Chapter Thirty-Five
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Jae
Uncle Rowan’s white leather recliner makes a swoosh sound as he settles into it and crosses one ankle over his knee. He rests his legal pad on his leg and scribbles across the pastel yellow surface.
I watch him from my supine position on the sofa, where I’m balancing my book of short stories on my chest. Not reading.
It’s become a ritual of sorts: I come home to finish my homework, sit through an awkward dinner with Uncle Rowan, and then share silence with him in the family room, reading and writing in our own separate worlds. But today, there was no homework, no school. Cramps, I told him.
I didn’t tell him the whole school knows my secret. He’d just say to face the music. He’d tell me to take responsibility for my mistakes. I wonder if responsibility means my name on the bathroom stall. Fingers pointing at me in the cafeteria. Sitting alone in the banyan tree.
He looks up at me over his glasses without raising his shiny head, sensing he’s in my thoughts. I return to my book, turn an unread page.
Just then the doorbell rings. Uncle Rowan doesn’t look up from his scribbling.
“Get that, will you?” he mutters.
I throw my book on the couch and get up. When I open the door, Derek’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his jersey clinging wet to his chest. My heart, unsure, takes flight, and then just as soon, plummets. God, not you.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, closing the door behind me and stepping onto the landing, the warm and grainy stone beneath my bare feet.
“I, uh … I took the wrong portal?” Derek says, his face partially shadowed by his cap.
I tilt my head, offer him only a blank stare. I’m angry the weeks didn’t erase everything. The fluttering, the tensing, the lightness. My body won’t give him up. I’ve missed his voice, its texture like something soft and hungry. I want you to tell me things too. Well, now he knows everything.
“Have you seen Interstellar?” he asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“What?”
“Time. They talk about time. Brand says time can stretch and it can squeeze, but it can’t run backward. That’s all I’ve wanted for so long, for time to run backward so I could fix everything.”
I sigh. “Why are you here?”
“I just wanted to see if you’re okay,” he says. “I know I’m not supposed to be here.” He takes off his hat and runs his hand through black waves, squinting up at me like I’m the sun.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you’re not still there,” I answer, “standing on the dance floor.”
“What?”
“Standing. You know. Not doing anything. Not sticking up for me.”
“Jae—”
“You stood there.” I take a shaky breath, the memory of the party back in fleshy detail, like he’s the ghost of Christmas past, showing me my humiliation. “You stood there and let them mock me,” I say. “And you show up here three days later like it actually means something.”
He blinks up at me, eyes all deep black, and I ache. Our night together comes back, an echo of tender words and impatient sighs, of wanting more. I break the spell, send the echoes back.
“I had a baby.” I let those words linger between us. The only words that matter right now. They’ve always been there, an invisible wedge. “I had a baby. I gave her to someone else. It was just me. No one was there for me.”
“Jae.”
“I had no closure, no entrustment ceremony, nothing. And they took her like … like my hands were meant to be empty. Like I didn’t deserve her because I didn’t wait long enough to have her.
Nobody thinks I need her.” I swallow. Blink away tears.
My voice is hollow and tired. “You wanted to see if I’m okay? You know I’m not okay.”
He looks down at the bottom stair and all I can see is the top of his white hat. He’s shaking his head like those are words enough.
“Say something.” I take a step, my right foot bearing down on a sharp stone, and I let it press into my skin, grit my teeth.
“Jae—”
“Say something!” The pain is like oxygen feeding my anger, and I run down the steps and onto the warmth of concrete, needing to be closer, wanting him to feel the fire emanating off my skin.
“I’m sorry.” He stares at me, unwavering, dark eyes lined with shadows.
“Sorry?”
“I—I didn’t know what to do. I froze. It was … a shock.”
The woeful look in his eyes grates on my nerves. The confirmation in them, that I was right to hide the truth, that it was too big for him to handle. “Poor you,” I say, my voice drenched with mock concern. “Poor Derek. You don’t think I was shocked?”
He clenches his jaw, steps closer. Too close. His face, held into something stronger than anger, bends toward mine, making my insides gather and twist, flicker and flame, making his breath on my skin feel like soft fingers.
“You had no idea you had a kid either?” he says, his voice gravelly. “Was that a shock to you, too?”
“That was none of your business.”
“I told you my business,” he says, stabbing his chest. “Everything! Poured out my heart into those dumb poems.”
I cross my arms. “You told me about your parents and I told you about mine. I’d say we’re even.”
“Even?“ he scoffs. Turns around like he needs to get away from me, then comes back, pacing, caged. “Even? Are you serious?” I can hear his breath from here, the steady count of in-four out-six, and my insides shift when he stops and looks down at me with eyes so sharp they could pin me down. “I don’t wanna be even with you. Not with you.”
