Today, after just a couple of reps with the weights, I was tired. I decided to just stretch since I was feeling weird in my stomach, kinda like I was about to get my period, but then also like I ate something weird. For some reason, this whole summer, I ain’t been my usual self on the workout tip.
I head up to my room to get ready for bed. I wash my face, put on my du-rag and pajamas. I get under my covers and start to scroll through videos posted by homies.
Ahmed, my homie from poetry class, had discreetly taken a video of a drunk dude behind him on the bus who was sangin’ loud as hell, and beatboxing between verses. He added a filter that emits smog out of the dude’s mouth. The caption read, “Sanging Poison and your breaf smell like it too . . . #gotdamn #listerineworks.”
Jada posted a video of her on the beach looking cute and twerking all silly with Nevaeh and blowing a kiss to the camera. She looks pretty and like she is enjoying her summer. Whatever.
Next, I see a vid with my best friend, Ursa, doing push-ups while the new homie Jazzy is gloating about how she beat Ursa in basketball.
I think about posting something, but I don’t have much to show for my day besides my unsuccessful workout session, me arguing with my daddy for the gazillionth time about what clothes I got on for my summer job at the community center, or Sahir crying because Mama told him (again) he can’t put André 3000—that’s our cat—in his backpack for a bike ride. Ever. I decide to post a little video of a chrysalis that I found in our garden in the patch of milkweed, black-eyed Susans, and purple coneflower. My dad and I planted these to attract butterflies. I sat in the patch and chilled with the chrysalis for an hour and played it some Whitney while I read Wild Seed again. The almost-butterfly was just there, chilling and getting fatter, slimy and metallic and almost like it was ready to burst open. My dad calls this phase butterfly puberty, because they eat like cray and then they are in this cocoon that is awkward and internal. Yet they will bust out of it one day, grown and free. Besides the chrysalis, there ain’t really much in my life to post, so I put my phone down and put on some music.
The house is quiet like I like it. I love my family, but to be honest, they all get on my nerves in one way or another most of the time. For real, for real. And it ain’t until it’s late when everyone is in their own room and not sweatin’ me that I can even feel like I’m myself. I listen to my music and snuggle up under my blanket in my own cocoon. My reading lamp is glowing through my covers and I look at my body under the tent I’ve made around myself. I got on my white tank top, my faded light-blue boxers with glow-in-the-dark dragons on ’em, and some black socks. It’s weird but I can’t sleep unless I got socks on, even though I wake up with them kicked off.
Looking at my body, I watch my stomach grow and float up when I breathe in and then disappear behind my titties when I let my air out. I mean, not that I got much titties. Mine are medium-small bumps, and I hope they stay little ’cause Ursa got double-D boobs and she has to wear three sports bras when she plays ball and she hates it. Terrell used to like touching my titties and that was actually nice. He would just gently massage them, which was kinda calming. Neither of us had really done anything before, so we took things slow. I remember when we first kissed it was a hot mess. His mouth smelled like cherry Jolly Ranchers (his favorite “breath mint”) and his tongue was wet and big and all up in my mouth. I was trying to not gag. After a while, I asked him if we could hold off on all that tongue. He ain’t seem embarrassed. He laughed and agreed to back up on salamandering my mouth. Kissing him wasn’t bad, ’cause we was homies and he was real cool. It just didn’t feel big or exciting, which was weird to me, since we was boyfriend and girlfriend.
Around the same time earlier this summer, Jada and I was kicking it and hanging out. She would come to the crib, and we would ride bikes and hang on my porch. We would just be talking, and I would feel something special whenever she came through, like a hot feeling. One evening, me and Jada was hanging out on my porch and the sky was getting dark with rumbling, which is my favorite way for the sky to be, that feeling right before it rains. I offered to walk Jada home before it started to storm so we could chill some more and feel the sky and air together.
“You and Terrell are a cute couple,” she said when we was walking. Which I guess was true, but it seemed random for her to bring up, but maybe not random ’cause he was my boyfriend, I guess.
“Terrell is a cutie,” I agreed, and thought to myself that he got cute qualities. He got a sweet smile and his butt sits high, which my mama said was why she could see why I liked him. It wasn’t why, but his butt makes it so that he walks with a little bob to his step, which I guess is cute.
“But YOU cute too, thoooough,” she said, bumping me playfully, and I feel that feeling in my chest—that flip that ripples down my thighs to my feet when she is around.
“Uh, um. Thank you, I try,” I said, wanting to sound chill, but I did actually try when it came to us kicking it for some reason. Maybe ’cause she is dope and fun and be flawless. I was in the bathroom for an hour getting my hair and clothes right. I’d even put on some of my dad’s bougie cologne before she got to the crib that day. She said I smelled good. She was always looking good and smelling pretty too. I didn’t bother being all extra with Terrell, since we always played ball and was gonna get sweaty anyway. And apparently, he likes my funk, ’cause once when we was snuggled up in his room, he put his face in my armpit, which was ticklish, and then he breathed really deep and said it smelled really good, which had me rolling, dying, ’cause I ain’t understand how he like my mustiness, but he really did.
The sky was getting darker with clouds as we walked, which made it feel later than it was. I could smell the storm in the breeze, and it was making me feel tingly all over. And being next to Jada was making me even more tingly. Then she comes out the blue and says, “When I first met you, I wasn’t sure if you liked girls or boys. Especially ’cause I would see you in school with Ursa,” she said, glancing over at me while she strolled forward with her sexy swag I wish I had.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Oh.” I guess me and Ursa hung out a lot. I wondered what about us hanging out made her wonder, though. We kept walking for a little bit and I was quiet.
“Did that offend you?” she asked. I thought for a second and realized I was more surprised by it, but I couldn’t think of why I should be offended. Then I remember the raindrops started coming down slow, and one by one. A drop on my eyebrow, then my shoulder, then I see one on the sidewalk drop and then more polka-dotting the gray. And then another, was a cool wetness on my cheek.
“I’m not offended. You was just saying what you thought,” I said. “Terrell is my first boyfriend. Most people had they first boyfriend or girlfriend in junior high, but I just wasn’t into that then. I guess I just be doing me,” I said, and feeling a tingle run through me every time her arm brushed mine.