Читать книгу Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America - Ibi Zoboi - Страница 16

“Almost there,” I whisper, straining as my fingers grasp for the brick ledge. Flecks of fuchsia and gamboge paint crust over bits of my brown skin. A smear of cobalt shines on the cuff of my sleeve. Evidence. The window eases up without a sound as wind screams through empty branches behind me. Heat from the radiator blasts my face as I lean in from the cold. I hoist my upper body inside. My heart thuds in my ears.

In twenty-four hours, all my secrets will come out. No more hiding. Parents’ Weekend and Mom and Dad can’t be avoided.

I close the window against the New England chill, pressing my forehead against the glass. I’ve made it. I’ve actually made it. And no one knows what I’ve done—at least not yet.

The night outside is settled, silent, even with my little commotion. No prying eyes or raised blinds meet me as I stare across the dark, sparsely lit quad. I let my bag slump to the floor and flick off my sneakers. At my desk, the never-mailed early-admission application peeks out from behind a stack of books. I should’ve tossed it weeks ago, but I can’t. Years of work went into those pages. Work I’m now willing to jeopardize.

Dad’s going to find out about it at some point soon, but not tonight.

My notebook lies open. Assignments unfinished. And despite nervous adrenaline rushing through me, focusing on medieval civilizations might calm the thumping in my chest, but a hot shower in an empty bathroom sounds even better.

Peeling off my hoodie and leggings stirs up a nose burn of turpentine, my favorite scent. The three-a.m. quiet in a freshman house is a perk of being an upper-class dorm proctor—mandatory lights-out for everyone else. I wrap my robe around me and grab my shower cap and caddy.

When I step into the hall, I overlook the beams of light streaming out from under a few closed doors—the telltale signs of all-nighters in progress. As long as no one makes a sound, this is another rule I’m willing to ignore.

The motion-sensor light brightens as the bathroom door swings open. A muffled sniffle interrupts the silence.

So much for a relaxing shower.

“Hello? It’s Nivia. Is everything okay?” I step into the stark white-tiled room that always smells of sweet pears and lilacs.

Finding someone sniffling in the bathroom in the early-morning hours at Caswell is never strange. It’s almost a rite of passage.

And it’s rarely about a crush or missing home. Pressure to meet expectations gets to all of us. Everyone cracks at some point. Mini meltdowns are the price paid for a Caswell Prep seal of approval.

I wonder if Dad or Grandpa ever bowed to the pressure when they were here. But somehow I doubt it. Mom either. Even with being some of the only Black students in a sea of white, I can’t imagine any of them being unsure of themselves or what they wanted when they went here or afterward. For them, the law has been their way up from the beginning.

“Want water?” I ask, pushing away the thoughts. I reach for a cup from the dispenser and fill it without waiting for a response.

I slide it under the stall and wait.

“Thanks.”

Without her saying another word, I know exactly who’s on the other side of the door. “You want to talk or should I go?” I say even though the shower is calling out to me.

“I’m okay, Niv. Really.”

“You know I know you’re lying, right?” A hint of a smile plays in my voice. I cross my arms and lean against a sink, waiting.

Anxiety is the nastiest beast for my old roommate. But it’s only ever this bad when she thinks she’s failed, and she never fails.

Then the toilet flushes and the stall lock slides back.

A second later, Ryan emerges, sandy blond hair matted, blue eyes rimmed red, blotches on her pale cheeks. “Should I even ask why you’re still up?” she asks, sniffling, and throws the crumpled cup in the trash.

She’s always been good at deflecting questions she wants to ignore.

“Why are you?” I throw back.

She reaches up and scratches at the side of my face, flicking away a tiny patch of dried glue.

Her gaze settles on the tiny cerulean splotches on the back of my hand. “You been finishing your project?”

I shove my arm deeper into a fold of robe. “Something like that. You good?”

She twists on a faucet and scoops water into her mouth to gargle. Then she turns to me. Her eyes always tell a different story than the rest of her. This time I can’t read it.

“Do you know your truth?”

I don’t have to ask what she means. Her brain is filled with the same thing as mine—the Tri-school Jabec Beard Art Prize, which besides carrying major bragging rights comes with a prestigious summer course at the illustrious Beaux-Arts de Paris and a monthlong shadowing of an eminent artist. The prompt of this year’s prize is imprinted on every senior art student’s brain. If tomorrow were your last, would you have told your authentic story? Every time you create art: Tell. Your. Truth.

