Brandy Colbert - Pointe

Donovan Pratt, 17, returned to his home in Illinois after four years in captivity

Breaking News: Chicagoland teen rescued from years-long abduction

Locals call missing teen’s return a miracle

The news is the type of nonstop coverage that makes people turn away after a while, say they no longer care. I absorb it all, find a little pocket to store each new piece of information. The reports are vague. Every news anchor alludes to the abuse, brings up old long-term abduction cases and some that were never solved. They talk about where Donovan was found: a Las Vegas breakfast buffet, with the person they believe had him all these years. A few minutes past nine, the thick-haired anchor with the tired eyes says.

I was in second period. Chem. My throat tightens as I try to remember if I felt anything during class. But no. I was zoning out, same as any other day of the week.

Some of the channels show timelines to illustrate his life. They use fancy graphics and bold colors, but it all adds up to the same conclusion: thirteen years as a normal kid in Ashland Hills, four years at the mercy of a stranger. I wait and I wait, but they haven’t revealed the identity of the abductor. All we know is there’s a suspect in custody.

“You should get ready for bed,” my mother says gently, around eleven.

The coverage has slowed except for the major cable news channels. There’s nothing new to be learned at this point, but I’m afraid I’ll miss something if I go to bed. I want to know who took him. What they did to him.

“He’ll still be here in the morning,” my mother says, as if she can read my mind.

Somehow I float up to my room and then I’m under the covers. But I can’t sleep. How can someone be here every day for years, then disappear? How can they be gone so long and just come back on a Thursday, like that was the plan the whole time? I won’t believe he’s really here until I see him.

Donovan was brave. In a speak-first-think-later sort of way, but there was always truth behind his words. Like that day during our sixth-grade history lesson. I’d been dreading it all week because we were studying the Civil War and there’s nothing worse than being the only black kid in class on the day your teacher talks about slavery.

Most days, I don’t think too much about being a novelty in this town. Chicago is really segregated, and my suburb is almost all white, but people don’t treat me like there’s a big divide or anything. We’ve been in school together for so long, it’s like they forget my skin is darker until someone or something reminds them. And the slavery discussion is one of those instances. It goes one of two ways: either the teacher calls on you because you must be the expert, or they avoid you and look all around the room at your blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates.

Mr. Hammond was old-school, so he jumped right in. Something about the modern-day effects of Jim Crow laws, and as soon as he finished his question, he looked right at me and said, “Theo, maybe you have an example of how Jim Crow laws have affected you or your family so many decades later.”

I felt eyes on me and I felt eyes trying not to be on me. The room was so silent, I heard Macy Wilkins’s stomach growling in the next row. And no matter how hard I wished it, Mr. Hammond did not get swallowed up by the floor and whisked away to a hell built for insensitive teachers.

I was just sitting there, trying to figure out how to answer him without being exceptionally rude, when I remembered that this year I wasn’t the only black kid in this class. Donovan sat on the other side of the room and I didn’t have to look over to know he was seething.

But I didn’t expect him to say anything.

Before I could open my mouth: “Why did you call on Theo, Mr. Hammond?”

Our teacher looked away from me, confused. “Excuse me, Donovan?”

I peeked at him. He was sitting straight up in his chair, forearms placed calmly on the desk in front of him. Palms flat. His brown eyes were narrowed and his cleft chin jutted out so far, it nearly pointed at the whiteboard.

“I said, why did you call on Theo? Her hand wasn’t up.”

Mr. Hammond’s face puckered. “Would you like to answer the question?”

“No. I don’t think either of us should have to answer.” Donovan’s voice was calm but his eyes were shooting poison.

“Well, Donovan,” he said slowly, as his neck then jowls then forehead burned an intriguing shade of red. “I’m asking because perhaps you could offer a . . . unique perspective, as your ancestors were so closely involved.”

And that’s when Donovan lost his cool. “That’s bull. Why don’t you ask Joey or Leo or anyone else in this class about their perspective?” He was leaning forward over his desk then, his fingers gripping the edge like it was the only thing holding him back from a full-on fit of rage. “Last time I checked, their ancestors were closely involved. Yours, too!”

He was sent to the principal’s office for talking back but the smirk he shot me on the way out of the room told me it was all worth it. I blinked a quick thank-you back at him. Mr. Hammond never called on either one of us again during the Civil War lessons.

Donovan was brave, but you can be brave for only so long, and as I lie under my covers staring up at the ceiling, I can’t stop wondering if four years was long enough to break him.

I had a hard time sleeping after the abduction. I would slip into my parents’ room in the middle of the night and ask if I could stay with them.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Mom would ask as she sat up in bed, the silk headscarf she slept in wrapped tightly around her hair.

I was thirteen. Much too old to run to my parents’ bed for comfort. I couldn’t tell them that in the back of my mind, I thought that if this could happen to someone as good and kind as Donovan, it could happen to me, too.

But they never made me feel bad about it. Dad would say, “Can’t shut off your brain?” and I’d nod and crawl into bed between them, instantly soothed by the rhythmic patterns of their breathing, the familiar smell of their room, the warmth of their sheets.

But that was four years ago, and Donovan is back. There’s no reason to be scared unless I think about who took him, and still, it doesn’t matter because that person is in custody. I’ve thought about that person often over the years. Man or woman? Old or young? Black like Donovan and me, or white like most everyone else in this town? I think about the pages and pages of sex offenders registered online in Chicago, how most of them have nothing in common except their desire to hurt people.

