I am eighteen and I sit on my front steps with my legs pressed together at the knees against the urge to use the bathroom. It’s silly to wait for him out here, bouncing puppy-like with anticipation for someone I have not really spoken to over the last two months but the idea of waiting fascinates me—these moments stacked upon moments to be traded for an experience that may never live up to the anticipation. I should go inside and relieve myself, shower and wash away the dried sweat and grime from today’s track meet, but I don’t.
Niru appears suddenly at the intersection with its slowly moving traffic, walking with the slight limp of a man who has just run for his life. He wears his blue-and-white warm-ups and as he approaches, I run through all the possible ways to stage a greeting. We aren’t who we used to be. I can’t touch him the way I used to touch him. My hands can’t linger on his back. My head can’t rest on his shoulder. When he reaches me, he rasps a breathless hello. His face is still fresh but his movements are deliberate and old.
I slide sideways towards the bed of ivy with leaves that cradle last night’s storm water and pat the warm bluestone beside me. I reach out, pull him down by his hands and throw my arm over his shoulder. This seems acceptable. He doesn’t tense or withdraw. We sit quietly and watch the sunlight slide across the houses towards the Georgetown University clock tower. It catches on the silver and chrome handles of cars parked against the curb. After a long while Niru says, I want to disappear, I want to disappear completely, gone, nothing, no trace, forever. Stop, I say and place my free hand over his mouth. His lips are sticky but I don’t pull back. They’ll sweep the streets tomorrow, I say. I feel his shoulders relax and my fingers grow warm as he lets out a long breath. They’ll sweep the streets and everybody will park on the opposite side, no questions asked. What does that have to do with anything, he says. Nothing, I say, except that it helped you forget—for a second. I can’t help you disappear, I whisper into his ear, but I can help you forget. I say, I will help you, and press my lips to the short, prickly hairs of his recently shaved temple before I take his hand and lead him up the steps to my front door.
The house is empty so it’s just us. My parents trust me enough to leave for a weekend in New York—work, Dad said. And opera, Mom said. The track team wanted me to host something, but I’ve never liked the idea of many other people in my space, on top of the things I know, touching them with their grubby fingers, leaving unfamiliar smudges and scents. Sometimes it is better to go to the world than to bring the world to you.
We order a pizza and lie across the couches in the upstairs den as we wait for it to arrive. I make frustrated attempts to turn the thick pages of a coffee table book about Greece with my toes while Niru stares at the ceiling and pops his lips. He says nothing as his fingertips hang just above the fraying border of a faded blue Persian rug. The curtains glow with the sun and the room smells of the flowering trees outside. Dad’s roll-top desk refuses to close over unruly document stacks, magazines and business cards. It’s the only corner of this house where I feel like I’m allowed to be myself, he says sometimes, but mostly he ignores it and this room is totally mine. Riverrun, I say. That will be fun. It’s finally the end, finally. Niru isn’t interested in that line of conversation though he seems not altogether unmoved by the suggestion. His head rolls towards me. He puckers his lips and blows a sarcastic kiss before he turns away. He mumbles, all of those people, the same old people, the same old shenanigans, the same old jokes. But for the last time, I say, then never again if you don’t want. Or what do you want, I ask. Something different, he says, something more real, or maybe I just want to disappear. What gives, I say, rising to my feet too fast so the world swoons. I fall back to the couch overcome by a very real fatigue and dehydration from the meet. I search for my Nalgene bottle on the floor near my feet.
Niru’s popping stops. He swings his feet around too quickly and unsettles Mom’s carefully arranged coffee table books. He doesn’t look at me. His eyes come to rest on the scaled replica of John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence that I hate, that Mom hates, that Dad considers part of his freedom corner. He is patriotic but not sentimental so Mom and I think the placement is ironic but it stays because Dad sometimes feels like a minority in his own home.
