The Scammer(31)

“Girl, you have been drinking a lot lately,” Kammy adds, like she wasn’t drinking right beside me.

“What can you really remember?” Vanessa asks, pleading with her eyes, as if to say, “Give him what he wants.”

It wasn’t like that at all. Why won’t he believe me? And why does it feel like these accusations are multipurpose . . . like he’s trying to make me look bad, pitting the girls against me? Twisting my words the way one would twist a pen between their fingers.

The questioning went on like this, from every angle, for what seemed like hours. Devonte’s interrogation growing more intense. Like a rabid dog, he has his teeth sunk into an image in his mind and he won’t let go.

“So you were alone in the room with him. In the bed together and you don’t think he woke up in the middle of the night, touched you? How can you be positive? How do you really know what happened?”

My lungs feel too hot to be in my body as I try to breathe. I need space, air . . .

“I . . . I don’t feel like he touched me.”

“But devious men have devious intentions. You played right into his hand. How do you know he was drunk? How do you know if this was his game all along? He was conscious enough for you to walk him in here.”

My arms are still sore from holding Nick up as I carried him out of the party. His body was so limp. Could he really have been pretending?

Devonte sees the doubt in my face. “The enemy is good at confusion. Your weakness and drinking has made you blind.”

I steal a glance at the sofa. I can’t tell if the girls are staying quiet out of fear or out of confusion.

“I wasn’t drunk,” I insist, exhausted. “He was drunk! Like, couldn’t-even-stand drunk. And these girls were trying to—”

“So you weren’t drunk and yet you left your family to tend to some white boy’s needs? Someone that means nothing to you.” Devonte starts pacing around me. “You ditched your friends, your family . . . for him. Could you say he would do the same?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“I just . . . thought we could trust you,” he sighs with a shrug. “But this isn’t what a good friend would do.”

My neck snaps.

“No! I am a good friend!” I turn to the girls. “I swear I am.”

They remain silent. They don’t believe me. They don’t trust me.

Panic pushes common sense aside.

“Please,” I beg. “You gotta believe me. I wasn’t thinking right. But you ARE my friends. More than my friends. Sisters, remember.”

Remember who we were before we met Devonte, I want to scream. But the look on their faces tells me it’s too late.

“Friends don’t abandon each other,” he sighs.

Tears spring up as I recognize the hurt in Loren’s eyes. I did lie, I left her when she didn’t even want to really be there. I put them all in the middle of this. He’s right, I’m not a good friend. A good friend would tell them the truth about me. A good friend wouldn’t keep secrets. A good friend wouldn’t abandon her friends.

Principle number twelve: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

“I’m so sorry,” I say to the girls and turn to Devonte.

He gives me a half smile, shoulders at ease. “Relax, sis. I’m not angry at you. I’m angry that some white boy took advantage of you. Let him come between you and your family. Isn’t that something white people been doing for a century, separating us? After all the money I’ve spent, the time, dedication to teaching you to know the enemy . . . I don’t think you can be trusted on your own.”

I lower my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Devonte shakes his head. “This is why I keep you close, this is why our sessions are so important. If you were serious about committing to change, to being a part of this family, you would commit to being home, every night, at eight p.m. It’s time we un-program your miseducation about the white devil.”



* * *




The curfew feels like a corporal punishment and it’s all my fault. Not wanting to bring any more strife to the girls, I make sure to be back in the suite fifteen minutes early, if not sooner.

Devonte passes out the pamphlets that he and I created to a small group of us: Kareem, Vanessa, Kammy, and Legacy.

“Liberation is an urgent matter. In order to fight the psychological warfare being waged against you. You don’t understand what’s going down out there, what the government and all those people in power have planned. This is a game of chess, and the white man holds all the pieces. That means, I’m gonna put myself at risk again, teaching you what I know. I can’t stay silent.”

We nod in understanding. He’s doing this for us. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. And that makes sense because he cares about us.

“Tonight, I want to teach you about the Willie Lynch papers. That way, you can teach others. The goal is to spread knowledge to every brother and sister that will listen.”

Kammy nods eagerly, digging into the pamphlet.

Devonte stops to give me a look. “There’s a misspelling on page three. I thought you were better than that.”

I sit up rod straight. “Sorry!”