting into Columbia doesn’t mean you’re smart. It just means you’re rich.”
My stomach twists at the mention of Columbia. His tone isn’t playful anymore, and neither is his expression. My smirk wanes as he joins me in the doorway, so close I can smell his clean scent.
He says, “Which, obviously, you’re very rich,” motioning to the multi-thousand-dollar vase on the mantel and the sixty-inch landscape electric fireplace. He sounds bitter about it. Then he eyes me from my flip-flops to the top of my poofy hair. “Girls like you ain’t gotta work nearly as hard as somebody like me.”
My jaw tightens. He has no idea what I’ve had to work for. And even if I am rich, I’m still one of only five Black kids at our school. I have to deal with the same racist bullshit he does.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
He hums in thought, holding up his index finger. “I know you got into Columbia.”
Another pang in my stomach.
He narrows his eyes and lowers his voice. “But I also know you’re struggling in all your classes.”
My brows shoot up. “How do you know that?” I ask before I even consider hiding the fact that he’s right.
“It’s obvious.” He smiles. “And I’m observant.”
It’s obvious that I’m struggling? It’s not like I advertise my less-than-spectacular grades, so what the hell does he know about my struggle? And, anyway, who is he to talk? He never says a word in class, much less picks up a pen to take notes. I doubt his grades are much better than mine.
He nods while taking inventory of all our furniture. “I bet your dad donated a library or something.” His condescending eyes land on me. “That’s the only way I figure you could’ve gotten into Columbia.”
He says you like he knows exactly how unimpressive I am. His presumption crawls under my skin and nests there.
“You know what? The toilet’s right there.” I nudge my head to the left. “Help yourself.” Then I shoulder past him.
Who does he think he is? I’ve said all of two words to this guy, and he thinks he knows everything about me. Did I say he was attractive? My mistake. He looks like the dirt beneath my shoes. That’s about as much as he interests me now.
I slam the patio door, rattling the back windows. My mom’s head snaps up. Her eyes ask me if I’ve lost my damn mind.
“Sorry,” I say preemptively.
Auden’s got his head down, studying the soundtrack list, when I walk up. I grab my list journal and flip to the new list about Carter.
“Everything okay?” Auden asks.
“Perfect.”
CARTER IS . . .
- 10. A judgmental asshole.
- 11. A know-it-all, holier-than-thou, pretentious bastard.
- 12. Not as great as he looks. I wish I never got a peek into his ugly thoughts.
I’m thinking of more insults when he waltzes through the back door with a smug smile. I don’t acknowledge him as he sits in the grass.
“Your dad’s home,” he says, smiling, but then his smile falters, like he’s having a hard time holding it up. “When he saw me, he thought I was a burglar.” Carter drops his eyes, pressing his lips tight. “Guess he’s not used to seeing a real nigga in his house.”
My stomach squeezes, a cold sweat washing over me. Auden looks up.
“So, I’m gonna go.” Carter nods, angry and disappointed and hurt. He looks like he’s way past saying I told you so. I told you I know exactly who you are. But he’s mistaken. This has to be a mistake.
I drop my journal in the grass and rush back to the patio. Mom notices the hurricane winds beneath my arms. “Quinn, what’s wrong?”
I catch my dad in the kitchen, as he’s taking the first step up the stairs, work shoes in hand. “What did you say to Carter?”
He looks at me over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “Who is Carter?” He’s playing dumb, and I don’t have time for it.
I point behind me. “The boy who just walked through that door. He’s under the impression you thought he was a burglar.”
“Desmond, really?” Mom hisses, closing the back door behind her.
“I did not think he was a burglar.” He scrunches his face. “My entire house was empty except for a stranger coming out of my bathroom. All I did was ask what business he had in my house.”
I roll my eyes, shaking my head. I can just imagine it now: Carter comes out of the bathroom as my dad walks through the foyer, having already taken his shoes off at the door. When they see each other, my dad’s voice booms, What are you doing in my house?, the accusation clear in his eyes. But he won’t admit it, and he won’t apologize for it. He never apologizes for anything.
“You asked him why he was in our house? Obviously, he’s my classmate,” I say.
“I’ve met a lot of your classmates, but I’ve never seen that boy before.”
“I can’t believe you, Desmond,” Mom says.
His eyes snap to hers. “Wendy, you’re one to talk.”
“Excuse me? I would never assume he’s a criminal. Based on what? The way he looks? I’m from Chicago—”
My dad throws his arms up, letting his shoes drop to the floor. “Here we go. You’re from Chicago. We know, Wendy! How about you not bring it up every chance you get?”
Great. They’ve found an excuse to fight.
But the kitchen falls silent when the patio door opens. Carter and Auden walk inside with their backpacks on their backs, entirely aware of what they’re interrupting. I’m standing between my parents, mortified.
Mom says with her charming hostess smile, “You’re leaving already?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Auden says. “Thanks for having us.”
