Every Road Leads Back to You

The Yearbook Assignment

Chapter One:

The fluorescent lights in Room 214 buzzed the way they always did in the last period of the day, like they were as tired of being awake as everyone under them. Amara Whitfield sat in the front row anyway, notebook open, pen already moving before Ms. Okafor had finished writing the assignment on the board.

Senior Feature Pairs — Yearbook & Journalism Collab.

Amara didn't look up right away. She was still finishing her sentence — something about deadlines, something about pride — when Ms. Okafor said the name that made her pen stop.

"Whitfield and Reeves."

Amara's head came up. Three rows back, by the window, Malcolm Reeves looked up too, like he'd heard his name from underwater.

"Reeves" was not a name that belonged in journalism class. Malcolm Reeves belonged on the basketball court, or in the back of AP Calculus where he sat quietly acing tests nobody thought to ask him about. He did not belong across from Amara Whitfield, who had spent three years building a reputation as the girl who'd rather write a five-hundred-word feature than go to a single football game.

"Ms. Okafor," Amara said, "I already have a partner in mind—"

"You have a partner assigned," Ms. Okafor said, not unkindly, sliding her reading glasses up her nose. "Malcolm's got a story in him. You're going to help him find it."

Across the room, Malcolm exhaled something that wasn't quite a laugh. "I don't have a story."

"Everybody's got a story," Ms. Okafor said. "That's the whole point of this class."

After the bell, Amara gathered her things slower than usual, watching Malcolm from the corner of her eye as he shouldered his bag. He was taller up close than she'd clocked from across a gym she rarely sat in. He caught her looking.

"So," he said. "You're stuck with me."

"Looks like it."

"I really don't have a story."

Amara almost smiled. Almost. "Everybody thinks that. It's usually not true."

He held the door for her without seeming to think about it, and Amara walked through it telling herself this was nothing — a two-week assignment, a byline, a grade. She had no idea yet how much that door was about to open.