“You any good at pool?” I say.
“I’m alright. You think you can beat me at a game of pool while you’re this pissed?”
I know I can. “I don’t know. Probably.”
And it turns out I do several things very well while I’m so drunk that my mouth goes numb.
I beat Gabriel at two games of pool, and then proceed to school two other dudes, too. The last game I play, Gabriel manages to put a number on it, and we end up winning forty bones off the dude after I sink my last solid.
For most of my life, Moms and I went to church every Sunday. Never missed a service. And for most of that time, she made me sing with the kids’ choir because “Baby, God ain’t give you this talent so you could hide it. He gave you that voice so you could honor Him with it.”
I don’t karaoke so much as belt out some oldies that Gabe puts on the jukebox. Two women twice my age come up to me and tell me my voice is beautiful. One of them is bold enough to stroke my chin and then covertly-but-not-at-all-covertly touch my lips that I still can’t feel because I’ve now had two more shots—vodka this time!
Gabriel, when I asked for something that is not tequila, protested and told me that I wouldn’t love myself tomorrow.
I almost tell him that it’s not a huge difference from how I feel about myself today. But I don’t. I just down the vodka—worse than the tequila!!!!—and keep singing and keep playing pool and keep telling random strangers that I think this place is where I’m meant to be.
Don’t remember a lot after that. What I do remember is Gabriel’s arm around my waist as we walk home. I remember thinking about how hilly the streets of San Francisco are. I remember Gabriel pressing his forehead into my shoulder while we sat and waited on a bench at the BART station.
The last thing I register is me being handed off from Gabriel, who smells like shampoo, to Desh, who smells like AXE body spray.
My bed smells like honey. Like home. Like bees and heavy heartbeats and remembering.
14.
At next class, Coco is not in her office when I arrive at 6:56 a.m.
She’s also not in her office at 6:59 a.m. or 7:05 a.m. or 7:17 a.m. or 7:33 a.m.
At which point, I take the elevator downstairs. And see her. Sitting at one of the tables near the coffee cart. Reading the paper.
“Is this for real right now.”
Coco lowers her newspaper, which I notice is actually just the campus paper. Campus newspapers don’t count. I mean, I know I’ve only been a college student for like two minutes, but it just feels like a fact that should be true given it’s produced by the generation that thinks it’s cool to wear spinoff MAGA hats that say things like, “Make Journalism Gay Again.”
Which isn’t a sentiment I’m opposed to, so much as the train it arrives on.
“Is what for real?” Coco says.
“I was waiting upstairs outside your office. And you’re just down here drinking coffee and reading the paper.”
She pouts. Like, actually bottom-lip-out pouts and then says, “It’s matcha.”
“Can I go now.”
The paper crumples in her small hands, and she tosses it into a nearby trashcan before pushing all her hair from one side of her head to the other. “I mean, you could. But class starts in twelve minutes. Might as well stick around.” She kicks the chair out.
“I’m good, thanks.” Translation: I’m good, luv. Enjoy.
“Sit down, Torrey.” Translation: Sit. The fuck. Down.
She’s giving me Aunt-Lisa-Eye so I do exactly what the hell she demands and I sit. And we spend several minutes in silence. She’s laughing hysterically at her phone for the entire eleven and a half minutes we’re there, and I just watch because anyone with that much hair on their head deserves an audience.
As we’re walking back up to the lecture hall, she says, almost to herself, “Man, I love those YouTube Girl-Horse breakup videos.”
Phone in hand, I go over the list of books Emery recommended I look into. Fundamentals of Property Law, Lance Freeman’s There Goes the ’Hood, Property Law for Dummies, et cetera. She thought that third recommendation was comedic genius.
I make the fifteen-minute trek from dorms to campus library when I run smack dab (do people my age even say “smack dab” anymore? Never mind) into Gabriel.
“Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Where’s the fire, McKenzie?” he says. Do people my age even say, “Where’s the fire?” anymore? No. No, we do not. But Gabriel Silva makes it work.
