Love Is a Revolution: Chapters 15–31

Once the tournament starts, all eyes are on the court. I feel like I am at a magic show, except the illusions are Black boys flying through the air, all of them wielding their very own superpower.

This might be the most honest thing I’ve ever said to Tye. It just comes out. Maybe because we are underground, in a tunnel, under a bustling city.

Imani has known what she wants to be since we were little girls. A lawyer. She’s always talking about how her dream is to work for the Equal Justice Initiative.

It is the kind of question to contemplate, to really think about and consider.

I’ve had my tonsils and my appendix taken out.

Every time we stop I pry my eyes open just a little and as soon as the train is in motion again, I close them.

He tosses the ball again, and I jump up off the bed and intercept it. I hold the basketball away from him.

Three episodes later, Tye is the one who is saying, “One more,” and I don’t gloat but inside I am smiling, and when he puts his arms around me, I lay my head on his shoulder and we spend the rest of the day in each other’s arms.

“I’m just, I’m brainstorming right now. My English teacher said making random lists is a way to get ideas about what you want to write about. So right now, I’m just in the beginning phase, just thinking and making lists about my life until something, I don’t know...until something—”
“Resonates?”

So we shop for frames, and we leave the Goodwill in Harlem and go to another Goodwill because Tye says, “The one on the Upper West Side might have vintage frames too. Let’s just get as many as we can today.”

Giving time is the most valuable gift.
 I don’t really need Tye to give me something tangible.

“Beauty is not just a word for girls, you know.” I rub my hand against his face, trace his eyebrows, ease my hand to his head and draw random shapes with the tips of my fingers all the way to the nape of his neck.

Uncle Randy always says, when you’re feeling bad about your circumstances you should do something kind for someone.

“It’s not too late,” JT says. “Persistence can get you far.”

Ms. Sharon is there too, and they are all looking at me with contempt in their eyes.

“You lied about working here?” Imani says. She says more, but I run after Tye so I don’t hear her full rebuke.

You walking around having love for the planet, love for animals, love for every outcast, downtrodden person, but you ain’t got no love for your cousin? For your momma? Me?

Grandma walks to the door, slips her sandals on, and before she leaves, she says, “You two are family. Family. That alone ought to be enough for you to respect each other. You’re also two women. Black women. The most radical thing you can do is love yourself and each other.”

Besides the picture of us, one of my favorites is the one of him with his mom. Someone caught them in a candid moment—a hug that looks so genuine, so tight.

“How dare you move my puzzle without my permission. And you didn’t even keep it intact?”

We don’t jump in right away, but we don’t do pleasantries either.

I am glad that Sadie is staying over. She doesn’t even know it, but she is a buffer between me and Imani.

Everything is making noise all at once, but somehow there is a calmness to the block I am walking down. Every sound complementing each other, the brakes of the bus, the honking horns, the bounce of the basketball, the slap of the jump rope against concrete.

“Oh, Miss Nala. I reckon she already knows.”

After I look through the album, the man at the counter wraps it for me, puts it in a bag, and slides in several coupons. “A little incentive for you to come back,” he says.

In the middle of the room are round tables, covered with tablecloths with small succulent plants in the middle as centerpieces.

He’s a compassionate and patient individual.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

My lists are all over the place, and a lot of the bullet points I would never share with a panel of strangers who are deciding my educational future, but finally I feel like I’m onto something when I decide to write about what I’ve learned this summer, all the things I am learning.

My mind. It is its own. Even though sometimes it is tempted to change, falter.

My mind. It is strong and holds all of who I am. It is still forming and growing and in so many ways, still the same. My mind. It is expansive, and there is so much room to fill, so much more to know.

“For the birthday girl we’ve prepared an array of Jamaican sweet treats,” he says.

Mom is still reminiscing and talking about how she can’t believe I am graduating soon. We swap our remember whens back and forth, reminding each other of how things used to be.

You seemed so perfect. The vibrant, volunteering vegetarian who knows exactly what he wants to do in college, after college.

“Because this summer something special happened. Even if it was a bit muddled. And I don’t want us to forget it."