American Love Story (Dreamers)

by Adriana Herrera

  I swallowed hard thinking about the thread, of what he’d written about the humiliation and fear he felt last night, the things I never got to hear. I opened my photo app and pulled up the screenshot with the tweet that had almost made me weep for him.

  That feeling that no matter what I do, how hard I work, how far I climb... It can all be taken away in a moment.

  No matter how much I tried to act like Patrice overreacted to my calling Day last night, I understood that it felt like I was adding insult to injury. “He ended things last night. After.”

  “What? Why?” Pris asked, sounding exasperated. She let out a long harsh breath. “Patrice cannot be so fucking unreasonable that he’s blaming you for this?” I appreciated her outrage, but I didn’t have the energy to be mad.

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat and confessed to Priscilla. “He got mad because I reached out to Day to call off the deputy who stopped him.” Pri gasped at that. “I can see how that could land badly with him.”

  I ran my palms over my face, feeling exhausted. “Especially when the DA’s office and everyone else in town have been tiptoeing around this stop and pretending there’s no reason to be concerned.”

  “But that’s not just on you to figure out, Easton,” Pri said in my defense, and I smiled at her loyalty.

  “It’s not to a degree, but it at least warranted some kind of public acknowledgment from us, and I didn’t say a word. But when my boyfriend got stopped l literally called on the cavalry, like Patrice said, it’s hypocritical.”

  I could almost hear Pri thinking on the other end of the call. “But things had been going well. Right?”

  I wanted to curl under the covers and not come out until I’d literally slept away all my feelings. “We were doing great.” I ran my hand over the satin-covered pillow that still had the imprint of Patrice’s head. The smell of coconut oil still lingering on the smooth surface. “I don’t know how to fix this, Pri. Patrice wants perfection, for every person in his life to interpret things the way he thinks they should and anything beyond that is betrayal. I can’t live up to that. I need him to be able to love me with the flaws I have. I can’t do with Patrice what I had to with my parents my whole life.”

  “Fuck no.” Pri’s outrage, made a tired smile break out on my face. “Patrice needs to get his head out of his ass, for real.” She let out a long breath, deflated by the conversation. “Babe, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too, but I’m not going to beg Patrice. I own that I fucked up, and I will make it right, but I can’t be in a relationship where I’m constantly one mistake from being iced out.”

  “He’ll come around. This time he has something big enough to lose.”

  I sighed again, getting up to go look down on the sidewalk behind the building.

  “I’m not going to pretend I won’t open the door if he comes here with an olive branch, but I can’t keep bending myself to keep Patrice appeased. I have some things I need to take care of and for now I’ll put my energy on that.”

  “Okay babe, that’s good. Put that energy elsewhere. If you do need me to come up there, just call, all right? I’m pretty sure I can still kick his ass like I did when we were kids.”

  I laughed at that and kept my attention on the sidewalk as I saw a figure that looked a lot like the man I loved coming closer to the building. “Thanks, Pri.”

  We ended the call as I saw Patrice finally get to the door at the back of the building. Before he went in, he stepped back and looked right up at where I was. Seeing him still made my stomach flip, even as hopeless as things felt right now. He was in a black parka, his locs unbound and hanging down his back. He looked as stark and as lonely as I felt. Our eyes locked for a few breaths, and I saw the same regret in him that I’d been swimming in since last night. I wanted to lift my hand in a wave or call for him, but I just stood there until he finally dipped his head and walked inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Patrice

  “Can I come in?” I asked after I’d rapped twice on the door of my department’s chair office. He looked up from behind his cluttered desk and waved me in. He was the exact type of man you’d expect to find chairing an economics department in an Ivy League school. In his fifties and had the absent-minded professor look down pat, complete with the coffee stain on his shirt.

  “Patrice, please take a seat.”

  I lowered myself onto one of the black leather chairs in front of his desk, unsure of what was about to happen, but almost certain it would not be pleasant. I looked down at myself and realized I’d missed a button on the vest I was wearing, and sighed. It had been two days since the stop and almost by the hour my regret for the way I’d handled things with Easton doubled. But since I was pretty sure I was about to get reamed out, I needed to stay focused on this particular fire and not the others actively burning in my life.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said, snatching me out of my pity party, his voice all awkward, as if we didn’t both know I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.

  “Of course,” I said, wondering if he was going to straight-up tell me to stop tweeting or if he was going to tiptoe around it for the next hour.

  He cleared his throat and looked at me, as if he was trying to figure out how to take the first bite out of me. “I saw that you were involved in a traffic stop this weekend.”

  Had to give it to him, he could spin.

  I dipped my head in a nod as my skin tightened from the mention of the stop. “Yes.”

  He sighed and shifted in his chair, awkward as fuck.

  “First of all I just want to say we’re glad that you’re all right.” He cleared his throat. “I’d also like to reiterate that the department hired you for your innovative research. And that your interesting perspective on social justice and activism was also a factor.” I could tell the fact that I was looking straight at him was making him uncomfortable, but I did not care. He wanted to shut me up, he could look me in the eye when he told me.

