by Renée Watson
“That’s a lot of pressure,” I say.
“Tell me about it. Pressure to talk right, dress right, get good grades, do the right thing. No mistakes, no second chances.” The clouds shift and for a moment there is relief from the sun. “That’s why I love spending time with you. I don’t feel any pressure with you. I can just be.” Tye takes my hand. “I don’t want to let that go. I just want to know who you really are.”
“That’s just it, Tye. I don’t know who I really am. I mean, I think I know . . . I’m—I’m learning who I am.”
A man walking his dog passes us. I wait until he is far enough away that he can’t hear me. I don’t want anyone to know this yet, just Tye. I whisper, “I don’t think we should be together right now.” I expect tears to come when I say this, but they don’t. My heart is relaxed, it’s off the seesaw, released from suspense. “This isn’t because I don’t love you, it’s because I need to learn how to love myself. For myself.”
Part of me is screaming inside, asking what is wrong with me, why am I letting go of someone who cares about me, wants me, forgives me. But I yell back at her, reminding her what Grandma said.
Self-love is radical love.
Self-love is radical love.
Self-love is radical love.
Today, I’ve started my own revolution.
24
REMEDIES TO A BROKEN HEART
1.Ice cream. Any flavor. In a sugar cone, or waffle cone, or cake cone. In a bowl or cup, soft-serve, hand-dipped. With pie, or cake, or cookies, or fruit, or all by itself. A scoop, two scoops, maybe even three—not more than a pint, at least not all at once, because even if it heals your heart, it will definitely hurt your stomach.
2.Reality TV. Pick your guilty pleasure. Home makeover marathons, singing competitions, cooking competitions, dating experiments, true life crime, behind the scenes with celebrities. Sometimes paying attention to someone else’s drama helps to put your own in perspective.
3.Spa treatment. Okay, “treatment” sounds fancy. All I mean is, I am painting my own nails and giving myself a pedicure. Usually I rush when I do my nails—I hate waiting for them to dry. But today, I’ve lit a candle, I’m playing music (Blue, of course), and I’m taking my time. After all, a spa treatment should feel like a treat, not a chore.
4.Cry. I don’t know why people try not to cry, why we hold it in. I have decided to cry as much and as hard as I need to. Sometimes it is a snotty nose sob, the kind that bellows out, echoing off the high ceilings. An earthquake cry that shakes my insides and makes my shoulders tremble. And sometimes, it comes in silence. Just tears bubbling up in the corners of my eyes, sometimes falling, but sometimes just swaying in the ebb and flow of sorrow. Sometimes the cry comes without tears, comes in the shake of my voice, the hoarseness. Sometimes it comes camouflaged as laughter. (See number 2 to know what I’m laughing about.) I laugh to keep from crying. A belly laugh, even. But still, the tears are there. And the afternoon goes on, crying and laughing, crying and laughing. And that saying I laughed so hard I cried takes on a whole new meaning.
I get a text from Sadie: what are you doing?
Me: crying.
Sadie calls me, asks me what’s wrong, and when I tell her she says, “I’m coming over,” and hangs up the phone before I can tell her not to. Knowing Sadie is coming over makes me get off my bed, wash my face, and go downstairs. My head hurts from all the sobbing, so I don’t feel like doing much but I am glad I will have company. Aunt Ebony and Uncle Randy are gone for the weekend to the Poconos, and Imani is with Asher (surprise, surprise).
An hour later, Sadie is at my door, and when she comes in she doesn’t ask me how I am doing or do I want to talk about it. Instead, she says, “Have you heard Koffee’s new song?” and we spend the rest of the night eating pizza and listening to music. I start putting a playlist together: Koffee, Shenseea, Masika, Lauryn Hill. Listening to the music makes us look up videos online, and we dance and we are singing so loud, dancing so hard, so free.
And then, I hear a noise, see a shadow.
Imani is home.
“You two having a party without me?” she says. It is not said as a question.
Sadie is oblivious. “Hey, girl.” She pauses the video. “Where you been?”
“With Asher,” Imani says. “You spending the night?”