Niru grinds his teeth, places both hands on his knees and sits up perfectly straight and lets out a wordless scream. Tears drip slowly from his eyes. I move toward him, drop to my knees and plant myself in front of him. The full blast of his breath hits my face and he refuses to look at me even when I place my palms on his cheeks, and then over his mouth. You’re scaring me, I say. Niru I’m here with you, I shout and I shout everything I have heard said by people to people with too much pain. It will be okay, you’ll get through this, this too shall pass, the last phrase being something a mom likes to mutter. The neighbors, I plead. His eyes say, fuck your neighbors, but then they say something much more terrifying, they say nothing at all. Can you see me, you need to stop, Niru please stop, I say from between his knees, please stop, you have to stop. I dig my nails into his forearms and thump a knee against the rug. Help me, tell me what to do, tell me how to make it stop, I say. This could just be one of his practical jokes, like that time he pretended to seize in front of me and gargled Sprite to make his mouth foam. I dialed nine and then one with sweaty fingers while I rubbed his chest and said, stay with me, before his arm flailed in just the right motion to knock my phone from my hand, before he laughed loud enough to fill the kitchen. I poured ice water on him for revenge, but his startled yelp couldn’t match my cold trembling fear that made it almost impossible to hit the right numbers to save his life.
The doorbell rings. I say, I think the pizza’s here, are you going to be okay if I go down to get it? He replaces a lock of my hair that has slipped from my ponytail back behind my ear. I dash downstairs to the door and impatiently thrust a tip in the delivery man’s hand. I snatch the box from him. It’s okay Meredith, Niru says when I get back. Everything will be okay. I just need to be strong, you just need to be strong. We sit at the kitchen counter with the box of Papa John’s before us. I am still dumbfounded by his performance upstairs. I ask, are you okay? But of course, he responds in a silly imitation of a French accent, mais oui, certainement.
I don’t press but he can see that I’m unsettled. I want to hug him, to hold him, but I also want to slap him until he can see that, objectively, his life is almost perfect. The world loves him; it takes him seriously; Harvard takes him seriously. I drag a pizza slice from the box to a plate and hand it to him. I was just letting off some steam, he says, sometimes there’s just too much pressure. Well you’re acting really weird, I say. Dude you’ve got to relax, the school year is over. All we have to do is literally stay alive long enough to graduate and then we get to go to college where life will be totally different. It’s not that far away. Not for you, he says, you never have any real pressure. Hey, I say, but I don’t say any more than that. I have always felt like he dismisses my problems because in his mind white people don’t have real problems, just issues. He picks a sausage from his pizza slice and places it on his tongue. The boy I was seeing doesn’t want to see me anymore and I just ran away from home, he says. Wait what, I say, slow down, there’s a boy, what boy? He wants to smile the bashful smile of a person who likes someone but his eyes are sad. You didn’t tell me about a boy. You didn’t speak to me for a long time, he says, things change, but it doesn’t matter, I have nothing now. Aren’t we being a little dramatic? I left my Dad on the GW Parkway, ran away from him, from all that, I can’t take it anymore, it’s crushing me, it’s too confusing for me to live all these lives when I only want one. I don’t know what to say so I ask him if he wants water. I want to see him. Who Damien? The guy? He nods. Tell him to come to Riverrun, I say, but Niru raises his eyebrow and I suddenly feel stupid. Join that fuckery? With Adam and your lover boy Rowan? No thank you. He’s in college. Oooh, sophisticated, I say with much more bite than I think I mean because something pinches inside my heart. I say, I can’t believe you have a boyfriend. He is quiet.
Niru wants to go to a club or bar on Fourteenth Street because it’s close to where Damien lives. I can call him and maybe he’ll come, he says. I want to tell him he’s dreaming but I don’t because he’s hurting and I want to be a good friend. You have a fake ID, he says, and I have my brother’s license. Which you’ve never used, I say. He gives me the side-eye. He says, just help me with this, with eyes full of please and thank you all mixed together. But what about Riverrun? We’ll go after, he says, and I’ll buy you a drink if you come with me, something better than the cheap beer they’ll have by the river, he says. You’ll have to buy me more than one.