“I mean, we’re only seventeen. How are we supposed to know our truth if we always do what’s expected of us?” Ryan asks.

“Then don’t do what’s expected.” This escapes my lips as if I’ve always believed it. As if I’ve always challenged expectations.

“Like it’s that easy.” She tucks a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, a nervous habit. “We only have two days left, and everything I show Ms. Teresi isn’t deep enough.” She throws up air quotes. “What does that even mean? You think kids from Eldridge or Alcott know how to get deep?”

“Let’s hope not,” I confess. Competition is steep enough between Caswell seniors. No way I want to think about what our sister schools are bringing to the table.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. My entry has to be the best, Niv.” She says this like there’s no other option in life.

“Don’t create what’s expected then. Do what you want.” I love how I can shell out advice but can hardly take it myself.

“It’s not that simple.” A slight whine creeps into her words. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I ignore the sting. Ryan has always carried her own spotlight. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, my truth is still working its way out of me too.”

“I feel sick every time I think about it.” Ryan traces a finger along the tiled wall. “They’re all going to be there. I have to win. If I don’t, they won’t understand.”

Her “they” is her family during Parents’ Weekend. For her, art has always been the way up. Though I’m not sure how much higher she actually needs to go. While policy and legislation are my family’s universe, art is her family’s world. They’re gallery owners, collectors, architects, and ginormous donors to everything art-related.

And she’s right; they won’t understand if she doesn’t get the prize. It’s all about the bragging rights for them. Her family’s connections pretty much guarantee her entry into any art school she’s interested in.

“I have to win,” she says again, as if I hadn’t heard her the first time. But I don’t want to hear her. She’s not the only one who wants to win.

White campus security jeeps create a barrier in front of Eckhart Gallery, blocking students’ entry to their classes downstairs. But Headmaster Ewing hustles through in his signature navy suit and Caswell hunter-green bow tie, disappearing inside the highly coveted addition to our campus.

“What’s happening?” someone asks as I reach the cluster of students decked out in their uniforms.

“Vandalism, I think,” an underclassman I don’t know offers. “I heard a Jabec piece got torn down.”

“No way!” My classmate Logan readjusts the faded baseball cap turned backward on his head. “The real police would be all over that. No way rent-a-cops can handle this.”

The idea of real police has me ready to turn the other way, but Caswell would rather handle problems in-house than cast the school in an unfavorable light. There won’t be police.

“Headmaster Ewing, is everything okay?” Ryan comes out of nowhere, stepping up beside me in her tailored navy school blazer and skirt, and hunter-green school tie and sweater. Her hair, flat-iron straight now, is held in place by a hunter-green scarf, the exact shade of our school colors, patterned with tiny foxes and tied like a headband. The same scarf she gave a couple of us as welcome-back presents after fall break. And of course it’s school-code approved. Her perfectly arched eyebrows meet in concern. Not a blotch or dark circle in sight. Like her midnight meltdown never happened.

“Yes, yes, it’s all in hand,” Headmaster Ewing says. His voice is always the perfect balance of polite authority and rigid expectations. I wonder if he, like Ryan, ever tires of being so put together. He gives a nod. His ash-brown hair, sprouting gray at his temples, remains in perfect place. Then he turns to the rest of us. “Apologies for the delay, everyone. There’s an unexpected addition to our gallery; however, it will not disrupt the day any further. Please make your way down to the class wing in an orderly fashion.”

Everything Caswell students do is orderly. That’s part of the programming.

“Nivia!” Headmaster Ewing calls out, and tips his head my way.

I nearly jump out of my skin. He and Dad were Caswell football teammates in ancient times. So him saying hi shouldn’t be a big deal. But it is.

“I look forward to seeing your father this weekend.”

I’m not sure if I give a smile or a grimace. Until that very second, for almost an hour I’ve successfully blocked out that my parents are coming, even though they’ve never missed a Caswell parents’ event since my brother and sister went here. I try to speak, even grunt, but before I can, Headmaster Ewing moves on.

Now I’m the one who’s gonna be sick.

“You okay?” Ryan asks, holding up her palm so I don’t step on her foot as I sway backward.

I manage a squeak in response.

“Move along, everyone,” Mr. Ivers, the art history teacher, advises in a harried tone as students file into the gallery and head for the basement classrooms. But that doesn’t stop anyone from looking, especially me. I lag behind, near the railing, taking an extra moment to peer inside the main exhibit hall.