“Um, the library?”
“Hey, something came up, I’ll talk to you later,” he says. And it’s literally only then that I realize he’s been holding a phone up to his ear.
I coast up on my toes and then back down. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He smiles. The most unnerving thing about Gabriel is that he doesn’t rush his responses. Something I’ve known for a long time but have only recently come to appreciate.
A smile, light and airy and charming, touches his lips. “I know.”
“Generally, girls who are your girlfriend don’t enjoy abrupt hang-ups.”
He pulls his hair down with several rough yanks and then twists it back up on the very top of his head. He’s a mess. God, he’s such a mess.
“Who says it was my girlfriend?”
“Wasn’t it?” I say, eyebrow raised.
“If it was, would it be upsetting to you?”
Yes. “Should it be?”
“You tell me.”
“What are we even talking about?”
He hitches his bag higher onto his shoulder. “I don’t know, but I’m really into it.”
Oof.
“Alright well. Now that I’ve filled your witty-retorts quota, I really do need to hit the library.”
“Want company?”
“I do, actually.”
The J. Paul Leonard Library is a five-floor glass monstrosity, and I love it. I’ve been in it a few times for my CIV class and have walked by it several times at night just because. It kinda reminds me of that movie Anastasia. All lit up and quiet, gold spilling across the outer walls, glass shining softly. I don’t know. Sounds stupid, I guess. As a kid, I loved that movie, though. And my cousin Roger used to run around the yard at my auntie’s house yelling to all the rest of the neighborhood kids, “Torrey in there watching Anesthesia again!”
I cried every time.
“You seem shocked,” Gabriel says.
“What about?”
“Wanting company.”
“Okay.”
“Wanting my company?”
“I’m sorry,” I say as we enter the elevators. “Was that a question?” First floor is where we’ll find the online catalog computers.
I.
I will find the online catalog. Not we.
I.
“I don’t have questions about anything, I know where I want to be.”
My eyes roll so hard. “Yeah, the campus public library on a Friday night, apparently.”
“Well,” Gabriel says, “you’re here.”
“Yeah, but only because I have to be.”
“No,” he says, waiting for the elevator to bing and let us out. “I mean I want to be here. Because you are also here.”
The doors slide open, and my insides do the same. A slow warmth fills my belly.
“Oh,” I say. And that’s literally it before I make my exit. I’m not trying to outpace him and practically run away like a fucking idiot, but that is exactly what I do.
“Someone’s in a hurry to get some knowledge on.”
“Property law.”
“Property law? Not for a class then, I take it. Because no one studying property law is going to use this much energy rushing like the world’s most eager beaver from the elevator toward a catalog of legal information. I bet—”
“You can’t say stuff like that to me.”
“I,” he starts. “Oh, I … um. What?”
“That thing. About wanting to be here.”
&nb
sp; “Oh.”
“Oh?”
Gabriel exhales. “Yeah, ‘oh.’ I just, I mean, I get it. Because I totally said that same thing to you. For the same reason.” When I’d sent him that pic of Desh, wherein, I am in it. Not wearing a shirt.
“The same reason,” I say. I can’t say anymore than that though. Because is it the same reason? Is it really?
I think I understand, but I couldn’t name it. Wouldn’t ever. It just feels like admitting too much when there’s no hope of reciprocation. Also, just. I’m not ready. I don’t think I’m ready to call it anything. This wanting. This casual excitement.
I feel the wire connecting the computer’s mouse to the modem and wrap it up-around-and-through my fingers, needing to do something with my hands.
“Yeah,” he says. And he doesn’t hesitate at all to add, “But I don’t know if I can just not say anything to you about what kind of stuff is running through my head right now. Or running through my head all the time lately.”
“Gabe.”
“See?” he continues. He’s not even getting really loud. His phone lights up in his hand, and he ignores it. “You just called me ‘Gabe’ and for some strange-ass reason, nobody ever calls me Gabe. And then you do. And I love it. I’m totally here for everything about your everything, and it’s messing me up.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. And I think I really am.
