If I Tell

booth and leaned forward. “No. I’m not defending him or what he did. I’m just saying…”
    I shook my head. “It’s not right.”
    “Sometimes things aren’t always black and white.”
    I snorted. “You think I, of all people, don’t know that?” I pointed at the skin on my arm. “Black and white. Like me. Like the baby.”
    Jackson smiled. His mouth opened wider, and he chuckled.
    I stared. How could he make fun of this? I instantly regretted my stupid decision to trust him.
    “Sorry,” Jackson said, but he didn’t sound sorry at all, and he didn’t even try to wipe the smile off his face.
    “It’s not funny,” I said. I made a fist under the table. I seriously wanted to reach across the table and punch him. God. Thanks to Simon, I’d become a liar and a people smacker.
    “Jaz, open your eyes.”
    I glared at him. “You have a really weird sense of humor, Jackson.”
    “I guess I should explain. About my grandma.”
    “That you live with her?” I was about to reach under the table for my guitar and leave Jackson behind. So much for trusting people.
    “She’s black.”
    I blinked and stared at him. “What?”
    “My grandma is black. I guess my grandpa was a grumpy white guy, but Grams, not so much. My mom was like you. Well, lighter, but the same. She never let me forget it either. Whenever she was drunk, she told me I was ‘stained by black blood.’ And she was drunk a lot.” He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “She died when I was seven.”
    “Why did you not tell me this?”
    “You never asked.”
    I blinked at him, trying to absorb his story. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it. How could he have left out this little piece of information about himself?
    “I’m sorry. That sounded wrong. I wanted to tell you. But it never seemed to happen. Not the right time or something. But then I told you we would swap secrets someday. And I decided that when you could trust me, I would tell you the truth.”
    My mouth literally hung open. A mix of emotions filtered through my brain. Denial. Shock. Anger. How could he not tell me? How could he just walk around looking 100 percent white, blending in with everyone else, while I stood out like a zebra in a field of horses? How did I not know this? How did no one know?
    I stared at him, studying his skin tone. Light. Slightly tanned. His straight black hair. Not a sign of a curl. Brown eyes. Slender nose. And for a moment, I was overcome with envy. And then I felt a swoop of anger.
    “My mom died in a drunk-driving accident. Unfortunately, she was the drunk. Anyhow, after she died, I got tossed into foster care. A few weeks passed, and Grams found out about me and came and got me out. I was her family, she said. She’s looked after me since.”
    My anger vanished. I hadn’t bothered to look past the surface of his life. I’d been too wrapped up in myself. I’d assumed his home life was fine, normal, despite his thing with drugs. I’d never once asked him why he lived with his grandma.
    “My mom drove drunk all the time, so the good thing was that no one else got hurt. It could have been worse.” He smiled but looked sad. “I missed her at first, of course. Even though she’d mostly treated me like crap. She blamed me for my dad leaving. Grams told me he was a redneck. Lily white. He couldn’t stand having a ‘part-nigger child.’ The ultimate hypocrite, really.” Jackson tugged on his earring.
    My fingers instinctively felt for my charm. I tried to imagine him as a boy. Little. Neglected. At least my grandparents had treated me right. I ached for the little boy he’d been.
    “My mom was even too drunk to bother putting me in school on time. I didn’t start school until she died. Two years late.”
    “So that’s why you’re almost two years older than me. You didn’t fail kindergarten?”
    Jackson laughed, a hard unpleasant hoot. “You believed that rumor? Kindergarten dropout.”
    I peeked out at him, hiding behind a curl covering my eye. “Your family sounds worse than mine.”
    He lifted his shoulder slightly. “It hasn’t been so bad. Grams is cool.”
    “You’re close?”
    “She doesn’t put up with crap from me, but she means well. She’s the one who put me into juvie when she found out I was dealing. When I got out, she moved us out of Canada and back here to get me away from my old friends. She lived in Tadita when she was younger and still has friends here.”
    I looked down at