There it is. Loud, proud, colorful, and speaking some kind of truth.

“This is serious,” Mr. Ivers complains to my teacher, Ms. Teresi, who stands in front of my favorite Jabec work, Broken Reflections. She taps the tip of her reading glasses against her lips—something she does while thinking. I linger just out of their view. “This is a definite call for expulsion.”

“Perhaps, but are you even looking at the work?” She leans toward the wall.

“How can I avoid it? The transgression is right in our faces.” Mr. Ivers jabs his finger at the explosion of color and brushstrokes that climb the once-white wall around Jabec’s 20 × 20 canvas. Broken Reflections, with its shards of tile and mirrors, has birthed something new since yesterday. A larger work spreads across the wall using the original piece as inspiration, paint shining and fresh. A rainbow of cadmium yellow, magenta, viridian, and other colors splits a silhouetted body of dark fabrics. They wrap around Jabec’s canvas as if scooping up pieces of mirror to construct a new whole, creating a seamless reflection.

I swear I hear Ms. Teresi breathe, “The bravery,” but I can’t be sure.

“This is the kind of thing Jabec would’ve done,” she says, and stretches her hand toward the exhibit banner announcing the new permanent collection of the street-artist-turned-fine-artist’s work.

“Well, I don’t think we ought to applaud such blatant disregard for private property. Reckless acts warrant severe punishment,” says Mr. Ivers. He’s one of the most buttoned-up teachers at Caswell, and that’s saying a lot—since most of them are stuffy, old white men who don’t have time for change.

Ms. Teresi is different though. So is Headmaster Ewing. They’re at least open to more.

“Every year someone pushes boundaries,” Mr. Teresi says, “tries to go beyond, but this … this is just more literal.”

“You say it as if it’s to be admired?” he scoffs.

Ms. Teresi turns away from the wall, noticing me for the first time. “Nivia, is there something we can help you with?”

Yes, I want to say. Do you admire it? Since she was one of the Jabec Beard Prize judges, her thoughts matter. “Um, no, I’m good.”

She nods toward the stairs, her salt-and-pepper hair toppling out of a messy top bun. In long graceful strides, she heads my way.

“Neither of us needs to be later than we already are,” she says, reaching me. She’s all but forgotten Mr. Ivers’s question. “Tell me, what do you think of the new addition to our gallery?”

My brain freezes. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“You guess? Come now, Nivia, someone as talented as you must have an opinion.”

I half smile. Her Visual Culture class sophomore year was everything for me. It taught me how images transform moods and relay messages deeper than even words can. That certain visual experiences challenge people to feel, notice, and continue the visual conversation. I glance back up the white marbled stairs but can no longer see the conversation started on that wall.

As if reading my thoughts, she adds, “I actually see glimpses of you in that work. But it’s riskier and a bit more honest than anything you’ve ever dared put forth. Can you learn something from it? Do you think it speaks the element of truth that’s been missing in your pieces?”

I want to tell her yes. That it holds exactly what’s missing—but I’m still unsure. Art isn’t like math. There’s no right answer.

Ms. Teresi opens her classroom door. Work and supplies are spread across most of the tables as students concentrate on their midterm projects. “I’m glad to see you aren’t wasting valuable time. Tomorrow morning’s deadline quickly approaches.” Her linen layers swing around her.

Grabbing my supplies, I head to my table, right behind Ryan’s. Classmates’ whispers buzz in my ear.

“Ryan, just let go,” Ms. Teresi encourages, eyeing her work. Then she gives a light laugh. “Haven’t you ever dabbled outside the lines?”

Ryan’s brow furrows. Her work is controlled perfection. Like her. Nothing she creates is out of place or haphazard.

“It’s evident you’ve been taught well,” Ms. Teresi says. “But don’t let it trap you. Explore.” She taps the paper. “Stop obeying the lines and challenge them.”

I don’t need to see Ryan’s face to know she’s cracking.

“Ms. Teresi, aren’t we going to talk about what happened?” Keegan asks from a front table. “Was that someone’s submission?”

“Fat chance.” Logan leans back on his stool. He hasn’t bothered to open his folder yet. “They would’ve needed to take credit to get credit.”