“God, Torrey. Don’t be,” he says. “Honestly, don’t be.”
Things happen so fast, I don’t know how to catch them, wine glasses falling from high shelves, but he is here with me, surrounded by silent studiers sitting in front of their dedication to education, a soft hum that I think is being made by the lights in the vaulted ceilings, and he is looking at me, and he is promising me with that one look that
this boy is mine
and if my body felt anything but weightless, I’d be doing something about it. And you know what, it turns out to not even be necessary. Gabe—Jesus, Gabe—presses forward and my eyes are shut but I feel his lips brush the soft skin just below my earlobe as he whispers, “Mea culpa.”
And my body experiences a shock of electricity so hot, the convulsions that rip through me have a sound wholly unique to themselves.
Also, my hand, tangled in the computer-mouse wire, jerks and the mouse, keyboard, and very nearly the modem, come crashing down.
I am mortified. People are staring. And I can’t decide if it’s at Gabriel or if it’s at me. Probably me. Although, if it were Gabriel, I wouldn’t blame a single soul. He’s got this obvious comfort in his own body, and it makes me warm all over—a thing that has nothing to do with the embarrassment-blush I’ve got going as a result of having just taken down a university-issued desktop computer.
His posture straightens. “Shit!” It’s loud enough to hit the very back of the stacks on this floor and also probably all the ones above it.
“Sorry!” I say to him. Don’t know why. I just say it. Then I say it again to anybody who isn’t wearing noise-canceling headphones. “I’m sorry. I’m going to go find some books now.” Yes, Torrey, please continue to assault these people with your business.
I’m halfway down a row about Oregon state law when I notice Gabriel hanging back.
“Hey, I think I have to go,” he says.
“Uh, yeah. Okay.”
“I just realized I have to take care of something.” A not-at-all-vague excuse.
“For sure. That’s cool. Thanks for hanging in while I attempted to break the library’s most valuable asset.”
“Nah. Not the most valuable. They’ve got a ball autographed by Christy Mathewson up on the fifth floor near the Sports Illustrated section.”
I don’t know who she is, but sure. “Oh, dope.”
He laughs and lick-bites his lip before saying, “See you around, McKenzie.”
I check out six different books on property law, shove them all inside my backpack (to the dismay of every librarian in a fifty-mile radius) and decide I need to hunt down Emery. She is probably my number one resource at this point, given her connection to the Collective and its pro bono legal team. The Collective is Emery’s home. They’re her people. They’re also extremely capable and accomplished on the social justice reform front.
There’s no text back when I message to find out where she’s at, but my first guess is correct. Everything’s coming up Milhouse! (These days I take my wins where I can get ’em.)
And there she is. Center ring. Two French braids. Sports tank. Pink boxing gloves. And this steady look on her face that says nothing more than I’mma fuck you up. It’s so the opposite of how she normally is. All jittery-stuttery energy and video game graphic tees. Sunshine swimming just under her cheekbones, whereas now she’s sporting some serious thunderstorm-warning clouds.
The gym is one story, not an incredibly large space. But I get the sense that it’s just enough. Functional. Got people paired off, going at it, fists flying. Most are so in the zone they don’t notice me walk in. Some notice me long enough to basically profile me and then discard me.
There’s music blaring out of a large black speaker in one corner of the room. I pull my high school James Baldwin Academy crewneck off over my head and grip it in my fist as I walk closer to the ring Em is dancing around.
A shirtless guy in the ring with her bounces on the balls of his bare, tape-wrapped feet. Some white boy with black hair slicked over like he’s Ryan Gosling’s stunt double. I almost discount him until his circuit around the ring brings his face into my full view. He’s got a gnarly scar across the bridge of his nose. I think for a second that it makes his mug kind of attractive, until he throws another punch at Emery and she ducks it, laughing. Kinda hard to worry about his piehole when his fists are capable of that anyway.