  “And.” He paused there and I wondered just how bad the next part would be, but when he looked at me again his eyes were friendly. “I can’t speak for the school on this, but I can tell you that personally I think what you’re doing is great. We need to speak out about what is happening in our community. I will do what I can to support your efforts in town.”

  I felt like I’d fallen through a hole and ended up in the upside down. I was sure I had not heard him right. “I’m sorry. Could you say that again?” I asked, genuinely baffled. So much so I resisted the urge to cup a hand around my ear the next time he opened his mouth.

  “I said that I think what you’ve been doing is something our community needs and I will gladly support you in any way I can. Mind you, this is just me, not the department.” This time I was the one having trouble maintaining eye contact. “It’s not easy taking these things on and I know the pressure you’re under to get tenure. I just wanted to tell you I see your work and how it goes beyond just publications. You’re doing what’s right. I see and respect that. A lot of us here do.”

  This conversation was literally going in the complete opposite direction I expected. I came in to be dressed down and warned, not to be offered support.

  I had no game plan for this.

  “Umm, thank you, sir. I appreciate it,” I said, feeling foolish for doing what I always accused people of doing to me—making assumptions without reason. Which only made me think of Easton. I’d accused him so harshly of being a hypocrite and here I was being confronted by my own hypocrisy. “I’m trying to balance what I say and do, I know that I’m a brand-new hire, so I don’t want to make any enemies, but I can’t not bring attention to this.”

  Dr. Simons nodded again and leaned in so that his head was only a few feet from mine. “It’s a national issue and one that affects our students of color every day, especially our young
men.” He extended a hand at me. “And our faculty even. We are part of this community and we can’t look the other way on this.”

  I nodded again, not sure how to act. I had no clue what else to say. “Okay, thank you again, sir. I—”

  I opened my mouth to say some generic, cordial thing and walk out of the office, but instead decided to say what I was thinking. “I walked in here expecting to be told to shut down my Twitter account or else.” I shook my head, needing to get all of this out. “I’m not used to getting this kind of support. I’m not even sure what to say.”

  He waved me off with a kind smile and for the first time I was really seeing him. “We hired you because you were the best candidate we had on this search, Patrice, but also because you were walking the walk. I am tired of hiring faculty that have no interest of ever being in the world they’re trying to figure out.” He paused then and I could tell he was debating whether to say more. “The reason I initially asked you to meet me was because another faculty member seems determined to paint your activism in a negative light.”

  Brad.

  He pursed his mouth as if he found whatever he was remembering distasteful. “What good are we if we don’t figure out how to use the knowledge we have to challenge ourselves and our communities? Good research is not enough, we have to be good citizens too.” The fire in his eyes reminded me of my advisor at Columbia, and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed I had an ally in this place all along.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said sincerely.

  I looked at his office and saw photos of him and students at different events. Every single one, some old and some more recent, showed him surrounded by diverse groups of kids. His arms usually around a couple of them. His office wasn’t full of fancy leather and wood furniture. It was cluttered and a little dusty. It was a workspace.

  I stood up, feeling humbled. It wasn’t like every person in the department was going to be like Dr. Simons, or even close, but he and I were here and that mattered.

  I extended my hand to him and he gripped it, with that small smile still on his lips. “Just let me know how I can help.”

  “Will do,” I said sincerely. “For now I’ve been helping to plan another peaceful protest that will go from the clock tower down to the commons. I’d appreciate the school not shutting it down.”

  “We would never shut down a peaceful protest. The right to gather peacefully by students has a long tradition here.” He pointed at his monitor and looked up at me again. “I’ll make sure to say something about it in my own Twitter account, and let other faculty know if they want to end class early or let the students who want to participate leave class, that they have my blessing.”

  “You’re on Twitter?” I asked before I could help myself, at which he responded with a hearty laugh. “I have three grandchildren in college. I’ve been on Twitter for years. I’ve been following and admiring you for a while now.”

  Well, I’d be damned.

  I walked out of Dr. Simons’s office and headed to mine with my head swimming, but one thing kept coming up to the surface.

  Easton.

  The more I thought about that night, the bigger the hole in my stomach got. Because I knew that, just like with Dr. Simons, my own assumptions and my own fear of not being seen, made me put up walls. It helped me protect myself from getting hurt, but I’d also been keeping out those who could lift me up.

  I needed to talk to Easton, but first I had to make sure I hadn’t fucked up things beyond repair. I walked into my office, closing the door behind me, and before I could talk myself out of it, I called Priscilla. I considered Camilo, but he would just curse me out, and I needed someone who could keep a cool head and give me some clue on how Easton was doing.

  She picked up after one ring, and before I could say a word she let me have it. “I’m driving in to work and have ten minutes. I hope you called ready to be read for filth, because I got no time to play with any of you fuckboys today.”

