Alone outside, my blurry eyes could barely make her out in the darkness.
“April! Please don’t tell Monday,” I begged, slurring. “I didn’t know . . . about all this.”
April frowned, as if she had no clue who I was talking about before rolling her eyes. “Yeah, fine. I won’t,” she mumbled.
“Naw, for real, April. Please!”
“I said I won’t, so I won’t. Dang!”
I tried to rub warmth into my arms. Bad move running outside without a coat.
“Well . . . you think she can come to my birthday party?”
April frowned before snarling, “What?”
“I’m going to have a birthday party and I want her to come. Daddy can pick her up from her dad’s . . . or her aunt’s house, and then she can sleep over and go back or whatever.”
April stepped closer to me, her glassy eyes transfixed, as if trying to look inside my head. Then she laughed. Not a funny laugh, more sinister one.
“Oh my God! Are you serious? I can’t believe we still doing this.” She blew foggy air and shook her head. “Claudia, Monday’s not coming.”
Her tone should have marked the end of the conversation but I kept going.
“Please, it’s just for . . .”
“She’s not coming! Don’t you get that?”
I swallowed my pleas whole and almost choked on them.
“You got some fucking nerve,” she spat, her bitterness thick. “You didn’t want her to go or do anything without you. Just wanted to be shut up in your house together. Now look at you! At a party, drinking and shit. Talking about throwing a party, when all you ever did was hold her back. From everything!”
Suddenly, my bubble felt like a greenhouse, the air sticky and smothering. She was right. I held Monday close like a toy I wasn’t willing to share. I needed her more than she ever needed me.
“I . . . know,” I admitted, my hands twisting together. “And I’m sorry. But can’t I just talk to her and tell her that?”
April shook her head. “Monday’s. Not. Coming. She ain’t never coming back!”
“But why?” I wanted to scream. I needed to know why my best friend in the whole wide world wanted nothing to do with me. Tears hiccupped in my throat but I held them back. I refused to give up.
“My daddy talked to your daddy,” I blurted out.
April swallowed, her jaw tightening. “Yeah. So?”
“So . . . he ain’t seen y’all in a year.”
She laughed that same evil cackle. “Three years. I ain’t seen him in three years.”
I bit my lip, feeling myself losing the fight. “And! I know Monday didn’t have the flu.”
This fact hit her in the gut somehow, her mouth dropping. The cold wrapped around us and smelled like snow.
She shook her head. “Dang, Claudia, why can’t you just let. This. Go?”
“Let me talk to her and I will.”
April stared through me, then shook her head.
“Fine,” she groaned. “Guess they ain’t leaving me no choice but to tell you.”
My knees almost gave in. “Tell me what—”
“Claudia!”
I spun around as Michael burst through the basement door.
“Dang, I’m fine! I’m talking to . . .”
But April had disappeared, vanished like a ghost in the darkness.
“Shit,” I mumbled.
Michael eyes drifted from the spot where she once stood, to my exposed stomach, then back up to my face.
“What was that all about?”
“Nothing.”
He chuckled, crossing his arms. “You following her again?”
“What d’you want me to say? I’ve known April my whole life. She’s like a big sister . . . or something. How people expect me to act like I don’t know her? Ignoring her is stupid! You think I’m stupid?”
Michael blinked, then without warning he took two strides and pulled me into a hug. Not the type of hug I’ve seen him give other girls—with one limp arm around the neck, a Christian space apart, lasting less than two seconds. No, it was the type of hug that started with two strong hands, fingers crawling around my waist, gripping tight, pulling me up against his chest, before resting at my tailbone. The type of hug that feels like diving into a warm bed, wrapped in down blankets, snuggling to the softest pillow in the world. The type of hug that says something, but what?
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said, his breath tickling the back of my ear before gently pulling away. “That’s like, if I see someone from church at school, I always say what’s up. I ain’t gonna act like I don’t know them.” His hand cupped my cheek. “You’re not stupid at all. I’m just . . . making sure you’re okay.”