Fourteenth Street is alive with bodies by the time we get there. The weather is nice so people linger on the streets. There are women in short sequined or pastel shorts and tight short skirts, revealing tops and made-up faces. There are surrounding men who all look the same, awkward with shirts tucked into jeans or khakis that fall over boxy black or brown shoes. Their pale skin turns orange in the streetlight. If this is real life, I want very little of it but Niru wants it all. He charges ahead towards the bouncers at the busiest place on the street where the chatter from multiple meaningless conversations competes with Top-40 pop that beats against the windows and spills into the street. My hand shakes when I produce a license that I got because everyone else was getting one. It says I’m from Maryland, that my name is Amy, and that I am twenty-three years old. I don’t look like I’m twenty-three yet because I don’t wear my clothes and makeup with the same confidence as the women around me. My jeans are the wrong choice in this heat and I am unsteady in my heels, but my tank top is loose and I like the latticed straps that show my back. Guys do too—I feel their fingertips in the space between my shoulder blades every time I wear it to a party. They touch me now when they say hello. They offer to buy me drinks.
At first I say no because Niru stands next to me and even if he has his own agenda, part of me feels like it wouldn’t look right. He shouts in my ear that his calls to Damien won’t go through and he holds his old Nokia phone in a tense hand with flexed muscles that stretch the arms of the too-small golf shirt I produced for him from my father’s closet. The bouncer didn’t pay attention to his warm-up pants and sneakers; the track coaches are stylish enough to know that functionality doesn’t always trump form. You go and find reception, I tell him, I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine. I should be fine because this will soon be my life in New York, clubs with men my age and much older all circulating in search of something that I supposedly have to give, that I’m still supposed to guard furiously, that I tried to give to the boy who has just left me at the bar alone so he can give it to someone else I have never seen. And I am here to help him. It hurts even if nature always wins in the end. It hurts because loving someone is very often against your will at first and there is no amount of will that can change the situation before me. I have tried.
But I can also forget. Yes, I will take your drink, I say to the man with an ambitious smile. He asks my name with his beer breath and beautiful face and his dark, frat boy hair. His hands touch the skin on my back and I look around the room for Niru. Yes, I will take your drink, because I am a senior—even if you can’t tell—and it’s a Friday and why not live a little in this strange space of irresponsibility before we become real humans. He says things about things that don’t register. My friend is somewhere here, I say. He’s coming back, I think, I say listening to myself struggle with simple words and phrases. But he keeps on talking and Niru hasn’t come back yet and I can feel my heart. I am always someone’s accessory, someone’s afterthought, the supporting actress in another person’s drama and that thought fills me with fire. My parents leave me alone for the weekends because they have each other. My friends want to use me for my house. Rowan wants me because he thinks I’m less noticeable and therefore easier to fuck on prom night. And this bro with his wavy hair and his pale outstretched hand and his fingers that creep up my back, he wants me and that scares me but I smile. It’s so loud. Maybe we can talk somewhere more quiet, he says as he pulls closer and his hands move lower. I can feel the part of him that wants more of me than I’m prepared to offer, but I wobble as I try to step away because I don’t often wear heels. There are other bodies in the flashing lights and loud noise that bump against mine and his, pressing us together. Then there is Niru’s hand on my shoulder and his body behind mine and his tearful eyes and that phone which he holds, still quivering. The frat boy notes the separation with a frown. Niru says, he’s not coming, we should go, like now. But I’m not ready to go, I say because now it feels good to know that I can make someone forget their manners.