“Would you like anything for the road? Carter?” She asks him specifically, trying to smooth over the debacle with my father.
“No, ma’am,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. Then he walks past me, disgusted.
“See you at school, Quinn,” Auden calls. Carter says nothing.
Then the front door closes, and there’s nothing I can do to change his mind about me or my rich, entitled family.
Mom zeroes in on Dad. “You insulted that boy. You ought to apologize.”
“I’m not apologizing. If he thinks I assumed he was a criminal, then I think that says more about him than it does about me.”
Mom laughs, walking past me to the bar. “You never take responsibility for how you make people feel.”
“I’m not responsible for other people’s screwed-up perceptions. All I did was ask him what he was doing in my house. I did nothing wrong!”
“You never do anything wrong, Desmond!”
This fight isn’t about Carter anymore.
Having heard enough, I go outside and try to extract the disgust in Carter’s eyes out of my head. What must he think of us? I don’t even know what I think of us. I don’t know exactly what happened, but it’s shameful that he had to experience that in a Black home. My home.
Even from the patio, I can hear them screaming. It’s never enough to just go outside, so I leave. I go to Matt’s house next door and climb onto his trampoline, doing all I can to keep my dress down in the process. I text him: I’m on base. Where are you?
After a few seconds he texts back: Omw.
I stretch my legs in front of me and wait, flexing my calves and scrutinizing the polish on my toenails. Every second adds weight to the thump of my heartbeat.
Then his back door opens. He steps outside wearing a red-and-black Hayworth Private School shirt and bright-yellow board shorts, no shoes. Then he takes off in a sprint, his perfect brown hair flopping in the wind. When he reaches the edge of the trampoline, he springs up and over the side, bouncing me up, forcing me to hold my dress down around my legs. I laugh against my will.
He sits at my toes, spread-eagling his legs. “Quinnly.” He smiles, and my spirit soars at the sight of him.
“Mattly,” I say, my smile not nearly as bright.
He picks up on it, his lips falling. “What’s wrong?” Then he grabs my feet and pulls himself closer. He leans down, crossing his arms over my shins.
We like to play this seesaw game, where I push back on his chest with my toes, and he pushes down on my feet with his chest. He says it’s a good way to exercise my calves, while at the same time, he gets to stretch his thighs. He’s a soccer player, after all, and his body shows it.
I have no need to condition my calves—I hate soccer—but this game we play always makes me
feel lighter. “My parents are at it again,” I say, losing myself in the softness and the warmth of his shirt, the rigidness of his chest beneath.
“What’s it about this time?”
“The usual.” I really don’t want to get into the Carter thing. “Dad can never admit when he’s wrong, but clearly my mom yelling at him doesn’t work.”
“It’s better that they yell, though.” He looks up, his blue eyes catching a ray of sunlight. His parents don’t fight—or, rather, they fight silently. It’s just as intense, if not more, than my parents’ shouting. “It’s when they stop fighting that you should worry.” He’s smiling a sad kind of smile.
“Worry about what?”
“Divorce.”
I push my toes into his chest, digging my heels into the trampoline. “Are your parents—”
He shakes his head, tousling his hair onto his forehead, then runs his fingers through it, combing it back in place. “Not until after I move out.”
“How do you know that?”
“I heard them talking about it when they thought I wasn’t around.”
I release my calf muscles, letting the weight of his chest push against the balls of my feet. “I’m sorry, Matt.”
He shrugs. “I guess it sucks, but I won’t be around to see it happen.”
“What about when you come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas break?”
His brow furrows. “I didn’t think about that.” Then he meets my eye, frowning. “Thanks, Quinnly.”
I laugh. “I’m sorry!”
“Way to ruin my perspective.” He laughs too.
I rest my hands behind me, angling my face to the sky. “They’ll feel so guilty about it, you’ll get twice the amount of Christmas presents and double the Thanksgiving dinner.”
“That’s not how my house works. Christmas gifts stopped being a thing after about fourteen.”
“Really?” I ask absentmindedly. The sky is so blue and empty. I take a deep breath, the air just as hot coming into my nostrils as it is going out.
“We ain’t got that Columbia money,” he teases.
I stiffen, pulling my eyes from the sky.
“Better yet, we ain’t got that brand-new-Mercedes-as-a-congratulatory-gift kind of money.”
I cringe, breaking under the guilt. “God, I wish they hadn’t done that.”
“You don’t love the ’Cedes?” I roll my eyes, giving his chest a forceful push with my toes. He laughs, leaning in farther. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I just . . .” I sigh and lie all the way back. My mom will kill me if she finds out I laid my head on this dirty trampoline. “I feel like I don’t deserve it.”
“Quinn, you got into Columbia, for Christ’s sake. Of course you deserve it.”
I close my eyes and squeeze them shut. “No, I don’t.” I whisper it to the wind, afraid to admit exactly why I don’t deserve it. If only he knew. If only my parents knew. They’d trade in that Mercedes so fast.