And that’s when I look at the clock, see that it is midnight and I have no idea how all this time passed without me realizing it. Sadie didn’t know how late it was either. She grabs her phone, says, “My mom is going to kill me.” She calls her mom, explains that she lost track of time, and asks—begs—to spend the night. “I’ll come home first thing in the morning.” Her face flashes a smile, and so I know her mom said yes. She didn’t mention that Aunt Ebony and Uncle Randy aren’t here. But they wouldn’t care anyway.
I am glad that Sadie is staying over. She doesn’t even know it, but she is a buffer between me and Imani. For the first time since our argument at Grandma’s, Imani is sitting in my room, actually speaking to me. “What did you do today?” she asks.
I would say nothing, but I am done with lying, so I tell the truth. “I broke up with Tye today.”
Imani’s eyes fill with shock. “You broke up with him?”
Sadie gives her a look. “Why you say it like that?”
“Well, I mean, I just assumed he’d be the one who would call things off. I mean, Nala lied, she—”
“I know what she did. But Tye loves her. He chose to forgive her,” Sadie says.
“So if he’s forgiven you, Nala, why did you break up with him? What was the point of all of this?”
“Why do you care? Isn’t this what you wanted—to break us up?”
Sadie stands. “Um, maybe I should leave so you two can have privacy and—”
“Sadie, you don’t have to leave,” I tell her. Then, I look at Imani and tell her, “Say what you have to say.”
Now, Imani gets all quiet and doesn’t say anything.
“Imani, I’m embarrassed and ashamed, but I’m not sorry. Not toward you. I don’t understand why there’s tension between us. I’ve already talked with Grandma and Tye. I feel like you think I owe you an apology, but I didn’t do anything to you.”
Imani stands up quick, like a fire is under her. “You did do something to me. First of all, you embarrassed me. I brought you around my friends, and you went out of your way to mock everything we stand for. And every chance you get, you get closer and closer to my mother, and now, you’ve messed with my friend’s heart. Get your own life.”
Sadie says, “Come on, you two. You’re family. Don’t do this.”
“We need to do this,” I say. And then I walk over to Imani, make sure she is looking at me when I ask her, “Do you want me to move out? You keep bringing up my relationship with Aunt Ebony. Do you want me to leave? Give you back your mother?”
Sadie doesn’t let Imani talk. She blurts out, “Imani—don’t answer that. You two are emotional right now. Just talk tomorrow . . . don’t say anything you’ll regret.”
Imani and I are standing face-to-face. I am looking at my cousin-sister-friend, waiting for her to tell me she doesn’t want me to live with her anymore, that she doesn’t want to share her mother, her friends, her life with me. We are a mirror to each other, tears in her eyes, tears in mine. She doesn’t answer my question. She takes Sadie’s advice, turns around, walks away.
The next morning, Sadie wakes me up with a whisper. “I’m leaving, okay? Gotta get home to watch my little brother.” She is standing at the side of my bed, her bag on her shoulder, MetroCard already in her hand.
“Wait, let me walk you out.” I slide out of bed, my head still pounding from yesterday’s stress. We walk downstairs, and I open the front door for her. “Thanks for coming over,” I say.
Sadie gives me a hug. “Text me if you need me later. Hope you and Imani work things out.”
I close the door, and instead of going back into my room and hiding till Imani l
eaves, I go upstairs and knock on her door.
“Come in.”
When I open the door, the room is full of sunlight. The glow bounces off Imani’s white bedsheets. Everything in her room is in its place. She has never been messy, always all of her seems perfect. I stand at the door, leave it open, and lean against the frame. My arms are folded, even though I don’t want to seem guarded. I can’t help it. I don’t know her answer to my question. I don’t know if today I will be packing my bags and going back to my mom’s house. And I know technically Aunt Ebony and Uncle Randy have the last say—it is their house after all. But I don’t want to be here if Imani doesn’t want me here. That feeling is in my chest again, the seesaw feeling. I’m suspended up, up, up. No control over how hard the fall is going to be.
