Chapter Fifty
CHAPTER
FIFTY
Jae
With my heart thundering in my chest, I listen to the shwoosh of car tires against wet pavement as I wait at the corner of First and Swinton.
It’s the first day of summer vacation and another therapy session with Dr. Awad, an old friend of Uncle Rowan’s from Howard University.
He was eager for me to start therapy because You need someone you can always talk to.
I liked Dr. Awad the moment she opened her office door wearing a hot-pink hijab and a T-shirt that said YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU.
She reminded me of Swan, if Swan were Syrian and middle-aged.
I’m standing in front of that nondescript yellow building that looks like it should be full of flowery sofas and doilies but is a magical garden in the heart of Delray.
On most days after therapy, I walk down to the Sundy House and sit in the gazebo to fill out my journal for Sarah June.
Then I walk through the bamboo groves and dip my feet in the pond.
Today I told Sarah June that life was about to change. That change is inevitable. That it’s hard to believe how much this city feels like home. That I will see her again and that I will always want to see her.
The patter of rain on my umbrella gets louder.
It’s one of those Florida rains that come down hard and fast, and in a few hours, the rain will dry up and the trees will take in the water and grow greener.
But for now, the way is hazy with rain, and a small black Honda suddenly materializes.
Headlights like two bright eyes approach.
I hear Dr. Awad’s voice in my head, so I try to turn my anxiety into excitement through positive thinking. The butterflies, the fluttering. They’re a good thing. Not anxious, excited.
The car slows down and pulls up to the curb. I open the passenger-side door and slide in, shaking out my umbrella and pulling it in after me.
“Were you waiting long?” Derek asks, reaching over to brush away a water droplet from my forehead. My face warms.
“Just a minute.”
“Good.”
He’s giving off an intoxicating, just-bathed-in-wood-chips-and-moss smell, and I find myself leaning in closer.
He looks into the rearview mirror and adjusts his white cap, brushing a tuft of dark hair behind his ears.
Then he puts the car into gear and drives off, filling the air with questions about therapy and what Dr. Awad wore today.
We talk about last week’s graduation party for Swan and Ade, a Nigerian boy who transferred to Bellwood the last semester of his senior year.
But there’s still something hanging in the air, and after a few minutes, I finally bring it up.
“You did it?” I ask.
He nods.
“How do you feel?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but I can see him squinting, which means he’s trying to sort through his feelings.
He reaches into the cup holder for a stick of gum and pops it into his mouth.
He has an endless stash of gum. In the glove compartment, in his backpack, in his locker, on the windowsill in his bedroom.
He reaches for it anytime he’s stressed or nervous or thinking or feeling too much. It helps him not to smoke.
Just before picking me up, he dropped his mom off at a rehab center minutes away.
It took little convincing to make her go.
I think she noticed how much he changed this year.
How he stopped fighting with her and instead left the house with his notebook anytime things got heated.
How he increased his hours at Old-Timer so he could buy a used Honda from Mr. Tillman’s dealership.
How he started to talk more and more about college.
I think she saw how he was changing and decided she could too.
“I’m relieved. Hopeful,” he finally says. “But rehab doesn’t always work—”
“It will,” I say. And I say a silent prayer to the universe that it will.
Since the entrustment ceremony, Derek and I tell each other things we wouldn’t tell anyone else.
I know his feelings like I know flowers.
I can identify every emotion that flits across his face.
The little flare of his nostrils when he’s about to laugh.
The way his mouth twitches when he’s trying not to.
The way he bites his lip at our goodbyes.
I know him, and he knows me, and he hasn’t asked for more.
I haven’t asked for more. Not yet.
“What’s for dinner?” he asks, and I shake myself free of tangled thoughts and roving butterflies.
“I think it’s Uncle Rowan’s turn to decide.”
I don’t know when it was that Derek became a regular at dinner, but at some point, Uncle Rowan just expected him to be there.
The kid’s working hard. The least you could do is make sure he gets a good meal, he scolded me once when I didn’t invite Derek to eat.
I think Uncle Rowan likes having him around to talk sports with, and even more when Derek brings Henry along.