His lips were so close it would’ve taken nothing for him to inch forward and kiss me. And I wanted him to. I wanted him to kiss me. But how could I ask him for something like that? You don’t just go around asking boys to kiss you. Do you?
“Hey. You’re shaking,” he said with a small smile. “You want to go inside?”
No. I didn’t want to go inside with all those people. I wanted to be alone, with him. Drinking hot chocolate, talking about music, laughing . . . my lips inched closer just as Michael brushed his against mine before he crashed into me.
No one ever tells you kissing is like an explosion of colors, bright and blinding.
Michael pushed me up against the side of the house, pressing into me, heat radiating off his chest. His tongue tasted like Coke, soft and warm.
“Dang, I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he breathed as he dove in again. I wrapped my arms around him, thoughts speeding by too fast to fully process.
I’m kissing a boy, Monday! I’m kissing a boy. Just like you!
But it didn’t feel right. It felt sloppy, like coloring outside the lines. Isn’t this what I’m supposed to do? Monday did it. Monday did more than this. Shouldn’t I do the same?
I gripped his arms and flipped him around, pushing him against the wall. His eyes widened, mouth dropping.
“Hey, what are you doing?” he chuckled nervously.
I took a deep breath before dropping down on my shaky knees, the ground cold.
“Whoa . . . Claudia.”
As I reached for his belt buckle, Michael gently pushed my hands away and held my wrist.
“No, Claudia, stop!”
But I didn’t want to stop. If I do this, they’ll stop calling me a lesbian, a baby, stuck up. If I do this, I’ll catch up to Monday. I won’t be left behind.
“Claudia! Are you out here?” I heard Megan calling from the door.
The snap in her voice shook me out of daze. I fell back on my butt with a gasp, scraping my elbow on the concrete.
“Shit! Are you okay?” Michael asked, reaching for me.
The fog of blinding bright colors lifted. What the hell am I doing? Out in this cold, being no better than April in that classroom. I pushed Michael away, running back into the basement.
One Year Before the Before
The picture vanished, but the memory remained. By the time the cherry blossoms started to bloom along the river, I felt a distance, a space stark blinding white, between Monday and me. Monday pretended the rumors didn’t bother her while I pretended not to notice the stretch of time between phone calls and her need to go home after school rather than the library.
For weeks, she’d acted strange. Quiet, reserved. Some days, she wouldn’t even show up to school, and when she did, she’d gobble down two plates in the cafeteria, sipping from every water fountain she passed, in crumpled clothes, her hair a lopsided mess.
The few times she did come over, we practiced our dance routines, but as Ms. Manis would say, her dancing missed a passion, a soul.
And all I kept thinking was, what is happening to us?
The After
On the morning after the party, they found a body.
“Hello, I’m Christine Madden with your top headline story. Two joggers found
the remains of a young girl, partially buried in the heavily wooded area of Leakin Park, in Baltimore, earlier today. The identification of the victim is yet to be determined. Investigators are currently on the scene, canvassing the area. No arrests have been made. . . .”
“Mom,” Megan grumbled from under the covers on the living room floor. “Can you turn the TV down? Dang!”
Curled under a blanket next to her, listening to Ms. Forte’s slippers scraping against the kitchen tiles, I replayed my first kiss a billion times over, oozing with embarrassment.
“Y’all better wake up if you want these pancakes,” Ms. Forte called.
“Oooh yes! Pancakes!” Kit Kat jumped up from the couch. “I’m starving.”
I sat up, my brain thumping against my skull. The cab had had to pull over twice so I could throw up. Too much of that brown stuff. Megan had done her best to clean me up, worried if I did it in the house, her mom would know. We’d brushed our teeth and gargled before heading to bed. I couldn’t have been asleep more than twenty minutes before I heard the TV snap on in the kitchen.