Imani doesn’t turn around to face me. She is still in bed, under a thin sheet, lying on her side. Her back is to me. Even though I am the one who’s come to her room to talk, she is the one who begins. “I’m sorry, Nala. I said a lot of things last night that I didn’t really mean.” Imani’s voice is always hoarse in the morning. She sounds like she is still half-asleep, I think maybe her eyes are still closed. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I know.”
Imani turns over, faces me. “I just, I don’t know. Since we were babies we’ve always been compared to each other. Every single thing we do. When it comes to Inspire Harlem, I just want to exist without having to worry about that. And you don’t even like hanging with us anyway.”
“Well, that’s only because when you’re with them, you change. And even when you’re not with them, sometimes you seem so . . . judgmental.”
Imani sits up, cross-legged in her bed, her back against the headboard. “I don’t mean to be judgmental. I think I’m just used to being the leader, the one who has to take care of you, show you the way I guess. I mean, that’s how it’s always been.”
“But that’s just it, it doesn’t need to be like that anymore. I don’t need you to speak for me or feel responsible for teaching me. I don’t want to be your shadow. I want to stand in my own light.” I walk over to Imani’s bed and sit on the edge. “And I need to give you and Aunt Ebony time alone, to just hang out without me. I’m sorry if—”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Nala. I need to be home more. That’s on me.”
We sit for a moment, not knowing what else to say.
Then Imani says, “We don’t have to hug now, do we?” and she slides back under her covers, laughing.
I yank the sheet off her, take it with me, and run out of the room. “No,” I shout. “And we don’t have to say I love you either.”
You know when someone loves you. You just know.
25
It’s just past noon, and the city is a symphony of chaos. Everything is making noise all at once, but somehow there is a calmness to the block I am walking down. Every sound complementing each other, the brakes of the bus, the honking horns, the bounce of the basketball, the slap of the jump rope against concrete. The laughing from the boys standing at the corner cracking jokes and talking big, the delivery guy swerving and zigzagging through traffic dinging his bell to alert people to move out of his way, the woman yelling into her phone like it’s a bullhorn, telling all her business.
Before I get to Grandma’s, I stop at the ice cream shop to get JT a sundae. I get hot fudge for him and a caramel sundae for me. Grandma has an appointment with her doctor, so I don’t have to sneak in the building. When I get to Grandma’s, Ms. Sharon is at the front desk as usual. “Ms. June isn’t here right now,” she tells me.
“I know,” I tell her.
I don’t explain why I am here. I just go straight to JT’s, knock on his door.
When he sees me, he smiles real big. “Miss Nala,” he says. “Come on in.”
“Hi, JT. I have something for you.” I hand him his sundae.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are too kind. Too kind.” He sits at the dining room table, and I sit with him. We start eating our ice cream, and like always, he asks me, “So what’s on your mind?”
This time I have an answer.
“Everything.”
JT laughs. “Miss Nala, you are one of extremes. I ask you what’s on your mind one day, you answer nothing. I ask you the next day, you tell me everything.”
“Okay, well, not everything.” I laugh a little. JT is eating his ice cream slow, but I am almost finished with mine. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Tye and how I really messed things up.”
“He’s having a hard time forgiving you?”
“No, actually. He’s—he wants to work things out. I’m the one who broke up with him.”
JT puts his spoon down. “So, you’re having a hard time forgiving yourself?”
I don’t have an answer for that.
JT tells me, “Don’t get me wrong. There’s no excuse for what you did. But you apologized, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ve got to let people forgive you. Sounds like that young man—what’s his name?”
“Tye.”
“Yes, right. Sounds like Tye is trying to give you what you asked for. You want forgiveness, you’ve got to receive it. Don’t do you no good to punish yourself. Just be a better person today, tomorrow.” JT scrapes the last little bit of ice cream from his cup.
“JT, you think Grandma will be angry at us if she finds out I’ve been bringing you ice cream?”
“Oh, Miss Nala. I reckon she already knows.”
JT is probably right.
3 THINGS I NEED TO FORGIVE MYSELF FOR
1.For being just as judgmental as the people who have judged me.
2.For competing with other girls instead of complimenting them.
3.For pretending to be anyone other than the perfectly imperfect person I am.
