“No. Do that, but don’t do that,” he says.
So I kiss his neck again. Then he kisses mine, and I don’t shrink. I melt.
He stands up and pulls me up with him. He takes my hand and walks to a room next to the living room. He turns on the light and nothing but blue, black, and gray fills the space. The walls are a deep blue, the covers on his bed are a plaid mix of blues. His carpet is gray and his furniture is black.
Before I get a chance to look around, Kasim’s arms are around me and his lips are touching mine. Soon, our bodies are so close that we are one person.
And then, I am the color pink. If hot red is for anger and rage, then pink is the color of a soft burning—hot enough to light up the dark corners of sadness and grief, but cool enough to be tender, innocent, open. I let myself sink into Kasim as he pulls me toward his bed. He is soft and gentle. I am like syrup again. And all the walls around me, everything that has blocked my joy these past few months, oozes, trickles, and melts away.
Only skin, muscle, and bone separate my heart from Kasim’s heart. I’m so close to him that I can feel it beating against my own chest. Both his arms are wrapped around me, and his leg is stretched out across my bare thighs. It’s as if he has swallowed me whole with his body. It’s a place so warm and so bright that I swear we must be glowing from beneath his covers. He nestles his face in the crook of my neck and inhales deep.
“Is this real?” he whispers.
I take his hand and breathe into it. “You feel that?” I ask.
Then he presses his body against mine and pulls me in. “You feel that?”
“Yeah,” I breathe.
Time melts around us. And maybe this bed and his sheets and his room dissolve into nothing. It’s just us here. Nothing else matters. Nothing else exists.
Until my phone rings.
It’s Chantal calling. Midnight. I don’t pick up.
Slowly, we gather the world around us and ease back into the present.
I put my clothes on and he changes into something different. Before we leave his room, we hug and hold each other for what feels like forever.
He kisses my forehead.
“I’ll take a beatdown from your cousins for bringing you home late,” he says. “It was worth it.”
“I am your back,” I say.
“Don’t you mean you have my back?”
“No. I am your back.”
“For real, Fab?”
“Yes. It’s real,” I say.
KASIM’S STORY
Dray used to call me a mama’s boy. My moms used to roll up to my school and plant a fat wet kiss on my cheek for everybody to see. She said it was to let all those teachers know that I was loved. But I caught hell for it from my boys.
Mama still kissed me on the cheek and rubbed my bald head when I was in high school. Now, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t spoiled or nothing. She just liked to show me off in public. But in the house, you best believe she had me scrubbing pots, cleaning toilets, putting up shelves, and shit. Those were the times I wished I’d gone down to Memphis to live with my pops. There were times when I wanted to straight up hop on a Greyhound and leave Detroit for good when I had to deal with all the bullshit out here on these streets.
I did some dumb shit just so niggas would stop calling me a mama’s boy. Shit that would break my mother’s heart. But that’s what I had to do just to be able to walk down my own block without being somebody’s bitch. That was back in junior high. But by high school, I had to be able to walk through somebody else’s hood and hold my head up. Truth is, I didn’t. I don’t like rolling with a bunch of niggas. You end up doing even dumber shit and paying the price for it.
But Dray’s been lookin’ out since I was in kindergarten and he was in third grade. Once my pops left, it was just me and my moms. So that’s when Uncle Q stepped in. If she had to work late, Q let me stay over and me and Dray would play video games all night. At first, my moms didn’t trust Q, but after a while, she had no choice. He was the only man to come through for her. They never went out or nothing, but Q was like, whatever you need. And I needed a friend. That’s all. Just one good friend. Not a crew, not no gang. Just Dray. And if Q is like a father to Dray, then Q is my father, too. Never mind my real father who begged me to come down to Memphis ’cause he need somebody to pass on that big ole house to. Maybe when I get married. And have some little half-Haitian revolutionary babies. Hell yeah. I ain’t never felt like this before. I mean, I told girls I loved them and shit. That’s what I do. I love girls. Since I don’t like rolling with a crew of niggas, I stay up underneath a girl all the time. That shit is soft and warm and safe, feel me? But you . . . Damn, girl. I’ll finish college for you. I’ll get a nice government job for you. I’ll save up and buy a house for you.
TWENTY-NINE