“And, by the way, I still haven’t gotten a chance to ride in it.”
“No one has.”
“Lies. When your parents surprised you, Destany was the first person to ride in it.”
My whole body turns to stone at the mention of her name. Please don’t ask.
“Speaking of . . .”
Oh God, here we go.
“What’s going on between you two? What happened at Chase’s party last weekend?”
I don’t speak. My eyes are wide open, filled to their capacity with the big blue Texas sky.
“Quinn,” he says, patting the tops of my shins.
“I don’t want to talk about that, Matt.” I don’t even want to think about it.
“I’ve heard some crazy shit.” He hisses the swear word. Matt doesn’t curse unless he means business.
“What have you heard?” I ask, like I don’t already know.
“That you two are fighting over me.”
My eyes flutter closed.
Matt releases my shins and removes his chest from my feet. They feel cold now, and my ankles feel weightless. He crawls around me and sits cross-legged beside my cheek. “Is it true?” he asks.
I roll my neck over and look up into his concerned eyes. “We’re not fighting over you. We’re not even fighting, at this point. Our divorce is finalized.”
He meets my gaze, somber. “If you had a problem with me asking her out, you would have told me, right?”
“Matt, you and I are friends. You can date whoever you want.”
I close my eyes again. Can we just go back to playing seesaw and talking about anything else? Because as much as I may have “had a problem” with Matt asking Destany out, I’m not petty enough to let that ruin a ten-year friendship.
He lifts his legs, gathers a chunk of my hair and plays with it in his lap. I get nervous about the amount of moisturizer I slathered in it this morning and whether he feels it. I pull my hair out of his hands and run it over my other shoulder.
It doesn’t go unnoticed. He lets his hands drop, dejected. “Well, I can’t exactly ask her out now. Not if I want to keep you as a friend.”
I roll over on my side, facing him with my elbow propped up on the trampoline. “That’s true.”
“That’s why I deserve to know.” His blue eyes sweep over my face, down to my hand resting in front of my abdomen. He grabs my fingers within his.
Then the back door creaks open. His mom’s head pops out. “Matt?”
I pull my hand out of his.
“Oh, Quinn.” Her eyes take us in. She smiles. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Hi, Mrs. Radd.” I sit up, straightening my dress.
“Dinner’s ready.” She rests her head against the door. “You’re welcome to join us.”
“Thank you, but I should get going. I’m sure my mom’s cooking something.”
That’s a total lie. My mom hasn’t cooked for me in ages. But I definitely don’t want to stay for dinner, not with Matt asking all these questions about my feelings for him and about Destany—none of which I’m ready to discuss.
“Tell Wendy I said hi.”
I nod, smiling. Then I glance at Matt. He says, “I’ll be right in, Mom.”
“All right.” She lifts her head off the doorframe. “Good seeing you, Quinn.”
“You too.”
Matt turns to me with tired eyes. “You really could stay. I know your mom isn’t cooking.”
I smile. “I should go check on the house to make sure it’s still intact.”
“Could you at least tell me why it’s a secret?”
“It’s for your own good that you don’t know.” And with that I stand up and walk to the edge of the trampoline.
“That just makes me wanna know more.”
I look at him over my shoulder. “I’m wearing a dress. Do you mind turning away?”
He glances down at my bare legs, then sighs and closes his eyes.
I hurry over the edge, phone in hand, doing my best to keep my skirt down in case his mom is watching through the window. When I’ve got my flip-flops back on, I say, “Bye, Mattly. Thanks for meeting me.”
“See ya at school.”
There are so many reasons I can’t tell him what happened between me and Destany. All of which are filling my head as I make my way back to my house, making it hard to think—making it hard to not think.
Like, for one, telling him will make me relive last weekend.
Two, telling him will make him realize who she really is, and that will ruin her for him.
Three, if what I tell him doesn’t ruin her for him, then that will ruin him for me.
Four, he might not think it’s as big a deal as I’m making it.
Five, if he ends up hurting me, too, then I’ll seriously be alone.
I need to write these down, so I can stop obsessing, and so I’ll stop feeling this incessant need to turn around and tell him everything, because maybe he will understand.
Six, he could never fully understand why I feel the way I do, because he’s white.
When I get back to my backyard, I search for my journal in the grass. It’s sitting off to the side of my backpack. When I pick it up, my eyes inspect the stray black ink all over my red cover, and for a few seconds I stare down at it, confused. Where did all this ink come from? I flip to the back cover where I expect to find my name written on the cardboard, only to find random grease splotches.
This is not my journal.
My stomach plummets into my intestines. Impossible. Of course this is my journal. It has to be my journal. I mean, I had it two seconds ago. Didn’t I? I was writing that list about Carter, then I laid it in the grass before I stomped in the house,
and here it is. Somehow the front cover must have gotten inked up. My lists are safe inside. They have to be.
But when I open the spiral, I find Carter’s illegible notes . . . and not my lists.
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