But Emery … oh, Emery.
Girl’s a poem in the boxing ring. She’s breathless. She’s gorgeous. She’s moving—dancing. She’s a fire blazing in a rainstorm, a strike of lightning across a cornfield. She’s everything.
“Jesus,” I whisper. And it’s like that one word breaks her focus. The spell is undone.
Her head jerks up, and she takes a direct hit right to the jaw. I flinch, but she barely does as her attention reverts back to its original target, and I get that this is her apiary. This is her good thing. Her pocket of solace.
She nails the other guy with a swift series of hummingbird jabs that he blocks and counters, her knee flies up to his gut then comes down as he stumbles back, but that’s not a cue for her to retreat. No. She aims this hoppy, straight-legged kick right at him that catches his gut padding again, just like her knee did. A bell in the corner dings. Then, and only then, does she retreat, but not before she taps her gloves with his.
“Hey,” she says with a smile. A pink mouthguard covers her teeth, which she spits into a cup before saying, “What are you doing here?”
I shrug, hang on the ropes as she works at removing her gloves above me, and notice how cut her biceps are.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
She rolls her eyes. “In the neighborhood from Prominski Hall? Doing what? This building is a fifteen-minute walk from the dorms, Torrey.”
I hold my hands up, all, okay, you got me. “Shorter if you cut across the soccer field.” I shrug. “I came to see you. Plus, I was at the library anyway. Shaves my time by like five minutes.”
“Three.” She holds out her gloves for me to undo the rest of the strings and ties.
It takes me longer to undo them than it likely would’ve taken her. “Alright, fine, wiseass.”
“So, you came to see me. What for?”
Another shrug. Did it look super affected? I’m actually just trying to play it cool. I’m for sure the sunglasses emoji face right now, no? The smirk emoji is probably not far off, I can feel it. “I was hoping you might wanna do something? Hang out?”
All she says is “Mm.” Just like a Black woman to give you an answer in less than a whole syllable.
M
y best smooth-boy smile in place, I help her out of the ring. (Because she toooootally needed it. Sometimes I want to kick my own ass.) Uncle Miles and I used to have this theory that all dark-skinned Black boys have this one smile. The light skinneds do, too, but they lose it after like, I don’t know, age twelve or whatever. I don’t know, it’s just science, I don’t make the rules. Dark skin comes with a lot of fucked-up cons, but also some perks, too.
The Smoov Boy smile is one of ’em.
Although Emery isn’t super receptive to it.
“Let’s go,” she says, slipping around me to grab her gym bag and cell phone. The giant case on it is Totoro, and I immediately respect Em a hundred times more for it.
As a kid I used to watch Studio Ghibli’s shit all the time. My Neighbor Totoro was one we kept on repeat. Uncle Miles, quiet and focused in a way those films sort-of demand, used to sit and watch them with me whenever Moms and me would roll through. Theo always had something to say about it, a mumbled “girly-ass cartoons in my house” sort of sentiment.
I pretended not to hear them. I think Uncle Miles did, too, spinning the conversation to some loud-ass joke about how My Neighbor Totoro should have been My Nigga Totoro.
IMO, it fits much better.
The walk back to Prominski is actually fifteen minutes, like Emery says. But we stop to grab a coffee and then form some kind of unspoken agreement that we’ll take our time getting back, measuring our steps slowly, like spoonfuls of sugar.
Emery lifts her coffee’s lid and slurps some of the foam off the top. “We can meet with Ryan Q.”
My already tight shoulders knot up just a little more and my stomach goes queasy. It occurs to me I’ve been consuming way too much caffeine and not enough actual food. There is just so much I have to do and so much I haven’t done and where do I even start? The Add/Drop period is a mouthbreather standing too close right now. University’s student email system does not let me forget that this thing is nine days away. Nine. I need to start making some moves. STAT.
“I can feel you panicking, Torrey.”
By Any Means Necessary Page 8
