Relationships weren’t such a big thing to me at seventeen. Love, though: love was everything. Home. Purpose. Connection. I’ve always been different, not by choice. Rather, divine intervention. Planted in the concrete, to bloom in the midst of my peers and offer them fruit filled with truth. The Queen in me understands that now, however, the process to discovering truth was a painful one. One of constantly wrestling with self and truth, the seen versus unseen. My grandparents would take me to church, I would sing in the choir, but I had no real connection to God. Nothing higher than my friends and their seventeen-year-old knowledge of the world, boys, relationships, love, and sex. I just wanted to find my way home, whatever that meant. That’s where I met Kenya. Anxious to find myself, to find my purpose, my place.
There was this six-foot man, looking into my eyes. I met him twice on a street corner. Once at fifteen, and once again at seventeen. It was his birthday, and we were leaving a function. His eyes were filled with joy. Laughter, happiness, not burdened down by the heaviness of life. What’s love? What’s lust? What’s the difference? Pain. Now that’s a universal language. Even if it hasn’t touched you up until this point, eventually it will. That’s where I met Kenya. We shared our adolescence, our precious years. He was my first love story that had the opportunity to take root and thrive. After losing Hasan to time and distance, Kenya offered me shelter, love. My passion for him ran deep. In my seventeen-year-old eyes, he was my knight in shining armor. Strong and bold. An African warrior, leading his fellow soldiers to victory. He worked hard. Two jobs. He taught me responsibility, how to save money, about bank accounts.
He got us our own apartment, a small one-bedroom in San Leandro, when I was nineteen years old. To me it felt like a mansion. We went to the furniture store, and he let me pick out everything to furnish our new home. Kenya made all the things I dreamed about a reality. He showed me that our dreams were possible, that anything was possible. We would lie in our California King bed and look at the ceiling. We didn’t have cable, so most of the days we would just talk about life, talk about our past, dream about our future. He made me feel so important, like I had value. It didn’t matter that every night he came home he turned his phone off. I never questioned him. I never even once thought about it. I knew he loved me—nothing else mattered.
As I said earlier, my grandparents sent me to a Catholic school. Back when we first started dating, Kenya would pick me up for school in the morning. He’d hold my hand the whole ride and stop to get me breakfast. He’d give me money for lunch, and I would just look into his big bright eyes and smile so big until my dimples would show. He would just look down and laugh. I know he loved me. He treated me like I was something special, like a hidden treasure that he recognized before it was ever revealed to the world. He saw Queen way before I did. I will always love him for that, for seeing me. He’d kiss me on the forehead before I’d get out of his car, music blasting at eight o’clock in the morning. “Remember I get out at two fifteen—it’s Wednesday!” I would yell. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he’d playfully respond.
I can remember feeling so much pride as I walked up the stairs to the high school’s entrance as all the girls watched me with envy lurking behind their eyes. I was a princess, and Kenya was my prince. We were living a real-life ghetto fairytale. I remember one day his mother told me we were playing house. Thinking about that comment now makes me laugh because she was absolutely right. We knew so much back then, which in reality means we understood so little. Life. Wheels constantly turning, transforming. Who was I? A young girl, playing the role of a woman. Kenya, a young boy, doing what boys do—exploring, playing, discovering. We were both on the verge of becoming, not yet adults, but innocence far too gone to stay children.
The last night we spent together was the best. I still remember it like it was yesterday. He held me so tight, you would have thought he knew that would be the last time he’d see me. We ordered Denny’s breakfast for dinner. It tasted extra good to me because I was so high. Kenya didn’t smoke and he really didn’t like me to, but that night, for some reason, he made an exception. He always told me he hated that, the smoking part. He threatened to leave me once if I didn’t stop, so when I wanted to, I’d have to sneak. When I asked him why he got so upset about it, he explained that he saw a lot of people start with weed, and then end up moving on to other stronger things. When he spoke about it, I could see the seriousness in his eyes. I appreciated him for that. That night we didn’t even have sex. We just genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, touch, friendship, support. My friend, no doubt. He would listen while I dreamed out loud and just look at me and smile. I spoke to him about getting my degree and moving us into a fat house one day, and supporting us while he went to school, just like he did for me.
I would always talk to him about God, but I remember in the last days leading up until his death that I would find him sitting in the living room alone, reading the Bible. I had never seen him like that. I mean he went to church with me a few times, but I never actually witnessed him seeking God out on his own. I remember thinking it was strange, but sacred, so I didn’t disturb him. Later on, when I asked him about it, he told me his manager was talking to him about life and scriptures. He told me about a dream he had where he died in a car crash. He laughed as he explained how real it was. “I could feel the blood coming out of my body—it was warm.” I didn’t like that, I didn’t like hearing that dream, but I hid the worry on my face, to keep him from being afraid. I prayed that night that God would keep us safe. I always prayed God would keep us safe.