The car jostles as we pull up to the curb. The black gates are open and we roll into the driveway and park behind Uncle Rowan’s black Cadillac.
I’m looking straight ahead, but I can feel Derek’s eyes on me, can almost hear him smirk.
“You have something you wanna say?” he prods, his voice whispery and cool.
“Not yet,” I say, nerves buzzing.
“Not yet?”
“Not here.”
I step out of the car. The rain is just drizzling now—I don’t bother grabbing the umbrella.
I walk until I notice I’m walking alone.
Then I turn around, and I’m standing in the stream of bright headlights.
Raindrops glimmer like a million falling stars.
Derek sits in the driver’s seat. His body is still.
Through the dashboard speckled with rain, I find his dark eyes watching me like I’m the most amusing thing he’s ever seen. His lips slide into a slow smile.
He turns off the engine and steps outside. The headlights are gone and we’re under gray sky, and the rain falls with quiet pin drops on leaves and carries the sweet smell of earth.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks in that voice that makes me feel like he sees every inch of me.
“You’re nice to look at.”
“Yeah?” He squints and stuffs his hands in his jean pockets. “So does everything have to be on your time?”
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t you tell me now?”
I breathe, trying to temper the feelings roiling inside. Instinctively, I take a step back, because I know him—I know us—and even this far apart, I feel the pull, and there are words I need to say.
“It was a few months ago. Dr. Awad asked me why we weren’t dating if we both had feelings for each other.”
His eyes suddenly brighten and he looks smug. “You talk about me often?”
“Maybe,” I tease.
“And what did you say?”
“I told her I didn’t trust myself.”
“Why not?”
“Because of Austin.”
He huffs, wrinkles his nose in disgust.
“I know, I know. It’s not about him. It was never about him. I just hadn’t forgiven myself for him.”
He nods slowly, moving the gum around with his tongue.
“I was stuck on that mistake, still ashamed of it. Still afraid of my feelings.”
His eyebrows furrow in concern. “It wasn’t your fault. He—”
“I know.” I hold up my hand. “But it’s my turn to pour out my heart now. Okay?”
He looks confused when I reach for his hat and turn it backward. Drops of rain speckle his black lashes, his freckled nose, his lips, his cheekbones. I run my fingers along his wet jaw, kiss him at the sharp corner of it, taste the rain and his skin. I relish the soft sigh from his lips.
“What are you doing?” he whispers, mouth against my ear.
I hush him, and I say, my cheek caressing his, “I’m allowed to want things. And I want you.”
He pulls away, shaking his head like he’s in a daze.
“You’re more beautiful than Saturn’s rings.” I grin.
He laughs. Soft. “Those are my words.”
“I like your words. What was the other thing? Destroy me?” I give him a teasing smile and he blushes, looks down at the ground, and bites his bottom lip.
“You want me?” he whispers.
“More than anything.”
He looks up at the sky. Laughs. Curses. Then he leans down toward me, and those seconds are like the stretch of sunset: I study every light and shadow, every angle of his face. This moment feels like forever, and his beauty will never get old to me.
He presses his lips against mine, and my heart sings like it’s the first time, like we’re in my bedroom, putting our wounded pieces together.
His warm hand cups my face, his fingers stroke my skin, and I ache and I tingle, like I’m merely a bundle of nerves, all exposed.
His lips are the softest things, begging to be soothed, and I lick him and I tug, and we are breathless.
He explores me, wet-mouthed, and I’m like a cat, arching and purring under his touch, and every gasp or quiet moan is like a spark that ignites him.
His voice is cool and gravelly when he says my name.
“Jae.” And again, when my tongue brushes his lips.
“Jae.” He grasps for me, desperate, like he’s trying to grasp water, like I could slip away from him forever.
Against my ear is a moan, a wet tongue, a warm breath that sends shivers down my spine. I reach under his shirt, run my hands along smooth muscle, and feel his breath stop as I trace a line down his jeans. His strong arms pull me against him.
My legs, and everything inside, go soft.
I grab his belt loop and pull harder.