Niru grabs my wrist. I try to wave his arm away because I’m tired and with alcohol I feel better standing in place. Backlit and surrounded by the pulse and chatter, he seems taller than his full six feet two. He holds me tightly. Can we go, he says with eyes that say please and thank you. I’m not going anywhere, I say. Dude, she said leave her alone, someone says. Come on let’s go, remember Riverrun, he says to me softer now, in my ear, ignoring the bristling bro behind me. She said to leave her alone. Please don’t touch me, Niru says to this boy whose name I can’t remember, or maybe he never told me. Or what, the frat boy says, and I can’t believe this is happening. Niru, you’re hurting me. Meredith we need to go. There is a half-moon of bystanders around us now, waiting for something to happen so they can tell each other, remember that time when—he was like six four—dude, he looked like he just got out of prison—total thug—complete felon—yeah. There are no bouncers but there should be bouncers for moments like this or maybe I should just go with him, with his hard eyes and now terrible face, his clenched fists and set jaw that the room treats with extreme wariness. I watch him play through events, the push and then punch that will surely follow, the scuffle and then the bouncers and police that will surely come. Am I worth it? To him, I’m not worth it, so he stands down and says, fine Meredith, have fun before he turns and walks away.
I should let him go and let this strange night be the end of a long and strange year that we will talk about when we are older at reunions when our lives are far enough apart that we can only share memories. But I can’t. It would be easier if he hated me, because at least then he would have to acknowledge me, the way he acknowledges Rowan. He always seems indifferent to me. He is unaffected by my naked body, unmoved by my years of silent longing, so unconcerned with my well-being that he would leave me here with these wolf packs of young men. I try, but I can’t let go of the fact that he left for Nigeria, and when he came back began to phase me out of his life. I pull away from the frat boy who clutches at me and asks if I’m okay. I start after my so-called friend, through doors on to a street filled with people and the smell of street food, pizza, alcohol, bodies. I see car lights, streetlamps and changing streetlights and it makes me dizzy. I hear too much happiness and laughter buzzing in the air around me and it makes me sick. Niru isn’t far ahead now, just a few paces with his steps still smug even after that momentary humiliation. I feel so unsteady that I think I’ll fall. I shout his name as he turns the corner into an alleyway and then I surge the way I do in a race or on runs when the competitive jerk in him picks up the pace and I don’t want to feel inadequate. When I catch him midway down the alley, I push him from behind with a force that carries us forward to the ground. He is on his feet in an instant. I feel the full strength of his hold as he lifts me up and pushes me against a wall just beside a Dumpster. The smell makes me nauseous, but the pulse and throb of the music blasting from inside feels soothing. It’s so loud I can’t hear myself screaming but I know I’m screaming. I try to scratch at him. I try to slap him. I try to knee him in his groin, but he puts his full weight into holding me still. His body presses against mine as he mouths, calm down. Meredith, calm the fuck down. He bleeds from his face, from the pavement burn.
Then I hear it and he hears it—the heavy whomp of a siren. The light from a police car shines brightly against us and a metallic voice booms a tinny instruction. Step away from the woman and put your hands in the air. I can’t see fully into the light but I know there are people there behind the open doors, crouching low for protection. Niru steps away from me with his hands held high. There is so much space between us now. My hands reach out across the space. Then he hears it and I can just hear it but the person behind the lights can’t hear it because of the noise from the club and the noise from the street drowns out the Satie melody that says someone is calling you. He reaches reflexively, and they reach reflexively and he hears it as I hear it but he feels it and I don’t.
He lies there in my father’s shirt, limbs askew, sneakers still pristine white as his black blood pools in potholes and his hands slap against the ground.
You’re safe, a voice tells me. He can’t hurt you. Don’t look, it’s all over, it says. Shots fired, shots fired, requesting ambulance to alley between S and T Streets for suspect down. I feel cold. I become a series of shivers. Then I can’t feel myself even as all the pizza and the beer, and whatever else frat boy decided we were drinking erupts from my mouth onto the pavement before me. I have no words now, only piercing sounds.