Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Then we can hit a club on our way back.” Mel stands and slaps my backside. “And use that fat ass and perky tits of yours to get free drinks.”
God, I’m gonna miss them. I haven’t had many real friends since Finley. Just when Tessa and Mel start to feel like family, it’s time to leave. I’m not really in the mood to party, but I’ll go to get every second I can with them before I move for my fellowship.
“Okay, I’m in,” I say when we settle. “Harlem it is.”
“And Luis is coming,” Tessa singsongs, leaping to her feet and skipping around the living room. “Which means you’ll get some good dick for the road. One last bang before you go.”
“Whatever,” I sigh, and head to the bedroom. “I better get dressed.”
Luis Sanchez was a part of their friend group when I moved in. He and I eventually ventured into the friends-with-benefits zone. Lately, he’s been trying to make it more. Wanting to be exclusive. Wanting to date me. I don’t do that anymore. I may never do it again. Living with bipolar is a lot. Having to explain things, hoping they won’t be around if I have a swing in either direction, trusting them enough to accept and support me if things go off the rails sounds like more than I want to manage. I’ve been burned before; thought a girl or a guy could handle it, only to be disappointed when they realized they couldn’t or didn’t want to bother. As much as I get it, that shit hurts. It would have to really feel worth the trouble, and no one has felt that worth it since…
Not going there.
My friends are in full turn-up mode on the subway ride, vacillating from bicker to banter the whole way to Harlem. The neighborhood still throbs with an energy that’s so distinct and rich—community, history, creativity. It lives in the air. Visiting the Apollo, walking Strivers’ Row, where so many luminaries and leaders lived, popping into Abyssinian Baptist and imagining Adam Clayton Powell’s fiery oratory from its pulpit. I’ve come here often, and being at the epicenter of so much Black artistry has inspired me. I wanted to write my final senior thesis on some aspect of the Harlem Renaissance, except I never quite made it to the senior part. Maybe I’m also drawn to it because it represents one more thing I never got closure on when I left Finley so abruptly.
I try not to think of Monk because it still hurts too much, wondering what we could have been. The wall I erect around my heart drops every once in a while, though, and the memories flood in. He managed to imprint himself on my soul in a way I fear no one else ever will. Wright Bellamy is my kryptonite. And he may not realize it, but I would be his. The intensity of our feelings, the thing that made us so good together, in the midst of one of my episodes, maybe would be the very thing that wrecks us.
I’ve stood in the burned ruins of that kind of love. Choked on its ashes.
He never reached out to me after that night, the lowest point in my life. Why would he after the way I behaved? But if he had, I would have ignored him, like I’ve ignored anyone else from that time. Too much shame. I’m not sure how I would respond if I ever saw Monk again. Even knowing we should be oil and water, the way we mixed—body, soul, heart—haunts me.
The party reaches us before we reach the party. The smell of fish frying wafts over from a block away. I feel the swelter of bodies crammed close in the humidity of a summer night with a hundred people singing Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go” like it’s their national anthem. When we round the corner, there is a mass electric slide happening in the street. Off to the side, a group gathers around several girls double-Dutching, a blur of legs and ropes as they dash in and out.
“God, I love being Black,” Tessa sighs. “Smells like shea butter, fried chicken, and resilience out here.”
I laugh and let the last of the weight from my session with Dr. Palmer lift from my shoulders.
“Let’s dance,” Luis says, tugging me into the kick and shuffle of the slide.
Posted up on the stoop, the DJ rocks hit after hit, turning this strip of concrete into an alfresco, open-air club. We bump, grind, and wind until sweat slicks our bodies, lending a gleam to the various shades of melanated skin under the bright streetlights.
“Where’s the food?” I ask, laughing and out of breath. “I skipped lunch, so I’m—”
“What’s up, Harlem?” someone says over the mic. “How y’all doing tonight?”