“What they talking about, Ms. Forte?” Kit Kat asked.
“They found a girl buried in some park in Baltimore.”
“Ugh . . . just another body found in Bodymore,” Shannon chuckled.
“Yeah, but this is different. Police won’t let this one slide, no way.”
“You okay?” Megan asked, checking me over.
I nodded, still nauseous, my stomach left with nothing to purge.
“Bread will help,” she said. “That’s why I asked Mom to make us pancakes.”
“You do that a lot?”
“Ha! No way,” she whispered with a grin. “Don’t want to be one of ‘those’ chicks. Right?”
In the kitchen, her mom set a plate of sausages on the table next to a stack of pancakes, and a pitcher of orange juice. I gulped down two glasses of ice water, my throat dry as sand.
“Well, y’all look like you had a long night,” she chuckled.
“Yeah. We stayed up late watching Netflix,” Megan said, sitting at the head of the table.
Ms. Forte frowned over her cup of coffee. “Claudia, what’s that stuff on your face?”
I rubbed my eyes, smudging black crayon on my fingertips. I forgot to wash my face.
Megan’s eyes widened before she forced a grin. “We were doing makeovers.”
“Well, make sure you take that stuff off before your mom picks you up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I uttered just as Megan’s cell phone rang. Megan jumped up, grabbing it off the charger.
“Hello? Yeah, who this? Ohhh, hey. Hold on a second.” Megan’s eyes flicked over to me, biting her lips, holding back a massive grin. “Michael is on the phone for you.”
The girls shared glances as I jumped up, grabbing the phone from a giggling Megan, and rushed into the living room.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Michael said, his voice unsure.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
“So . . . um . . . are you okay?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Oh. Well, you weren’t at church this morning, and the way you left . . . I was just checking.”
I vaguely remembered stumbling out of the basement with the girls and being pushed into a cab, but that’s about it.
“I slept over Megan’s house. Ma is picking me up later.”
“Yeah. Your mom invited me over for dinner tonight.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the girls sitting at the table—still giggling.
“Oh. So, are you coming?”
“You want me to?”
My heart sped up and I bit back a grin. “Yeah.”
“Cool,” he said, a lightness in his voice. “I’ll be there around six.”
At least ten seconds of awkward silence passed.
“Um, Michael . . . about last night . . . I mean, that wasn’t . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” he chuckled. “Too much to drink. We’re friends, right?”
I swallowed the lump in the back of my throat. “Uh, yeah. Right.”
“Cool. So, see you later?”
“Yeah, later,” I mumbled, hanging up the phone. Had I imagined it all? The way he held me . . . I swore he wanted to kiss me too. Maybe I moved too fast. Fast like Monday. Was Jacob telling the truth?
I took a deep breath, heading back into the kitchen, my thoughts spinning.
“So . . . what he want?” Kit Kat said, biting into her last sausage.
“He was just checking on me,” I said, keeping it vague, but my cheeks were on fire.
“So, you guys together now?” Shannon pressed.
“Naw. We just . . . friends from church.”
“Girl, no boys in my choir check up on me when I don’t make service,” Kit Kat said.
I rolled my eyes, holding back a smirk. “Whatever.”
“He likes you,” Megan said, grinning.
My heart fluttered, heat trying to burst through my skin.
The Before
On the last day of March, I zipped up my coat with trembling fingers and walked over heaps of blackened snow, through the chilly winds spiraling off the highways toward Ed Borough. All day at school, I practiced what I would do and say to her. But my tongue began to stick to the top of my mouth as if painted with crazy glue, my voice hiding in my boots next to my cold feet.
During the summers, the basketball courts are a tightly packed circus for the summer league games. Folks from all over in the DC, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) area squeeze on the bleachers, spilling out into the streets. While the sun sets behind the Ed Borough houses, teams play under orange or starry skies for a cheering crowd. Ed Borough is rich and alive with lights, color, and music. But during the winters, it’s like an abandoned lot, mounds of snow layering the ground, the hoops covered in icicles.
