Chapter 1 #2
That’s our mom. At least that’s who she’s been since my freshman year of high school, when Dad ran off with his associate professor.
Just another woman, walking blindly into the rip current of every next guy’s empty promises.
It’s the same every time; she lets them pull her further and further from solid ground—from me, Zola…
herself—until their dizzying tide breaks, and she’s spit back out at our feet, waiting for us to fish her out and bring her back to life.
The only thing more inevitable than the breakups themselves has always been their aftermath. Mom’s recovery process is a science. Stage 1: fetal position. Stage 2: CIA level recon.
She wouldn’t exactly win any parenting awards for it, but Zo and I used to love when she’d put us on the case.
We’d all stay up late, cracking passwords and monitoring credit card statements as husband number two flew his new white girl around for seedy hookups in three-star corporate hotels.
And once we had irrefutable proof of what Mom had probably known all along, we’d listen to her rewrite a romantic history that never was and lament a romantic future that never would be.
But we didn’t mind, because it meant we’d survived another stage one.
That Mom had scraped herself up off the kitchen floor enough to get to work—even if the work was wildly inappropriate peewee reconnaissance.
It still meant she could see us again, that she needed us. And that’s all we ever really wanted.
Unfortunately, no matter how much time we spent playing full-time therapists and part-time detectives, it wasn’t enough.
Mom would eventually find her way back, but she’d do it hand in hand with another guy joking about her teenage girls calling him Daddy.
In the end, he’d be the only thing worth coming back for.
Then, one day, Zo and I grew up. And that meant realizing we should’ve been charging Mom by the hour all along.
“God, she’s exhausting,” I offer, teeing Zola up for our usual go-round.
“And I’m pregnant. I’m already exhausted! I don’t know why I thought Mom would take care of me for once.”
Our familiar cadence changes when she says it. Because this isn’t our usual go-round. Not anymore.
I start cautiously. “Zo. I remember what it feels like to try to resurrect her alone. Those few years after you left for school were heavy. You shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”
The gentle suggestion that Zola may not be able to handle something erases all signs of her physical and emotional fatigue. Or perhaps it’s the intrusive buzz from my intercom that does it.
“Maybe instead of worrying about us, you should help yourself first,” she says, sounding like my big sister again. “The world doesn’t need another missing Black girl.”
I smile at her righteous superiority, knowing that at least for tonight, balance in Zola’s world has been restored. Hopefully enough that now, she’ll sleep.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’ll keep my Taser under the pillow.”
I practically hear her eyes roll. “You don’t get points for saving your life, if you’re the one risking it in the first place. Just keep your location on. We can fight about the rest tomorrow.”
I buzz Lawrence up without verbal confirmation that it’s him. No use feigning regard for personal safety now.
“If you still need me later, I should be free in like an hour.”
“Ew,” is all she says.
“You’re the one growing a penis inside you,” I say, laughing as I end the call and open the door to meet my next great decision.
—
The best thing about having sex with men you’ll never see again is that you don’t have to wonder if it’s good for them. The worst part is that it goes both ways.
Lawrence, I realize too late, is the kind of guy who has sex at you.
I know he’s not up there reenacting his favorite porn scene right now for my benefit—at least I seriously hope not.
A singular focus on his own sexual experience?
That, I can respect. Him living a quarter century under the impression that this rabbit pounding has anything to do with pleasing a woman is a prospect too grim to consider.
To stave off an outburst about how the patriarchy is to blame for the strategic vilification and ultimate disregard of female pleasure, I allow myself the briefest moment of dissociation—mentally restructuring my budget to delay having to sell a kidney, or worse yet, start another roommate search.
“I never do this,” Lawrence grunts as he thrusts into me again with so much force, I wonder if my vagina has wronged him somehow.
The movement is enough to bring me back to my body and Lawrence’s blond curls tickling my ankles wrapped around his thick neck.
He’s got the neck of a linebacker. Everything about this guy screams athlete.
Though between his age and the fluff at his midsection, his glory days are likely a thing of the past.
Still, as a former athlete of sorts, I’m willing to bet Lawrence does “do this.” And if that’s not evidence enough, there’s always the fact that he’s been at my place a full eighteen minutes, and inside me now for at least three and a half of them.
I don’t mean to laugh, but I don’t exactly try to stop myself either.
“Says the guy who probably has a Costco-size variety pack of flavored condoms on his nightstand.”
Lawrence stills, and the tightness that had begun to coil around my belly subsides.
Confusion twists his dense brows and decently attractive face. “Huh?”
I don’t know if he’s offended or just trying to sort out how I know he buys in bulk, but I need his head back in the game.
I toy with my nipple while my free hand digs into his hip, urging him to regain his momentum.
“Nothing,” I say, my voice purposefully breathy and wanting. “I never do this either. It’s my first time.”
Who’s to say if he takes it to mean it’s my first time on the apps or my first time first time? Either way, I’m lying and he likes it.
“Shit,” he groans, finding his rhythm once more.
Lawrence pulls out of me abruptly, before expertly flipping us over, so I’m on all fours with him at my back. He enters from behind and a smirk plays at my lips. Real comfortable tossing me around for someone who never does this.