“I would,” Isaiah, the only other Black kid in class, says almost to himself. “I mean, not that I’d take credit for someone else’s stuff, but if I’d done it I would’ve signed it. The style’s sick. None of us is putting out work like that.”

“Okay, settle down, everyone. Focus on the work at hand. There are only a few precious hours before midterm projects are due,” Ms. Teresi says, shutting down the conversation before it starts.

“But Ms. Teresi.” Emily, an underclassman who has an answer for everything, shoots her hand into the air. “It speaks about the truth Jabec always talked about. Whoever did it is showing the weight of mirrors reflected back on us by society, filled with everything we’re supposed to be for everyone, and making them something new.”

“Dude, you got all that from it?” Logan asks. “You might need your glasses prescription checked.”

“Hold on now, Logan,” Ms. Teresi interrupts. “Great art has the ability to be different things for different people. What did you see?”

“Honestly?” Logan’s front stool legs crash against the floor. “Confusion.”

“That’s the point,” Isaiah interjects.

Ms. Teresi gives him a look to let Logan finish.

“It’s a shadow split six ways, like it doesn’t know what it wants to do,” Logan continues.

“And the mirrors? What did the mirror mosaic mean for you?” Ms. Teresi asks him.

Logan shrugs. “I didn’t think they were actually reflecting anything specific,” he adds. A couple of others nod. “And things get bizarre with all those colors. Someone’s pretty out of control—”

“Or torn,” Ryan says, almost too quiet for anyone to hear, but I do since I sit right behind her.

“I disagree, Ms. Teresi,” Isaiah speaks up. “It’s not out of control at all. The shadows are trying to break free. To show their colors. To be visible.”

“Who agrees with Isaiah?”

A number of hands go up around the room.

“I get what that’s like,” Lakshmi says. “Being in a shadow is never just as simple as stepping out of it. Shadows can camouflage a lot of things.”

“Like?”

“Differences. Here we’re all supposed to want basically the same things and are expected to be the same, but outside of this bubble we aren’t all the same. And we aren’t seen that way either. I think people forget that sometimes,” Lakshmi adds. She started Caswell Prep’s thirty-three-member Students of Color Alliance.

“How so?” Ms. Teresi narrows her eyes, interested.

Headmaster Ewing strides into the classroom then and everyone sits a little taller. Logan even straightens his hunter-green-and-navy-striped tie dotted with gold Caswell crests. Actually, each of us checks some part of our uniform, except Ryan. Hers is already perfect. I smooth the folds in my pleated skirt, more from nerves than anything else.

“My apologies, Ms. Teresi, for interrupting your class further. But I think in light of today’s events I must.” As he speaks, he looks each of us in the eye as if we’re the only person in the room with him. His eyes land on me for a second, and I look down like my colored pencils are the most fascinating invention of the twenty-first century. “Though my assumptions could be wrong, I’m visiting art classes first because I assume an art student is behind this.”

“We’re discussing it now,” Ms. Teresi says. “It’s turning into quite a thoughtful conversation.”

“Well, I hope you’re also touching upon the severity of this action,” Headmaster Ewing continues. “If the perpetrator comes forward today, maybe we’ll consider taking expulsion off the table … but this type of leniency will only be considered if you speak up now.” He clears his throat, looking out at us. “I hope I won’t have to call a special all-school meeting and involve everyone in this.”

There’s total silence.

His steel-blue eyes settle on me again, then slip to the next person almost immediately. He doesn’t even glance Ryan’s way. But everyone does when Ryan’s stool screeches across the polished concrete. And she starts to stand.

She pushes at the hair behind her ear even though her scarf already holds it in place.

“Yes, Ryan?” Despite the gravity of Headmaster Ewing’s announcement, his face brightens almost imperceptibly. “Do you have something to share?”

My eyes bore into the back of her head, wishing I could read her thoughts. What does she know? She turns slightly and her focus darts to me before she looks back at Headmaster Ewing.

“I know who did it,” she whispers.

This is so unlike Ryan—she might follow every rule in the book, but no one would ever call her a snitch. She flicks at the corner of her hair again. My heart thumps in my ears like it did the night before. She glances at me once more.

“I did it.” Her words can barely be heard. But I hear them loud and clear, and instead of pounding, I think my heart stops.

“You?” Ms. Teresi says what I want to yell.

Headmaster Ewing studies Ryan like he’s trying to imagine her scrambling through a window and defacing walls, but my mind is blank, confused, as my stomach plummets. With all the things I thought might happen, I never expected this.

