With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

 

Stuck

Over the next couple of weeks everyone keeps asking me about where I’m going to school. I usually just smile and shrug. Only ’Buela looks ready to wring my neck because she wants to write the check for the deposit, but the truth is, I know what I want to do, I just don’t know how to tell anyone. Not even the people closest to me. Angelica has tried to get me to tell her about my future plans, doing everything from threatening me to mothering me to get me to talk, and today at lunch is no different.

“Emoni, you should try to eat something.”

I don’t look at her. She got into every school she applied to except for Pratt. They wait-listed her and she anxiously checks her email every time the security guards have their backs turned. “I’m fine. I’m not really hungry.”

A shadow falls over me and I look up at smooth brown skin, bright brown eyes. Malachi. This isn’t his lunch period.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.

He straddles the cafeteria table bench and leans toward me until our foreheads touch. He doesn’t smile. “You been ducking me and you won’t talk to anyone and you seem sad. I figured maybe I could get an answer from you here.”

I nod at him and then look down at my lunch tray.

I begin to push back from the table but then arms are around me. Malachi hugs me from behind and Angelica stands up and hugs me from the front. And I take long, deep breaths with the both of them holding me close.

Malachi tells me it’s going to be okay. Angelica probably would say the same if she had a sensitive soul in her body, but she doesn’t, so instead she says, “Girl, it’s time to step into your own light and stop being afraid.”

Both statements are helpful.

The last day before the deposit has to be postmarked, ’Buela leaves a blank check by my bedside with a note.

Follow your dreams, nena. The rest will figure itself out.

And so I complete the forms and I mail my decision.