If I Tell

Ashley’s car, and she swore. “Stupid unpaved road.”
    She did a sudden U-turn, and we started back to the residential area. I stared out the window. “We were taking swimming lessons. The whole fourth grade. It was the last day. Free time. They started taunting me. It started out with a couple of kids, and then more came. A crowd mentality took over or something. Bullying at its finest, I guess. They trapped me in the middle and wouldn’t let me get to the side while they chanted that my skin was dirtying up the pool. I slipped under and stopped breathing. The lifeguard had to resuscitate me.”
    We rolled over a bump and back onto the paved road.
    “No wonder you’re afraid of the water,” Ashley said.
    “You think?” I blinked away tears.
    “That’s horrible, Jaz.”
    “I’ve never told anyone before.”
    “You haven’t? You never told your mom? Or your grandma?”
    I shook my head. “It was hardest not to tell my grandpa. But it would have killed him. I was so ashamed. I felt like it was my fault.”
    “Well, what about later on? You never talked to a friend?” She didn’t mention Lacey by name, but I knew who she meant.
    “Lacey and I don’t talk about stuff like that. I mean, we didn’t. We’re not really friends anymore.”
    “Yeah. I noticed that. What happened with you two?”
    I lifted my thumb to my mouth and gnawed the calloused pad. “That I don’t want to talk about.”
    Ashley didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. With those kids.” She took her attention off the road for a second and glanced at me. “But do you want an honest observation?”
    I shrugged. Ashley was all about telling the truth. Understandable after hiding it for so long, I guess.
    “What they did was awful. But it was five or six years ago, right? Not that time makes it okay. But it seems to me that you play your part at keeping people away. I don’t want to be a jerk, but not everyone at Westwind could have been a part of what happened, right? But you don’t let anyone get close to you. Not even me. Not really. It’s like you’ve built a wall around yourself. You’re beautiful and smart and talented with your guitar and singing, but I think you use it to intimidate people. They think you’re looking down your nose at them.”
    Her words stung, and I jumped in to defend myself. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’d always felt a little different, but I’d managed to fit in and have a few kids to play with. Until that day at the pool. They turned on me. Maybe they’d sensed my self-consciousness. My dark skin might have been more noticeable. Maybe they saw for the first time how different my hair was when it was wet. Maybe picking on me made them feel better about themselves. Whatever it was, it was awful.”
    “Um. I had to switch schools when I came out, remember?” she said. “Try being a lesbian with a high-pitched voice,” she said and slowed down the car, flicked on her turn signal, and turned right onto a street with a kids’ park on the corner. My face warmed. “Sorry.” I sighed. “Pity party for one.” I stared out the window as we drove past a row of brown and gray houses. They all looked the same. If I were a house on the street, I’d be painted an ugly color and wouldn’t fit in. Then again Ashley would be yellow or maybe orange. I turned to her. “I have no idea what it would be like to be a lesbian with a high-pitched voice.”
    “Yeah, well. That’s okay. I have that one covered. But I don’t have any idea what it would be like to be half black and half white in a town like Tadita.”
    “True,” I said and then laughed. “But what the hell does being a lesbian have to do with your high-pitched voice?”
    Her face lit up with a grin. “I don’t know. I think people expect me to sound like a man. It freaks them out that I don’t.” Her grin faded. “But tell me what’s it like,” she said. “Being biracial and not knowing your dad.”
    “My mom moved out after she graduated from college. I stayed with my grandparents. I had my grandpa though. He made me feel like I was his gift. He told me he and my grandma wanted another child, but couldn’t have one until they got me.” I smiled at the memory of Grandpa’s serious face as he’d try to give me enough love to fill me up. “He said my mom loved me so much she let him and Grandma raise me, and it was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
    “He sounds