She keeps pushing back her hair, and I know she’s freaking out. She’s not the only one. My stomach bubbles and twists.

“Well …” Headmaster Ewing starts, then stops, mouth wide. There’s a slight twitch at the corner of his left eye.

I’ve never seen him this way. He’s about to topple over. To be fair, we are standing in Eckhart Gallery. The world-renowned gallery the Eckhart Foundation funds because members of the family have attended Caswell since the first bricks were laid, and that includes Ryan Eckhart.

Expulsion is definitely off the table.

“Are you certain?” he asks.

I almost choke out a hack. Anyone else, including me—a rarer-than-rare Black legacy kid, and a board of trustees member’s daughter—and he would’ve started very differently. But with an Eckhart—Caswell Prep royalty—everything is different, even the questions.

“Yes. I wanted my submission to be remembered. Like Jabec, I tried to go beyond what was expected. I hadn’t really thought much about the consequences. I was so absorbed in what I wanted my work to say.” Her voice barely shakes.

If I didn’t know the truth, I’d believe her. She sounds so convincing, delivering her lie. But while I fume, shouting liar in my mind, twisting the point of my pencil into the tabletop, my lips stay cinched as Ryan voices what I’ve been too chicken to say. My supposed truth.

“I’m surprised to hear this, Ryan,” Ms. Teresi says. “It’s unlike anything we’ve seen from you. It challenges lines.”

“What?” Ryan says before she can stop herself.

“It’s all about bringing what’s within beyond boundaries, right?” Ms. Teresi watches Ryan with the precision of a surgeon trying to avoid a nerve.

“Um. Yes, ma’am,” Ryan mumbles. She follows Ms. Teresi’s gaze to the work in front of her and slides a blank sheet over it before Ms. Teresi can search for comparisons she won’t find. “I wanted to try something new.”

I definitely feel sick now. This time there is no tremble in her voice, like she believes her own lie. My leg hops under the table, hammering against the stool leg. She’s made a decision.

And I need to make one too.

I’ve been sitting on the steps outside Eckhart Gallery for the last thirty minutes, rocketing up every time one of the doors opens, waiting.

Then Ryan pushes through and stands against the doors, surprise across her face.

“Why’d you do that?” I demand, approaching her.

She says nothing, hugging her books, trying to pass me.

I don’t let her.

“Answer me.” I lean in. “Why?”

She avoids my eyes, then glances at me. I almost think I see regret, but that’s gone in a flash.

“Why didn’t you?” she asks.

I’m ready to yell, but her question catches me off guard.

“Don’t think I didn’t know you were up to something last night.” Her eyes shift back and forth, searching out my secret. “When I saw it, I knew it was you. It’s like the stuff in your sketchbooks you don’t let anyone see.”

“If you knew, then why take credit for it? I thought we were friends,” I challenge. A couple students slow on a path near us.

She watches me, pushing at her hair again. “You were too scared to.”

I want to tell her she’s wrong. But it won’t come out.

“I have to win,” she says. “And this piece will win.”

“What about me? You don’t think I want to win too?” I snap.

“Why didn’t you speak up then?” Her words are cold, but her eyes still need convincing. “You had your chance.”

“It’s not so simple,” I say. “I have a ton to lose.”

“Like I don’t?” The cold creeps into her eyes now.

“Though I bet there were no consequences for you, were there?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

Ryan says nothing at first. “It will be up for consideration.”

“Figures.” I want to smack the entitled look off her face. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to do this.”

Her back goes straight, like she’s made another decision. “Why?” She stares at me, almost as a challenge. “It says everything I need to say to win.” Ryan moves away, then looks back. “You don’t want it bad enough. I do.”

All I can do is watch her go, feeling more than betrayal, knowing she’s right. As much as I risked, I’m not sure I ever intended to confess. And now I don’t know what pisses me off more—my own cowardice or her audacity.

During my junior year, my aunt Gladys, who inspired my love of art, took me on a spring-break girls’ trip to Italy. And as my eyes devoured Michelangelo’s Cleopatra sketch in the Uffizi, she casually asked: How bad do you want this? And by the looks of things now, not bad enough. I stand motionless in the center of my room, taking in all the sketches and paintings I’ve done. The ones I’ve actually let others see.