A group of boys chilled on the corner by the far entrance of rec center, and Darrell’s throaty laugh echoed across the court. Maybe he’s seen her, maybe he can point me in the direction of someone who has, I thought as I hiked across the snowy ground, passing a lone girl in a hooded jacket sitting on the empty bleachers, her back turned to me. I almost made it to the gate before she called my name.
“Claudia?”
April yanked off her hood, eyes almost falling out their sockets.
“What . . . what are you doing here?”
Determination sizzled. “I’m looking for Monday.”
At that moment, whatever monster living inside April that would normally have popped off seemed to shrivel up and die, leaving her so drained of energy even her voice sounded lifeless.
“You know you ain’t supposed to be around here. Aren’t you scared your mommy is gonna find you out?” She gave me a once-over—from my shoes to the ribbon holding my bun. “Damn, your hair’s been looking a mess without Monday doing it for you.”
Insults. She always starts with them. I squared my shoulders and stuck out my chest. I couldn’t let her rattle me.
“I ain’t got much time. Where’s Monday?”
She sighed, leaning back, in no hurry to move, then called over her shoulder.
“Hey, Darrell! Come over here for a second.”
Darrell spotted me with April and jogged over, smiling.
“Hey, Claudia. What you doing around here?” he asked, his nose stuffy from standing out in the cold.
April smirked. “Darrell, didn’t you fuck my sister?”
Darrell’s face went blank, all the color draining. “Damn, April,” he said, sucking his teeth. “Why you gotta go tell everybody?” he grumbled, kicking a plastic bottle by his shoe.
I switched my weight to my back leg to keep from falling over. Darrell met my glare, then took off running. April slapped her thigh, tickled with herself.
“She wouldn’t have had sex with that bamma,” I seethed. “He just wishing he did. She would have told me.”
She chuckled. “No she wouldn’t. She couldn’t!”
“Wh
y?” The words came out desperate.
“’Cause you too stuck up! Monday told me how all you wanted to do was stay in the house with your bougie parents, coloring and playing with dolls like some little kid. If she’d told you, all you would have done is judged her.”
April liked using her teeth to rip holes in my heart. I tilted my chin up, refusing to let her scare me away.
“Look, I came here to find Monday and I ain’t leaving until I do.”
April stared at me, her face blank. She sighed and climbed off the bleachers, dusting off her butt.
“Come on, then. They gonna kick us out soon anyway. You might as well see it.”
“See what?”
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and headed out the gate without answering. I followed a few paces behind her as we cut through two rows of houses, up the pathway to her front door. I stepped over the crack in the sidewalk as she jingled her keys.
“Is your mom home?” I asked, holding my breath.
April unlocked and shoved the door with her shoulder. It huffed and creaked open. She took one last long look at me, her eyes hardening.
“No. She’s babysitting,” she said and stepped inside.
The house blew out a strange smell, like a fart, stale and pungent.
“Monday in there?”
April nodded and waved me in. I gulped, my heart racing. Monday’s been home this whole time?
Stinging nerves screamed not to, but I still walked inside.
She shoved the door closed and turned on the light. Now I saw why Mrs. Charles always opened the door halfway. Right behind it, against the wall, was a large freezer chest. The kind you find at grocery stores holding frozen turkeys and precooked hams. It buzzed like a broken fluorescent light.
I stepped backward on a pile of broken naked crayons and sheets of newspaper in the middle of the tight living room. A large TV faced a black sofa, the leather ripped and cracked like paint, black trash bags taped to every window, blocking out the sun.
In the kitchen, dirty pots and pans were stacked high on the counter next to empty cans of soup. A roach crawled over a pile of eviction notices and unopened letters from the school.
“Up here,” April said, her face stoic as she climbed the stairs. I tried ignoring the shivers crawling up my spine that were telling me to run and followed.
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