My heart catches, like my arms wrapped around my chest, my skin, muscles, bones, can’t stop him from reaching inside. I raise my chin high, turn my head to a swaying palm tree, to the sound of its caressing leaves.
“How could you not tell me something so important?” he presses, stepping closer. “I had to find out—”
“Not my fault,” I snap. “Your friends stole my stuff. And you didn’t stop them, did you.”
“What? You think I knew about it?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No fucking way.”
“You’re lying.”
“Jae.” He gives me a look of disgust and starts walking down the driveway past Uncle Rowan’s car, toward the gate. I run, plant myself in his path. His eyebrows gather like storm clouds.
“How did she get my letter?” I demand.
“I can’t believe …” He growls and steps around me. I grab his jersey, damp with sweat, and pull him back. “Let go,” he says.
I run around him, block his way, arms wide. “How did she get my letter?”
“I told you, I didn’t know before she did it. And you called me a liar. You think I’d lie to you?”
“But you know now, don’t you?”
“Jae, who cares! Valeria’s not here. It’s you and me. This is about us.” He’s frantically gesturing at the air.
I shake my head. “There is no us.”
He breathes in, nostrils flared. “Yeah? She took it from your bag in English class. Made a copy. Are you happy now? Now that you know, and there’s no us?” He turns around, makes it a few steps down the driveway before I block him again.
“Did you just ask if I’m happy now? Did you seriously ask me that? Are you happy now?” I mimic.
“Just forget it, okay?” He washes his hands over his face. Groans. “Forget everything. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
“Well, you should.”
“Then let me!” he yells, hitting his chest. “Stop pushing me away when I’m trying!
I don’t care about those guys.” He points vaguely over his shoulder.
“I leave school, and they don’t cross my mind.
But you do. All the time. I think about you, too freaking much.
I sleep and I wake up and you’re there!”
I step back like I’ve been stung. Clench my teeth against the flood of feelings.
He shakes his head, voice soft, melted. “They don’t matter, Jae.”
“They matter.” I take another step back, take deep breaths.
“Since I came here, I’ve had a target on my back, and your friends put it there.
” His eyes are pleading, but I’m tired, and I want everything said.
“Do you realize what this costs me? This isn’t the kind of place where kids have babies too young.
I don’t need to be the Black girl with baggage here, the baby mama.
Easy.” My hands shake. I ball them into fists to keep them steady.
“I don’t get it. Are you any different from your friends?
Do they think so? They seem to think you fit right in. ”
I turn, feel the grate of stone against my heels, but he grabs my hand and pulls me back, so close I can feel his breath on my face, his nose almost touching mine.
“Listen. I mean this. I’m gonna make sure they don’t bother you again.
” He presses his fingers into my palms. His thumb brushes my skin.
“Why would things be different now? You’ve never been there for me.”
“I’m right here!” His arms are open again, face red.
“I’m here! And I didn’t mean to hurt you.
You’re the last person I wanna hurt.” His voice is cracking, quivering.
“I’m not good enough. That’s … that’s it.
I’m not.” He sniffles, pushes his hat lower over his eyes.
Looks away. “I’m supposed to stay away from you.
I don’t want to. I just … I don’t want to.
” He laughs, sad. “I know I’m not good enough, but I miss you so much. ”
I look up at his face and swallow down hurt and fight off the sadness stinging my eyes. “Uncle Rowan said I don’t know what better looks like,” I say. “But I do. I deserve better.”
Derek’s shoulders fall. He blinks at the ground.
“Would someone like to tell me what’s going on?” Uncle Rowan’s voice carries. I turn around to see him standing at the door, legs spread like he’s guarding the entrance. But he is calm, waiting, and the hair on my arms stand up.
“I was just telling Derek I don’t want to talk to him again,” I say, giving Derek a final glance.
His eyes flicker with pain, dark under the shadow of his cap. I trek the warm concrete, run up the stairs and past Uncle Rowan. I don’t wait. I slam the front door so hard the picture frames on the wall clatter.
I’m tired of being burned. For once, I want to be the one who turns everything into ash.
To Him.—Jae
i wanted you to stay,
but the truth is
i’d still have good days
with or without you.
you aren’t the wind that carries me,
and I’m not afraid to fly,
so I choose me,
janelle,
sixteen,
dark eyes.
To Her.—Jae
i am georgia
the spirits of lake lanier
roil in my mouth
i could spit them out and haunt you
my voice is a ring shout
a gullah geechee song
you’re not meant to understand