Needy Little Things(73)
Malcolm turns his face away from me. Stares out the window.
“Did you even consider how many resources, how much time and attention, this would suck from people who actually needed it? If you could have guaranteed that Tessa would walk through your front door at the end of it all, no one would blame you. And I know. You’re angry, you’re hurt. I hear you. But do you know how much trouble you could get in for this? How much trouble Deja might be in right now?”
“Yes, I know! But don’t tell me you hear me. Don’t lie to my face like that because you haven’t heard me in a long, long time, Sariyah. If you did, if you’d really been listening to me, you’d understand why we had to do this despite all the risks.”
“You didn’t have to do anything, Malcolm.” I scan his body from head to toe. “You knew she was alive and safe and said nothing. Not even when we thought they pulled her body out of the fucking lake.”
“I told you it wasn’t her.”
I clench my teeth so hard my jaw aches. This betrayal has pushed my heart through a fine-mesh sieve and I can’t even begin to consider how to repair it. “You’re sick, Malcolm. Sick.”
“Oh, I don’t disagree with you there, but illness don’t come from nowhere do it?”
I think about my mother, and I want to say yes. Sometimes it does come from nowhere. Sometimes there’s not a good and clear reason. But that’s not the case here.
Malcolm stands there, eyes reddening. “Ask me what made me this way.” He beats his chest. “Ask me!”
I don’t need to ask him. “How does throwing your own life away help Tessa or anyone else?”
“I’m not throwing anything away. We had a plan.”
“Yeah. Exactly. How’s that going, huh? How’s it going if you don’t even know where she is?”
“Who said I don’t know where she is? You. Don’t. Listen. You forever stay caught up in your own head and, on God, I know you can’t help it. I know that, but sometimes I can’t stand your ass for it.”
“Yeah, well sometimes I can’t stand myself, either!” I turn my back to him so he can’t watch me fight back my tears.
“She’s in Chefly,” he says quietly.
I spin around. “Chefly?” There’s no hiding the panic in my voice. “Is she with Jed?”
“There you go again. Still not listening. I have told you over and over I don’t know nothing about no Jed or no stupid behind card.”
“Okay, and you just confessed that you’ve been lying to me for almost two weeks. I don’t know what to believe. Where in Chefly is she, if not with Jed?”
He looks away from me. “The rental in the back of your dad’s property.”
“Wait, what?” I replay his words in my head, hoping to arrange them in a way that makes sense. “Malcolm, what the hell is wrong with you? My father is a Black man who lives by himself. Do you know what could happen if they find her there? Are you confident enough in our police force, in the police force down in Chefly, Georgia, to believe they’d give him a chance to explain? Did you think about any of that?”
“No!” he screams as tears gush from his eyes. “No, Sariyah, I didn’t think about any of that because it’s not about you or your daddy. It’s about everyone the world was content to forget about.” He sobs. “I just miss my sister. I just want someone to care. I want the police to care. I want the country to care. I want the world to care. I want you to care.”
“Malcolm, I do.”
“Then why couldn’t you see? Why couldn’t you see what that news about Casey did to me? You’re supposed to be my best friend on this planet and you didn’t see. How come you can help everybody—how come you can give everyone what they need except me?”
“I don’t know.” I’m crying freely now, too. “Malcolm, I wish I could. You know that. You know it kills me. But I don’t even know who you are right now. How could you hurt everyone this way? With this lie? How could you hurt me this way?”
He dries his face. Composes himself. “Because there are bigger and more important things than your temporary pain. And is it absurd to think a taste of some hurt would do some good? Let it hit close to home. That’s the only time people give a damn. So, nah, I don’t feel bad that we made people sad for a week. Half of them were performing anyway. But Tessa? Me and my family have been living with that for five years.”
“Really, Malcolm? Like I don’t love Tessa, too? Like her being gone hasn’t tormented me, too?”
“You’re still making it about you. But since you want to do that so badly, let’s do it. What you feel about Tessa and what my parents feel are not the same. What I feel and what you feel are not the same.” He raises his voice. “The very cells that made me were next to her before I even formed a consciousness, Sariyah. There’s no comparison because you don’t have a twin, but if Josiah disappeared today and you didn’t see his face, hear his voice—if you didn’t know whether he was dead or alive for five years—you couldn’t see yourself driven to extremes? If you saw it happen over and over to other little boys who look like him. If you saw different, better outcomes for the ones who don’t, that wouldn’t break you? That wouldn’t have you ready to do anything in the world to make people see how wrong it is?”