Schooled In Lies by Angela Henry Page B

But to be honest, I don’t think Julian firing me was completely my fault.”
    “Why?”
    “Julian had just broken up with his girlfriend and was acting like a crazy person. He was so upset and then I messed up by not giving him that damned message and I think he just took everything out on me,” she said, shrugging.
    “Wow. Who was the girlfriend?” I asked before taking another bite of egg roll. But she just shook her head.
    “I’d rather not say. She did me a big favor by helping me get that job with Julian in the first place. I don’t want to talk about her behind her back.”
    I could respect that so I moved on.
    “So you never left Willow after high school, huh? I just figured you probably joined Serena wherever she went.” The minute it was out of my mouth I regretted it. Her face almost fell into her drink.
    “Serena’s dead, Kendra,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears.
    “Oh my God, Cherisse. I’m so sorry. When did she die?” I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She didn’t pull away, but her hand was as limp and cold as a dead fish.
    “I don’t know.” She shrugged and stared at me.
    “But I thought you said—”
    “Serena never came back home. She never wrote or called. I’m her twin. Why wouldn’t she have called or written to let me know she was okay? She has to be dead. That’s the only explanation.”
    Serena Craig was the polar opposite of her sister, Cherisse. She was a wild child, a bad ass. She smoked and drank, had a vocabulary that would make a felon blush, talked back to teachers, and regularly cut class. She also had her own very distinct style of dress that included mini skirts or baggy shorts, tight T-shirts, fishnet stocking, and combat boots worn with long coats and blazers. She wore her hair in a big curly Afro when most other black kids back then were sporting Jheri Curls or asymmetrical cuts. She was beautiful and untamed, like some kind of wild exotic animal, the kind that don’t thrive in captivity. Strangely enough, the round table crew left her alone. I think even they were in awe of her. But their deference to Serena didn’t stop them from going after Cherisse. I sometimes wondered if they gave Cherisse a double dose of bullying to make up for what they didn’t have the nerve to do to Serena. She protected her twin as best she could when she actually came to school, but it wasn’t enough.
    Our food arrived and we started eating.
    “Did your parents file a missing person’s report?” I asked between bites.
    “My parents were really hurt when Serena left home. They thought she did it to get back at them and that she’d turn up eventually. When she never came home, they just acted like little kids in a staring contest trying to see who would blink first, them or Serena. I think they were trying to practice tough love. You know, trying to show her they couldn’t be manipulated by her actions anymore.”
    “Get back at them for what?”
    Cherisse pushed noodles around her plate for a few seconds before answering.
    “Serena was a lesbian.”
    I stopped eating and stared at her until she continued.
    “I’d known since junior high. I didn’t care. She was my sister. I worshipped her. But she came out to our parents about a month before she left. They kicked her out of the house. She didn’t have any money, and she was sleeping on the streets. I begged them to let her come back home. They only agreed to let her come back if she promised to attend one of those reversion programs. You know the kind that are supposed to turn homosexuals straight?”
    “I’ve heard of those programs. Don’t they use some kind of aversion therapy to repeal homosexual urges?”
    “Yeah. She agreed to go. And my parents enrolled her into a program run by this Christian organization. She was gone for two weeks and when she came home for a weekend visit she was like a different person. She was so quiet and subdued. My parents were happy. They thought the