By my second failed attempt to coax his hand between my legs, it’s clear that tonight it’s every man for themselves.
I back into him to stay fuller a bit longer as my fingers get to work.
The familiarity of my own touch is a welcome departure from the night’s series of disappointments.
Focused only on tending to my own budding tremors, it doesn’t take long to find release.
It’s guttural, and primal, and probably nothing like the girlish sighs Lawrence is used to from his video girls.
With all my senses fully spent, my brain is finally blissfully quiet. So quiet, in fact, that I could almost forget I’m not alone in the room if not for the “Oh fuck” my final pulses draw from Lawrence as he finishes too.
He collapses back onto the far side of the mattress to catch his breath and gently rolls the condom down before tossing it indelicately onto the hardwood.
I don’t read the new Tinder notifications on my lock screen when I grab my phone, but I do open the app just long enough to pause my account again before texting myself one simple reminder: buy spare charger.
10:37am
Zola: And then what happened??
As I finish recapping the night for Zo, the promise of leftover lo mein propels me through the half-empty apartment. For years, this place felt like it was mine, but when the sleeper sofa and both roommates were carted off after graduation, I finally saw it for what it’s always been: temporary.
Me: He asked if it was lame to invite me to breakfast.
Zola: Wait, that’s actually cute.
Me: Don’t squint too hard trying to see what’s not there. I’m not paying for your professional delusion.
Zola: Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t afford me.
An incoming call interrupts our conversation, and I drop the phone like my landlord can see me through it. I can’t believe I let it come to this.
I should’ve been planning for this ending all along—it had all been right there in the University of Kansas brochure: four years.
That’s what they promised and that’s what I got.
I just thought by the time they handed me my degree in early education, I’d be transformed into someone new.
Someone with a job, a 401(k), and a clue what they were supposed to do next.
All I’ve got is cold Chinese takeout and the acute awareness that I’d rather do almost anything but teach.
When the ringing stops, I come back into view of the phone and Zo’s text.
Zola: I’m afraid to ask if there’s more.
Me: He wanted my number, but I said I’d rather keep things on the app til we know each other better.
Zola: this is what you said AFTER you fucked him?
Me: correct. Then I closed the door and promptly unmatched.
Zola: How romantic.
I mindlessly clear the voicemail notification from my screen, as if that alone negates the inevitability of whatever my landlord’s been trying to tell me for days.
Zola: You shouldn’t be allowed to do life without adult supervision. If you were my client, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.
Me: if I was pathetic enough to use a matchmaker, I’d deserve whatever I got.
Zola doesn’t spend as much time as usual reading me for filth or defending the virtue of her professional pursuits. She’s more focused on discussing the depths of Mom’s latest depressive episode.
It briefly feels like cause for celebration that I hadn’t been forced to learn another new guy’s name till he was already past tense, but when I hear the strain in Zola’s voice, the thirteen-hundred-mile buffer I’ve built myself suddenly feels all wrong.
If anyone deserves to fall apart right now, it’s Zo, but she’s on her own out there.
Pretending to have her shit together so Mom can lose hers.
My phone rings again, but this time when I see the number on the screen, I pick up.
“Hey, girl!” Jess says, wielding the word like a weapon. I already know what’s coming next.
“Hi, Jess.”
“Girl—”
I bristle, wondering what Reddit post advised her to talk to her Black employees this way.
Like I’ll be so disarmed by her forced familiarity that I won’t notice she’s a career bartender turned manager, who’s never successfully worked a full shift in her life.
Like I’ll forget she’s never helped me when I needed coverage.
Like I’ll forget I’m her begrudging employee—and not her girl at all.
“What’s up, girl?” I say, entertaining myself.
“Girl, are you busy today? I am trying not to stay here till four.”
I’m currently alone. Taking this call in my vacant living room.
Where the coffee beside me is tepid, and the floor below me is digging into my ass.
I’m in a bra and sweats, with no plans of showering, and my curls are still matted from being smothered beneath Lawrence earlier this morning.
But am I too busy to pick up a daytime bartending shift for a boss I can’t stand, on the first weekend of summer that everyone’s off campus? I want to say I am.
I’m about to drop my next sarcastic girl, when my phone pings in my ear. I check it reflexively.
Rich: Hi Kaia. Been trying to get a hold of you.
As you know, the renewal window on your lease has passed.
I haven’t heard back about scheduling time for our prospective tenants to see the unit.
But the twenty-four-hour notice of entry window has also now passed, so please consider this final notice that we’ll be on site to show the apartment at 2pm. Thanks.
Homelessness has now officially been added to my growing list of grievances. Fuck.
“Hellllo?” Jess calls, through the speaker impatiently.
“Ya know what?” I start, a decision forming on my lips along with the words. “I actually can’t. I’m getting ready to head back to Connecticut for a while.”
“Um. Did you submit for this time off? Because I don’t recall approving anything and you’re on the schedule in two days.” Curiously Jess is all business now.
“I know, girl,” I say, buoyed by the escape plan taking shape. “But family duty calls.”
I don’t listen for Jess’s response before hanging up, and I don’t check one-way flight prices before texting Zola, who must be closer to her breaking point than she’d let on, because she doesn’t poke a single hole or demand every granular detail I don’t have.
She simply says: YES!!!