Page 30 of They Never Tell


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“Meaning what?”

“Your parents are liars. My parents are liars.Allparents are liars. Wake up.”

Here it was again. Poor little pathetic, naive Bria. She was sick of it. “So what then, Mike? What are you gonna tell the police?” she asked.

Mike grinned and pushed his locs out of his eyes, smugness written all over his face. “I’mma tell ‘em the truth.”

Later, when she was helping Danielle clean up, Bria got to thinking about what Mike said. The part about him telling police the truth was troubling, because it meant he was going to contradict her. But more than that, the part about their parents being liars was gnawing at her. Because he had tapped into something she’d been trying to forget, something that had bothered her ever since that night. She could have just asked her daddy about it back then, but she didn’t. Because she didn’t think it mattered. But now that she knew Nyleah had been murdered…

She put the half-empty tray of snacks on the counter and dug her finger under her bandage. Her nail hit a stitch and she instantly felt a jolt of pain. And then she felt much better.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bakarididn’tgetachance to talk to Danielle after the meeting. She’d seemed upset, and he didn’t want to overstep. He ended up leaving when everyone else did, and he hoped she took that as a sign of respect and not him abandoning her.

He would never admit it to anyone else, but Mike had him rattled. Because a small part of himhadbeen thinking about the possibility that one of them snuck up there and did something to Nyleah. But like cocaine, denial is a helluva drug.

It was good that he left, because he needed time to himself. Time to think. The meeting had drained him. He’d been trying his hardest to keep pushing, to pretend like he was unaffected by everything, but being around everybody else reminded him that he still wasn’t dealing with it. He didn’t even knowhowto deal with it.

And to make matters worse, he had to go home and deal with more drama. It was the day after the meeting, and progress reports were sent home. His mother had probably already checked online, but his father liked to have the paper in his hand.

He knew it was coming, this day of reckoning, but he had put it out of his mind. As he drove home from practice, his stomach churned in anticipation of his father’s reaction. His mom would help him figure out a way to deal with him. She was always ready to be a buffer between him and his pops. Well, usually. Sometimes it didn’t go the way he wanted, but she was his best hope. He made the decision as he pulled into the driveway. He would tell her first.

She was standing over a pot of something when he entered.

“You wanna eat first or shower?” Iesha asked without looking up.

Bakari sat at the breakfast bar, filling the kitchen with the smell of sweat and grass. “I’mma shower first, but I need to talk to you.”

Iesha raised her eyebrows at him and set the wooden spoon on the counter. “What is it?”

Bakari pulled the sheet of paper, tri-folded and crisp, from the back pocket of his jeans. Iesha sighed when she saw it. “Your progress report?”

He nodded as she reached over and snatched it from his hands. It didn’t take her long to see it. “This is a D.”

He nodded.

“What happened?”

He hadn’t heard that tone in her voice since she caught him stealing candy from the Rite Aid when he was eight years old. Anguish and disappointment had saturated her voice and cut him like a knife. “Bakari, I raised you better than this!” she’d said, and that was worse than the long ride back to the store, the apology to the store manager, and the whoopin’ he received from his father that night. And now, he was feeling like that bad eight-year-old again.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Mama. I think I just have too much on my mind.”

“You gotta come up with something better than that.”

“I know.”

“He’ll be home in an hour.”

“Mama, I know.”

Iesha shook her head. “How you gonna be an engineer if you’re getting Ds in math? How, Bakari?”

There was no real way to answer that without opening a can of worms. He knew it and she knew it. Him becoming a football-playing astronaut was Joe's dream, not Bakari’s.

They sat in silence for several minutes before Bakari finally spoke again. “What do I say?”

“Don’t give him any excuses. You know he hates that. Just tell him what you told me. He’ll understand.”

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