Blend

38:00 | the dead don't talk

"YEAH, SO?" I firm my fists, but remind my voice I have no reason to come off so defensive. In a more calm tone, I add, "I've gone through lots of tutors. I'm bad at writing but Coach needs me to keep my GPA high enough to play."

It's in this moment that I realize how stupid I was for denying I knew her to the detectives. Chris is right. None of this looks good.

He stays quiet, letting me work it all out in my head. But the only thing I can picture is that damn game clock in the back of my mind, along with a spiraling, out-of-control feeling the closer it gets to zero.

I furrow my brows, eyes smarting. "It was a whole year ago. She-she tutored me once and I never talked to her again."

Chris hesitates to respond. Glances back down at the paperwork. Clears his throat. "This same witness also told police that you had a crush on Penelope."

What the fuck?

I sink back into my chair.

My lips part.

I close my eyes, wetness seeping through.

There's only one person in the world who would know a detail like that. And she's the reason I ended up in Nate's upstairs bathroom at the party, 'cause I was trying to be a good boyfriend.

"Abby's their other witness?" I ask softly, reopening my eyes. She's in fucking Tucson.

Chris sighs. "She called and gave a statement."

Called in? But why?

Melanie.

She must've called Abby and they climbed right into all sorts of theories about me. Abbs does obsess over the ID channel.

I suck in a breath as if I'm breathing through a straw. Blink away another tear. My throat bunches up until it's a tightly knotted ball.

"I'm sorry, Ace. I know you weren't expecting that. It's always the people we least expect that deliver the biggest mind blow."

I sniff. "Like I told those detectives, I went to the bathroom so I wouldn't cheat." So I could jack-off into a box of Kleenex, thinking of my girlfriend. So I wouldn't be tempted to go down the hall with Taylor Gray and do something I'd later regret.

"Look, kid. I get it. You're nineteen. You couldn't resist going to Nate's party but you also wanted to stay loyal to your girl, who happens to have quite the social media following, by the way. Another problem since she's clearly taken a side." He lets out a breath. "It's unfortunate that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it does happen and a jury won't see it that way unless we fight hard to prove it."

"Fuck."

"Did you know the victim was the daughter of Hugh Adams, an Arizona legislator? Voters kind of love him. He spearheads laws about immigration and border control, sweeping thousands of illegal immigrants from our state each year. If you go to trial, this is going to be an ugly, uphill battle. I won't lie."

I momentarily drift away, drowning in thoughts.

It's been eight hours and forty minutes since my life came crashing down. Can't help but wonder if I were fully white, like Owen, how this might've gone down differently for me. Maybe Melanie wouldn't have been so quick to point the finger. Maybe my own girlfriend wouldn't be assuming the worst about me. Maybe Mom would have left Cottonwood for Phoenix as soon as I called.

I've already seen this story play out on Netflix. The Black man gets exonerated fifty years after he was charged for the crime. I don't want to give fifty years of my life away to this mess.

I shouldn't have to.

But Black Lives Matter didn't just come about because a couple of people experienced wrongs. We're talking all kinds of fucked up layers here. One I currently got front row tickets to. Still, I never would've thought this would happen to me. Not here. Sure, these things happen in notoriously racist places like New York, Chicago, the deep South. But Phoenix? Who's going to care about a half-Black kid, who was on his way to the NBA dream?

"I didn't kill her."

"I believe you," Chris says, frowning. "But Ace..."

"I know." I groan into my hands. "This is going to be an uphill battle."

"An ugly, uphill battle."

Translation: you're fucked, Black kid.

How was I supposed to know Penelope Adams was draped over the tub, chest floating in the water—dead? The real killer covered her body with the shower curtain. I was half-trashed and horny. Didn't notice her there at all. It makes me sick to think about what I was doing in the bathroom with her dead right there, but I swear on everything I didn't see her.

The thing is several other people used that bathroom before and after me. Yet I'm the one sitting here, cuffed. How am I not supposed to wonder if that has anything to do with the color of my skin? Did Melanie not see my bulging eyes after she screamed at the pale, lifeless legs at the tub? I was just as shocked as she was—as everyone else there!

"So tell me something that will help win your case, Ace."

I chuckle without mirth. "Like what?"

Chris narrows his eyes. "Like who do you think did this? Did you see or hear anything suspicious?"

I shake my head, releasing a forlorn sigh. "If only the dead could talk, man. Because I have no fucking clue."

I really, really don't. All I know is that it wasn't me.