  I sighed, but didn’t even consider protesting. “How’s Easton doing?”

  The exhale on the other side was sort of over the top, but I knew what I was getting into when I dialed the number. “How do you think he’s doing, Patrice? You’ve been icing him for two days and letting him feel like he’s a fucking monster for acting out of fear that you were going to get hurt.”

  I could almost see her mouth twisted to the side as she talked. I sighed again, not even sure what I wanted to say. “I was unfair, but I also was hurt, Pris. Easton had been waffling on this shit with the stops for months, yet when it was me, he acted like it was a life-or-death situation.”

  This time it was her sighing. “Yes, he did that, and he owned it. He’s also figuring out how to make it right.”

  “What does that mean?” I blurted out, interrupting her.

  “That’s for him to tell you, not me, Patrice. What I do have to tell you is this: you need to learn how to value the people in your life who are willing to put it all on the line for you. You’re self-righteous and you’re judgmental. You need to let go of some of that anger, P. Open your eyes and see that not everyone is out here trying to let you down. If you need to get some professional help to work some of that out do it, before you lose big.”

  After my talk with Dr. Simons I felt that in my bones. “I know.”

  Pri clicked her tongue, and when she spoke again she sounded a lot less pissed. “Patrice, I’ve known you since we were in elementary school. I have seen you harden, and I know, believe me, I know the world has given you plenty of reasons. I’m a woman of color trying to move up the ranks of the police department in New York. I fucking live in a space of barely contained frustration. But I can tell you this, my struggle will not get any easier by shutting out the people who hold it down when I need it. Are people going to stumble? Fuck yeah they will, there is so much bullshit to unlearn.”

  The truth in her words were cutting me to the core. “You need to figure out why you believe that you don’t deserve to be happy.”

  “I never said I don’t deserve to be happy, I just don’t want to betray myself.” I wasn’t sure that was true, because almost at every opportunity I’d tried to minimize how much I felt for Easton.

  “You need to stop seeing your happiness like foreboding.”

  Did I do that?

  “Well that’s not a switch I can just turn off, Priscilla.” This conversation had me completely out of my depth.

  “Do you really think that’s what Easton expected? That you would fall in love with his dick and all of a sudden you’d drop the ‘I’m an island’ flow you’ve been rocking for the last thirty-four years?”

  She had to make me laugh. “I’m not sure why I thought calling you instead of Camilo would somehow mean I didn’t get my ass handed to me.”

  She snorted a laugh and I could almost hear the eye roll. “Because you’re a fool.” The sigh she let out then, told me that the jokes were over.

  “Patrice, if I were you I’d sit with what you want with Easton for a bit, before you go and try to talk to him. Easton deserves someone who can show him that he’s worthy of love. There’s no one more painfully aware of their privilege than that man. That doesn’t mean he won’t falter, or that you won’t.”

  I closed my eyes, wondering if there was even a chance this would work out. “I’m going to think on this some. Thanks for listening and going somewhat easy on me.”

  “You’re welcome. Do right by him, P, and by you, you both deserve it.”

  I ended the call and immediately opened the Twitter app, as I usually did when I felt like I was burning up with something to say. But after a second, I thought about the urgency I was feeling. This wasn’t something I wanted to share with the world, it was private and it already belonged to someone.

  I tapped my phone until I had the message app open, and hesitated for a second, afraid that I would b
e rebuffed or ignored. Pri’s words started to make sense then. I kept myself so primed for disappointment, for the people who came into my life to hurt me, that I never fully felt anything, not the joy, not the pain. I’d started feeling that with Easton, but I’d pushed him away too. To get what I deserved I needed to start showing all the way up.

  I tapped the message like six different times, until I realized that I was trying to text what I thought I should say, instead of just saying what I meant.

  I should have said thank you.

  I put the phone in my breast pocket as I got up from the small love seat in my office and moved to my desk, hoping to get some work done on this eventful morning. But as soon as I opened up the internet browser, I felt my phone buzzing. I pressed my hand over the pocket and took a deep breath, before I dared look at the message. I smiled sadly at Easton’s refusal to do anything less than to put his whole self out there.

  You being all right is thank you enough.

  As I put my phone back into my pocket a small bubble of something that felt dangerously like hope started blossoming in the middle of my chest.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Easton

  “You’re not going to back out, right?” Cindy asked me for what felt like the hundredth time as I got ready to go give my statement to the press to officially announce my run for DA. This was Tompkins County, so it’s not like it was an actual press conference, but there would be a couple of journalists from the local media outlets to ask me some questions.

  I looked up from the notes I was pretending to read, and tried not to be too harsh. “Cin, I need you to take a couple of steps back here.” Things had been strained between us since I told her I could not keep waiting for this office to put out an official statement about the stop. Days later, I was still waiting for an answer. Like Patrice had told me that night, I’d finally realized that being on the right side of this would mean that I would lose some people I thought I could count on. Cindy’s inaction was disappointing but that was her choice. I had my own to make.