26
August has come with a vengeance. It is humid and sticky, and I’ve only walked one block and already I want to change my clothes. I hate to sweat. I hate the way it oozes down my forehead. I hate how no matter how much I wipe it away, it comes back. I hate the way my thick legs rub together under my skirt, how when I lift my arms there are sweat stamps on my shirt. Aunt Ebony said nobody in their right mind would go out in all this heat, but I have to get her birthday gift, so I give an excuse about needing to get something from Sadie and head out into the furnace.
I decided to get a photo album made. Each family member gets their own page and has written a message or memory to Aunt Ebony with a photo on the page. I did the layout online, and now it’s ready for pickup. I hope it turns out the way I envision it, and I hope Aunt Ebony likes it. It’s the only thing I could think of that’s a unique gift, something she doesn’t have. I got the idea because I know for her class, she always gives a photo to each of her students on the last day of school with a note on the back. I think people give the type of gifts they want to receive, so maybe she’d like some version of that. Uncle Randy and Imani think it’s a great idea.
On my way to the bus stop, I go to the store and buy two bottled waters so I can stay hydrated while I’m out. I cross the street after I leave the store and wait at the bus stop under a tree. It gives a little bit of shade, but I am still hot, still sweaty. I have headphones in my ears, so I don’t hear any of the street commotion, but I hear someone calling my name. I pull the left pod out of my ear and turn around.
It’s Tye.
My heart tumbles, like a person falling down stairs. Bump, bump, bump. I feel it all out of sorts inside me. My mind is flooded with so many thoughts. Number one—of all the days to see Tye, why right now when I am a hot, sweaty mess? And number two—how is it that he looks even better than the last time I saw him? I am more and more anxious the closer he gets.
Tye gives me a shy smile, like he doesn’t know me (and does he?). “Hey, Nala.”
“Hey.”
We don’t know what to say to each other, and I’m sure the woman standing next to me is wondering what
our story is. I see her trying not to be nosy, but she can’t help it. That’s how it is in New York. Everyone hears everything, sees everything even if they don’t want to.
“So, what are you up to today?” I ask.
“Heading to the store. Need to get a few things for my mom. I just, I, uh, I saw you from across the street, so I wanted to say hello. So, uh, yeah—hi.”
“Hi.” I have to push the word out because really what I want to say is, can we talk? and do you miss me as much as I miss you?
The bus turns the corner, and the not-trying-to-be-nosy woman walks to the curb. I stand behind her. Once the bus pulls over, I pull my MetroCard out. “See you around,” I say.
“Yeah, see you.”
But when?
THINGS I MISS ABOUT TYE
1.His smile. There is always a story behind his smile, a poem hiding there so gentle, subtle. How his laugh asks questions, like, are you serious? Are you sure? We have had whole conversations with raised eyebrows, smirks, reluctant grins. We don’t always need words to communicate.
2.His hands. The way they reach out for me when we are walking side by side, how they reach out for me when we’re at the edge of the sidewalk, urging me not to cross yet, to just stand still with him while everyone else is moving. How his fingers trace the outline of my face, write invisible words onto my skin. His hands that have held me while watching the sun set, watching movies, people watching. Always his arms are some type of shelter, some type of safe place where I feel like nothing can touch me, us.
3.His lips. The kisses, yes, but also the way they are bridges to the words that come out of him, the way he moves them gently to say, I think I’m falling in love with you. The way they tense up when he’s talking about his dad. His lips that have pressed against mine, over and over again, over and over again.
I take the bus to the print shop so I can pick up Aunt Ebony’s gift. She is the only person I would be out in this heat for. I get to the store and give the man at the counter my name. He disappears for a bit and then comes back with the most beautiful photo album I’ve ever seen. The cover is canvas, and a picture of the whole family is on the cover. Inside, page after page is filled with memories that we can now hold in our hands, not just see on a computer screen. I know she’s going to love this. After I look through the album, the man at the counter wraps it for me, puts it in a bag, and slides in several coupons. “A little incentive for you to come back,” he says. “I’m giving you special discounts on albums and individual prints as well.”