“I said I’m fine.” The words leave my mouth sharp as needles, pricking us both.

“But, Ezra—”

“Kimba, just stop.” I run my hands over my hair, my fingers tangling in the thick, tight curls.

My yarmulke lies on the sidewalk, marred by a dirty sneaker footprint. I bend to pick it up and twirl it like a basketball, watching it spin and spin on my finger in the silence that stretches thick as taffy between Kimba and me. A creaky, familiar song breaks the quiet, and both our heads turn toward the sound. The old ice cream truck comes into view, making its slow way up the street.

There are so many things I could say to Kimba. I want to explain how splintered I feel sometimes—how there’s something always moving inside me, searching for a place to land, to fit, to rest. I want to tell her it’s only ever still when I’m with her—that she’s my best friend in the world, and I’d rather get punched in the stomach every day than move away and not have her anymore. But that’s too many words that don’t even come close to telling her what I feel.

“Ice cream?” I ask instead, keeping my gaze trained on the rickety neon-painted truck wobbling toward us.

I cross my fingers that she won’t ask again if I’m okay because I don’t think she’d know what do with the truth. I don’t know what to do with the truth. I’m not okay sometimes. The familiar tune gets louder and closer.

Finally, she speaks. “Okay, Ezra. Ice cream.”

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Kimba

13 Years Old

“Psssst!”

The hiss comes as a piece of notebook-lined origami lands on my desk. I glance nervously from the little square of paper to the teacher at the front of our class. Mrs. Clay is the toughest teacher in the whole eighth grade. She doesn’t play and I don’t test her. Ezra and I were the only black kids in the gifted classes for the longest time, though I know most don’t think of Ezra as black. They don’t know quite what to make of his blue eyes and rough curls and tanned skin. To me, he’s just my best friend.

At the beginning of this school year, another black girl showed up in class, Mona Greene. I didn’t even know how much I needed that until she came. I always have Ezra, of course, but a girl who looks like me? Has hair like me? Understands this tightrope we walk between school and home, striking the right balance between being black enough and just enough black—I love having that. Mona busses in from a neighboring district through a program the city implemented. She’s great, but she always almost gets me into trouble.