I pull them down and spread them across my floor. This work captures moments in my life, but it’s not enough. I hesitate for just a second before pulling my sketchbooks off the shelf. The ones Ryan talked about. The ones no one was ever meant to see. They’re crammed with crinkled pages of self-portraits, snips of fabric from memories, photographs, movie tickets, gum wrappers with doodles, and torn slips of paper with images painted with watercolors. My thoughts and full life spill out of these books I’ve always kept contained and secured with wide green rubber bands. I remember when we were roommates, Ryan peeking over my shoulder once while I was working. She didn’t recognize the images were of me. And I’ve always wondered why. But now I think I know. It was the side of me I don’t let breathe. The side that doesn’t fit expectations. The side that’s free.

And she saw that on that wall.

I scan the self-portraits and photos into the computer and print page after page. I am beginning to understand my truth, which has always been staring back at me. And now I have less than twelve hours to speak it.

For Parents’ Weekend everything seems extra golden.

The chandeliers sparkle overhead in the dining room of Chatterley House, the on-campus inn, which should really be called legacy row. It’s booked years in advance for every special occasion families can attend. Even before my arrival freshman year, Mom and Dad had paid four years in advance for certain dates, like they had for Mya and Reese before me. Who, unlike me, followed in all of the family traditions without even a grumble, both studying law. My parents couldn’t have been prouder when Reese became a lobbyist and my sister a political analyst and law professor like Mom. These dark mahogany walls have been witness to many family conversations, good and bad.

“I had an interesting call from Councilwoman Myers’s husband yesterday,” Dad says, wiping a napkin at his lips. I fight the urge to roll my eyes at the mention of Councilwoman Myers’s husband, a dean at Dad’s alma mater. Can’t we have just one meal that doesn’t focus on my future? We’re seated around one of the immaculate white-cloth-covered tables in the inn’s dining room and my appetite is suddenly lost. “Mitch says he never saw your early-decision application come through admissions.”

It hasn’t escaped me that he’s waited for Mom to leave the table to chat with old friends before he starts his cross-examination. At least there’ll be a time limit to his storm. Though Mom has already told me where she stands. Go after what you want. She made it clear she isn’t battling the worst of the storm if I’m not willing to myself. I take a breath.

“I didn’t send it. I’m applying to art schools, general admission, instead.” I don’t dare tell him about my last-minute Jabec Beard submission.

Blood surges through a vein over his right eye, an impending eruption. “The answer is no.” The words a hiss through clenched teeth. His expression remains blank for the sake of appearance, but I know the storm is brewing. “I’m not funding that, nor have I funded four years here for you to think painting pictures is your future. We’ve already discussed this.”

“You talked. I didn’t,” I mumble before saying, “I really want to do this.”

“So did your aunt Gladys, and look where that got her.” The sapphire in his class ring catches the light as he smooths his hand over his close-cut beard. “My sister is a shell of who she once was. Too many doors slammed in her face, or never opened. People love brown on canvas—the bark of a tree, the shine of a saddle—but that same brown on her skin was rejected,” he says, his perfectly tailored suit giving off its own shine. “This is a truth you need to know, Nivia. In this world, the brown of your skin is rarely a shelter. Here at Caswell, color may fade—for a while anyway, except when it’s needed for brochures or diversity experiments—but out there, it’s front and center always. Don’t forget that. The law is where you can find a sturdy footing.”

I drop my gaze, part of me knowing he’s right. I’m surprised he doesn’t mention me squandering Grandpa’s legacy and his fight for equal consideration as one of Caswell’s first Black students. He’s sparing me that argument—this time.

He reaches for my hand. I don’t pull away. “Mitch assures me he’ll look out for your application during general admission. You can paint there in your free time. It’ll be hectic with a prelaw course load, but as long as it doesn’t hinder your priorities …”

“Such serious faces,” Mom says as she nears our table with Ryan’s mother. Mom’s cheeks lift as loose, highlighted curls swing around her pearl earrings when she smiles. Ryan’s mother reveals a perfect smile too. They look like they’ve sauntered out of a fashion spread.

From her table, Ryan glances at me.

I turn away.

Dad slides his hand off mine. The corner of his eye crinkles as he smiles back at Mom. He greets them warmly, then picks up his salad fork and spears a radish. For him, the matter is decided.