He traces the skin beneath my shirt, his fingers as soft and as light as a breath. I am aching.
“You’re too much,” I say, grabbing his hat, raking my hand through his hair, tugging, feeding off the wild look in his eyes, the catch in his breath. I want him to melt in my hands.
“Jae.” He’s pulling away.
“More,” I say. I reach for him, because this is not enough. Not yet.
“Jae.”
“Derek.” And I open my eyes and follow his gaze to the front door. My stomach drops.
There’s an eerie silence, like there would be just before the world ends. And then Uncle Rowan is yelling at us.
“Where is your sense of decency?” He’s in the doorway, frowning in a new gray suit, arms tightly crossed in front of him. “This is not a Hollywood set! Are you trying to get sick? I don’t know the last time I saw something so foolish.”
We have the long walk up the driveway and up the steps to cool down.
Uncle Rowan’s eyes are a death glare, but when he steps aside for us to pass, he playfully tugs on my loc and gives Derek a handshake.
It’s some West African thing that Ade taught Derek, and every time Uncle Rowan does it, with his fingers snapping, he giggles.
I hold Derek’s hand as we walk down the hall to look for Ms. Rosette, and I pass a picture of me holding Sarah June by the wisteria. I miss her so much. But on days like this, I feel like there’s love pressing in on all sides, and there’s hardly a moment to sit in sadness.
“Are you packed up for your trip?” Uncle Rowan asks me at dinner.
Swan has decided to look for her birth parents in Korea and wants me to go with her.
Derek squeezes my hand under the table. I know what he’s thinking. We won’t be together most of the summer.
“I still have three weeks left,” I say to Uncle Rowan, and I squeeze Derek’s hand back. “I already got a Korean phrasebook, though. Annyeong haseyo.”
“You’ll call me, right?” Derek asks.
“Every day. You’ll get so sick of me, you’ll change your number.”
“You need to let the young man focus,” Uncle Rowan scolds me. Then he says to Derek, “Your portfolio isn’t going to materialize out of thin air.”
“Yes, sir.” Derek nods.
Ever since Derek said he wanted to go to film school, Uncle Rowan has been nagging him nonstop. Better him than me.
“And how’s your mother?” he asks.
Derek shrugs. “She’s starting the program today.”
“That’s good.” Uncle Rowan nods. “That’s a good thing. Keep your chin up. She’ll be okay.”
“Thanks, Mr. Oakland.”
After dinner, the three of us sit in the living room to watch Koi …
Mil Gaya, the movie that started Derek’s obsession with space.
It really is the corniest thing I’ve ever seen, but we can’t stop laughing.
And when Uncle Rowan says, “Now, this is good, wholesome TV,” Derek and I roll our eyes at each other.
Halfway through, Uncle Rowan falls asleep, so we pause the movie and head upstairs to my room. We follow the rules and keep the door open.
Derek lies down and I snuggle into the crook of his arm.
He sets an open book on his chest and I lean in to read the pages.
He reads aloud from The Disordered Cosmos, which he borrowed from the library after I said one too many times that I didn’t “get” space science.
And when he reads the opening benediction to the universe, I feel goose bumps rippling across my skin.
The heartbeat. The breath. The soft turn of the page. We stir, quiet, until I forget we are separate bodies. Then his fingers brush softly against my shoulder and I remember. I think of Lucille Clifton’s poem “won’t you celebrate with me.” Derek reads, and I silently celebrate my life, my self.
Something moves outside the window.
I sit up on my elbows and jump out of bed and make my way across the room.
When I pull aside the curtains, above and below, the night is calm.
Garden lights glow over short bushes, over towering palms, over portulacas and pink clusters of pentas.
Over a small wisteria tree that will one day grow into a giant canopy of weeping purple petals.
Derek comes to stand beside me, and he’s quiet, as captivated by the darkness as I am.
I push open the window to let the cool breeze in. A collection of mingled breaths from past to now. Strangers. Lovers. Mothers. Daughters. I breathe in deep and close my eyes. I breathe out slow and take Derek’s hand.
Light, shadow, rain, sun.
Breathe deep.
Carry on.