Page 11 of Grown

Gab’s smile stretches wide. “Whoa. That’s fire! You came up with that today? You’re such a beast!”

From the outside, our friendship seems understandable: same height, weight, and pedigree, except Gab is a year older, and instead of a baldy, she has a head of thick, straight, dark brown hair she keeps in a sloppy high bun. But any word you’d think to describe me, think of her as the antonym. Where I’m clumsy and awkward, Gab is modelesque and confident. Where I’m anxious and frantic, Gab is calm, wise beyond her years. Nothing tips her scale.

Yet we’re two of the few girls of color in a field of lilies. She’s the only girl in the entire school I can talk to without overexplaining my existence. That brings a level of sisterly comfort. For both of us.

Comfort enough to admit my deepest emotion. “He said he liked my singing.”

Gab smiles. “Of course he did. Because you’re good, and the world needs to know that. This is just a start. Soon you’ll be performing in sold-out concerts!”

I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe even with him.”

She plucks a thought from my head and frowns. “He’s too old for you.”

“Well. Y-y-yeah, obviously,” I mumble, my cheeks on fire. “But a girl can dream, right?”

Her face contorts. “Why the hell would you want to dream about that old-ass uncle?”

“Uncle? He ain’t that old! He’s not even thirty! He’s only, what, seven years older than Jay?”

Gab’s eyes squint over her can of Sprite. “That’s completely different, and you know it.”

“OK, OK! Easy, killer,” I laugh. “I can’t believe you still get in your feelings about that.”

Jay. Gab’s boyfriend. Gab’scollegeboyfriend.

She squirms. “It’s just... gross, what people say about us.”

OK, so it’s not the same thing. Jay is twenty-one and has been with Gab for three years.

Footsteps down the hall make me swallow back my response. Two freshmen pass the alcove, stopping to stare at us.

“What?” Gab snaps. “Can I help y’all with something? If not, then beat it!”

The two kids exchange a look then glance back at us, their eyes wide. Gab slams her notebook shut.

“Did I stutter? I said fuck off!” Her voice a whip snap. They jump, scurrying away, mumbling.

“Damn, Gab. Take it easy.”

“I hate how people stare at us like we’re some damn aliens, like they’ve never seen a black or Latina in their life!”

After almost two years, I’m used to the stares. The blue, green, and hazel eyes are part of the decor. Gab doesn’t have that problem; she could pass for a white girl, blending into the field. But she’d never acknowledge that.

“Why you always want to hang out over here?” I ask.

Gab’s face is tinted mint under the fluorescents, her jawline reflecting off a hockey trophy won back in the nineties, covered in dust.

She shrugs, returning to her textbook. “It’s easier to talk to you here. Too many nosey people. Plus, I can actually get some homework done instead of waiting until I’m off the clock. Oh! I got you this cute hoodie! It was buy one, get one fifty percent off. Twinning!”

Gab works at Old Navy in the White Plains Galleria. That’s when she’s not driving down to Fordham University to visit Jay. In the car she owns, paid for with her own money. She doesn’t have much time for trivial nonsense like homework. She’s a senior going on fifty.

But at least she has a boyfriend. All I have is swimming, music, and dreams of Korey.

“I wish you could come to the concert with us.”

“That fresh shipment of Rockstar jeans isn’t going to folditself,” she jokes. “Besides, this is your time to shine!” She carries a note as far as her lungs will allow, singing the lines I just shared with her. Why she refuses to share the stage with me, I’ll never know.

I think of Korey again. His hand on my stomach, palm pressing into my belly button, imprinting on me. Wonder what it would be like to really BE with him, having the type of love he always sings about.