I fall asleep for a bit but I wake around two in the morning. I have to pee. I sit on the toilet for a while, wondering if the last few hours were a dream. Maybe I sat in the back booth at Casablanca’s and finished my chemistry homework while Phil studied for trig and Sara-Kate worked on her poem for English. Maybe I ate that cup of mushy lentil soup and maybe Donovan isn’t just two houses away from me after all.

My mother is in the hallway when I come out.

“Mama.” I haven’t called her that since I was a little girl. “Mama, did they really find him?”

She reaches out to me and we mold into each other. My nose is pressed into the crease of her armpit. She rests her cheek on top of my head.

“Yes,” she says into my ear. Her voice is tinged with sleep, but most of all, it is content. “He’s home.”

MOST EVERYONE AT SCHOOL TREATS FRIDAY LIKE A FREE DAY anyway, but the news of Donovan’s return means it’s worse than usual, so the principal cancels second period and holds an assembly instead.

Before it starts, I duck outside to meet Sara-Kate and Phil behind the athletic field for a smoke.

They’re standing in a little circle between the bleachers and the fence that marks the end of school grounds, next to Klein and Hosea. Klein can be found out here most mornings. I bet even he couldn’t tell you the last time he made it through a school day sober.

He sees me before everyone else does. It’s subtle, but he stands a little taller, holds his jaw a little higher.

“What’s up, Legs?” he says, making room for me, his green eyes taking in my every move.

He smells like a cologne factory, and I’m sure whatever brand it is, it’s wildly expensive. Just like every stitch of clothing on his body and the shiny car he parked in the lot this morning.

“Don’t objectify my best friend like that,” Sara-Kate says with a lazy grin. A breeze slices through the air and she wraps her arms around the black lace of her vintage party dress. It’s thin and stylishly tattered and she must be beyond cold. But Sara-Kate doesn’t believe in coats until the temp drops down to freezing, and even then only sometimes.

She passes me a half-smoked joint. I can immediately tell that Phil rolled it. He’s an expert. Phil doesn’t half-ass anything. If he’s going to be a stoner he’s going to be a damn good one, with perfectly rolled joints and lighters that never burn out on you.

“I’m not objectifying her,” Klein says easily. “I can’t help it if Theo has nice attributes.”

His eyes slip from my neck down the length of me, hovering on my pink silk top with the Peter Pan collar. Sara-Kate gave me this shirt for my birthday; I love it but it sort of makes me look like I’m five, and I’m flat to boot, so Klein seems extra-pervy, staring at me like he wants to rip it off. I button my coat the rest of the way.

“Can we not talk about Theo like Theo’s not standing next to you?” I take a long drag and look around the circle as I let out the smoke, trying to figure out who to pass it to next. I catch Hosea’s eye and we both look away this time.

I wonder if he thinks I told Sara-Kate and Phil that he works at the studio.

The smoke courses through me in its hazy, familiar way, coasts through my chest and relaxes my shoulders. I close my eyes for a moment, want to remember this blissed-out state before we’re subjected to Crumbaugh at the assembly. She’ll be up there because she’s forever front and center when anything big goes down. She’s the world’s worst guidance counselor—devoid of any useful advice, but always ready for the spotlight.

Klein nudges Hosea, though his eyes follow the joint between my fingers. “So what’s this bullshit assembly about?” Because seriously, he never shuts up.

“Not bullshit,” Phil says. He pushes a piece of hair from his forehead. It’s getting kind of long now, curling over his collar in a shaggy, old-rock-star sort of cut. I swear to God, Phil could time-travel back to 1972 on any given day and no one would know the difference. “It’s necessary. I heard some little freshman asking who ‘this Donovan kid’ is. I wanted to punch him.”

“Maybe he’s new in town.” Even stoned, Sara-Kate likes to give the benefit of the doubt.

“That’s no excuse for being uninformed,” Phil counters. “It’s national news.”

He takes what’s left of the joint and sucks on the end of the roach, brooding. For once, he isn’t being testy just for the sake of it. He was Donovan’s friend, too. It was the three of us for a while. We formed a little trio and started calling ourselves the Brown Brigade because there aren’t a lot of people around here who look like us. When we met in kindergarten, I didn’t know Phil was Mexican until I heard his mother scolding him in Spanish. His skin was only a bit lighter than mine, so I didn’t understand that the history of brown skin is as varied as its shades, just that we were different.

Klein sighs. “Let’s get outta here. I gotta take a piss.”

He leads the way back to the two-story, stone-colored building, followed by Phil in his kelly-green corduroys and Sara-Kate in her bright red fishnets, shivering as she walks. If the administration ever proposes uniforms or actually enforces the dress code, it’s no secret who’ll be screwed the hardest.

Hosea takes the last drag of his clove, exhales away from me, and tosses it to the ground with all the other butts, stomping it out with his boot. “Heard you were looking for some boomers.”

“What?”

“Mushrooms?” The corners of his lips lift a tiny bit.

I open my mouth and close it again without a word. Fucking Phil.

“No, it was a friend . . . She doesn’t go here. She was just asking around, though.”

He appraises me. Up close, his eyes startle me. They’re a deep, pure gray. Like steel, but softer. He sticks his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie and says, “Let me know if she changes her mind. I can help.”