From the Desk of Zoe Washington

by Janae Marks

She had a pretty good voice, but she always said it was because of the bathroom acoustics. That was wrong, because my stepdad sometimes sang in the shower, and the acoustics didn’t stop him from sounding like a dying coyote.

he was still confused about why I was mad at him. Well, I wasn’t about to tell him. He should be able to figure it out for himself.

If I won, I’d be just like Ruby Willow! It would be a dream come true. I never saw many Black pastry chefs on the shows I watched, or in the cookbook section of the library, but I was still determined to be one when I grew up.

“I don’t think so. This order is very important, and we can’t afford to start over because a kid messed something up.”

“You know, there are multiple sides to everyone. People aren’t so black-and-white. Sometimes good people do bad things, and bad people do good things.”

You’re the one holding all this pain inside of you, which hurts you more than it hurts Trevor. If you can forgive him, it might help you let go of the pain.

“That doesn’t mean you have to forget what he did. There’s a difference.”

I assumed that if you committed a crime, you got the punishment you deserved, and innocent people would always be proven innocent. Apparently not.

Maybe the pencil marks couldn’t be erased, but at some point, you could decide to turn to a new page.

“There’s this quote from Maya Angelou,” Grandma said. “‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.’