Latham Auditorium is alive with voices as we wait for the presentations to begin. I sink deep into the admiral-blue velvet seats. Seniors from Alcott and Eldridge are unmistakable in their maroon or gray blazers, eager as we are to know the outcomes. Four awards are given, and the Jabec always comes after community service and before the essays. I can hardly breathe as the lights dim and faculty judges take the stage.

Ryan sits two rows ahead of us, watching her grandfather onstage as he waits to give an introduction. You’d never know the lie she’s holding, sitting totally collected between her parents in her Caswell uniform while the community service awards are handed out. When she keeps tucking her hair behind her ear, her mom discreetly pulls her hand away.

Mom lays her palm over my knee. The warm pressure stops my leg from jumping. She winks my way as bluesy jazz is piped in through the speakers. A self-portrait of a tanned Jabec Beard with a shaved head stares out at us, the years of his life scrawled underneath.

“Jabec Beard,” Ms. Teresi begins, “is remembered and celebrated for the stunning pieces he gifted the world.”

Some of his most famous works brighten the movie-theater-sized screen behind her with colors, angles, words, and feeling. Everyone drinks in the images, especially me.

“But he was more than just an artist; he was a seeker of truth in all things, and devoted his life to encouraging people to go after their inner truth and challenge the barriers put around them and the expectations suppressing them,” Ms. Teresi continues. “He yearned for everyone to find his or her authentic self, and that is why this year’s prize theme, Tell. Your. Truth., is so relevant for our students. These are the years where they question with open hearts, explore with abandon, and discover with amazement the courage to do so. The pieces you’ll see this evening were chosen from a talented and inspiring pool, bearing witness to what he sought to inspire.”

I can hardly draw in air as the lights go dimmer. A hush falls over the room as work from an Eldridge student demands everyone’s attention. It’s the kind of piece people sit on museum benches for hours staring at, with its deliberate brushstrokes and moody color palette of blues and grays. A scene of a lone boy in the rain. The next painting is equally as powerful—sneakers at the edge of a cliff, a lively carnival on a cloud high in the sky, fog below.

All the pieces tell an honest story.

Then I bite at my lip as Ryan’s back goes rigid. Jabec Beard’s Broken Reflections comes into focus. Ryan’s grandfather nods her way from the stage as claps sprinkle through the audience when the added work is revealed.

My work!

“In an unconventional twist, one of our students has literally used Jabec’s truth as a foundation for her own.” Ms. Teresi’s hand opens in Ryan’s direction. Her parents give a wave and nod like it is their work on display. Ryan remains motionless.

But I know she is more than cracking inside.

Then a brown face, my face, with jet-black hair pulled into a high bun, fills the screen with color ribboning all around it. Glitter cascades down the cheekbones, as I bite a gag that tries to silence me. Dad’s looking, but he’s not focused on the image. I want to scream, Look, Dad, look! Look at me! The real me.

When the slide zooms in, quiet gasps poke the air as people realize the brown of the skin is made up of dozens of sepia-toned scenes, photographs, portraits, and strips of fabric from my sketchbooks.

This collage is all of me.

As I balloon with disbelief that I created this, that everyone is seeing my true world, I can see from where I’m sitting that Ryan crumples.

When the image shifts to the teeth digging into an unmistakable hunter-green scarf patterned with little foxes, Ryan flinches, turning slightly to me. But I don’t have time to watch her sweat over the gift she once gave me as the focus turns to a drawing of a man hugging a little girl in bobby socks and puffballs. Dad leans forward, his attention caught. He straightens his already straight tie, clearing his throat, blinking as if he isn’t seeing things correctly. Then the complete piece fills the screen again. And everyone can see how the moments of my life weave together to create this determined, certain face. Mine. Dad turns to me and I expect to see anger, but a storm is not there. His eyes are soft.

He’s about to say something when Ms. Teresi adjusts the microphone. The music goes low.

“This multilayered piece was left at my door with only a few minutes to spare, but the creator, who is obvious to some of us, still failed to sign it.” Ms. Teresi searches the crowd, and then her eyes lock on mine. “It’d be a shame if this talent remained silent. And this work couldn’t officially be considered.”

Every part of me is shaking, but I know this is the moment I’ve been trying to build my courage up to for so long. I glance at my dad, whose eyes are glued to me. I nod to him. He only blinks, seeing if I’ll fight.

I stand, legs trembling, then I hold my head high and say as loud as I possibly can, “This is my story. This is my truth.”