“So… see you around, then,” Dustin said crazy-fast, and hung up.
Wow. Just like that. We were done. I leaned into the side railing and let myself cry. When I noticed a lady walking her white poodle, heading my way, I wiped my eyes and slipped back inside.
* * *
I was so angry. And I was so stinkin’ sad. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dustin all night. I pictured us snuggled up on the top bleacher at lunch, then walking to his house from school that day (when I wore my hoodie like I was in a witness-protection program—ha), and all the times he’d met me at my locker, how my whole body smiled when I first spotted him. And his smell. That shampoo-ChapStick combo. I curled into bed. This. Sucked.
Turns out, I didn’t know how bad suck could suck. Because after a lot of poor pitiful me crying, I started scrolling through Twitter, trying to distract myself, and I saw that Steve had posted some ignorant tweet about how SOME people don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and they should SHUT UP and GO BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM. I seriously almost rolled off my mattress. It was shared ninety-seven times! And it was as if Steve’s comment lit a match. Another kid started posting links to articles and posters supporting white nationalist propaganda. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, and I couldn’t stop reading, and my stomach wouldn’t stop clenching.
For the rest of the night all I did was text. From the safety of my bed, I texted Holly, Jade, Brianna, Rayshawn, Genesis. Other METCO kids. My thumbs were aching; I kept going. Who I did NOT text: Dustin.
30
Then, sometime late late that night, some anonymous person posted a meme. Of me. On Instagram.
Of me.
Holly alerted me to it first, texting just before dawn, before I was even out of bed yet: Lili. OMG. Sorry to share but WTF?? and a link. After a moment’s hesitation—did I really want to see this?—I tapped the link. And there it was. My face, my face, was photoshopped onto a piñata, and at the top of the screen was the word “wetback.” It took all my self-control not to throw the phone across my room.
Seven thousand thoughts collided in my brain. Who did this? Is this for real? Did people really think I was a wetback? A wetback? That I’d, like… swum across the Rio Grande to get to the United States, cuz hello, that’s what “wetback” means. Seriously? Aside from the term being derogatory, so what if I had? And—and—so what if my dad had? I thought furiously. Who the fuck would have done this? And really—a piñata? No one knew about my dad except Jade, Ernesto—and Dustin! Dustin! That asshole! But would he really go this far? Because I’d broken up with him? Seriously?
I had to put my phone down because my hands were literally shaking. Dustin! My heart was hammering. I opened my bedroom window, desperate for air. Was this a panic attack? The logical part of my brain was thinking: I know Dustin He wouldn’t be that much of an ass. He couldn’t be. But he was the only person at Westburg who knew!
Then my brain landed on: Everyone would see this meme. What if my parents saw? They never would, but my brain was clearly out of my control. I couldn’t stop picking up the phone again, looking again. There was bile in my throat. I had to calm down. I took deep breaths. I remembered my mother opening and closing her fists, and tried that. I clenched my fists so hard, they hurt. And that hurt shifted something—because suddenly I had a single calm thought. Which led me to a very calm decision. I took a screenshot of the meme and sent it to Mr. Rivera. He emailed me back immediately. I was to come straight to his office when I got to school. Then I texted Jade. She replied with a meme of a woman covering her mouth in slow motion.
* * *
The walk from the bus into school felt like a marathon. I didn’t look up once. I could sense people eyeing me. It helped that I was bundled up in a coat and scarf and hat. Not that anyone at Westburg even wore winter coats. I’m hip. Even though they probably had thousand-dollar goose-down parkas at home, they didn’t wear them to school—I’m guessing because they went directly from cars with heated leather seats into warm buildings, and back. No waiting for the T or the bus in single-digit weather. But that was a whole other thing. Sometimes I wished my brain could just focus.
Minutes later, I was sitting on the small couch in Mr. Rivera’s office. He had already shared the meme with the administration, and he said a formal report would be written up, not that that meant anything immediately. But he told me I didn’t have to go to first period if I didn’t want to, wrote me a pass, said to just stay put, and then he got busy talking to other administrators and filling out paperwork.
I couldn’t face going to class yet, anyway. But I was too fired up to sit there doing nothing. Yeah. Fired up. I wished I hadn’t already done all my homework. I wished I’d brought my notebook, anything for a distraction. Damn. Even working on that METCO presentation would be better than just sitting there. My leg was bouncing like I’d downed five cups of coffee. Like every neuron in my body had gone electric. Yeah, fired up. And that’s when it struck me—the METCO project. Oh yeah. Yes! Let those administrators do their paperwork for the next decade. Liliana, you stay chill. The METCO kids and I—we’d show those racist fools at the assembly. But until then, I was going to suck it up and go to class. And more importantly, find Dustin. He and I needed another talk. Big-time.
* * *
Before geometry I spotted him at the end of the hall, but he stepped inside the nearest classroom. Had he seen me? Was he avoiding me? What a wimp. Whatever. I’d find him later.
At lunch I sat with the METCO kids. Yep. It took a mad racist meme, but they waved me over to sit with them at last. I caught Holly’s eye at our regular table, and she totally got it, gave me a Go over there, girl head nod. They were all as amped up as I was at the other table, their voices loud, hard.
Brianna grabbed my arm. “I just can’t believe this shit. No—I can.”
“You know what? Fuck them!” Marquis fumed, his mouth full of food. He practically started choking.
“Don’t die on us, Marquis,” I said. Everyone managed a laugh.
“Yo.” He coughed hard, cleared his throat. “I’m hip. People should just be happy I didn’t start posting stuff in response to ‘Go back.’ Listen, I could have written some stuff.” He paused. “But I’d be kicked out of school in a second.”
Brianna crunched hard on a carrot. “They can’t do that to you and not what’s-his-face.”
“Steve,” I offered. “You mean Steve.” I’d been thinking about what he’d written—he was super careful, actually. Saying “some people” and “go back” online weren’t exactly things you could get suspended for, and he knew it.
“Whatever that fool’s name is. Wasn’t he the one on teen Jeopardy!? Anyway, doesn’t matter. I don’t care what show he was on, he’s mad ignorant.” Marquis took a big bite of his hamburger.
“For real, though, how could they make that meme of you on a piñata—” Brianna couldn’t even finish her sentence. “I would be going ballistic.”