“For a valedictorian of Stuy, he’s not very smart,” May says.
“He’s an illiterate gorilla,” I agree.
“An illiterate gorilla who you love,” Izzy says gently.
“And who loves you,” Betty adds on.
Four pairs of arms, ages thirty to seventy-five, wrap me in a hug.
“I miss him,” I admit.
It’s the truth. As soon as I signed the lease for this place, the first person I wanted to tell was him. When I signed up for a pottery class, a bachata class, when I went for a walk through Green-Wood Cemetery—he was the only person I wanted to tell. When I put the gold dress on, I wanted to send a selfie.
After combing through my notebooks and napkins and scraps of paper and the files on my computer, typing, formatting into some semblance of order and organization, after sending a query letter off to some connections I’ve made through Hawk Publishing, for an anthology of poems?
He’s the first person I wanted to read it.The Naked Truth: Self-Erosion and Shame, Grief and Girlhood.By Anne Li.
“Why won’t you let him back in?” Betty asks softly.
I tell the truth. “I’m afraid.”
“That what, he’s been cheating on you for years?” May snarls. I kind of love it, but wow.
I don’t answer.
May attempts to backtrack. “Nico made a mistake, Annie. It was a lapse in judgement, one that lasted minutes, not years. He’s not perfect. Who are you,Mom?”
“Christ, May, what have you done with my sister?”
But she’s right.
“He loves every version of you, even the pieces that are too big and too much. Can’t you do the same?”
“I…” Fuck.
“You have proven to everyone that you are the strongest, bravest, most badass woman who’s ever come from hell,” Fernanda tells me. “But why are you still trying to prove it to yourself? By kicking him out, no less?”
“Loving someone is an act of strength,” May murmurs sadly, knowingly, now. “Of bravery.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my face into Fernanda’s shoulder. The air smells like tears and old lady perfume and half-dried takeout. And comfort and love and strength and bravery.
I’m afraid. I’m afraid that loving someone means giving them a whole bunch of weapons and hoping they wouldn’t use it on me. I thought I had to stay sharp, stay armored, stay alone to stay safe.
But Nico didn’t break me. He made me softer without making me small. And in the aftermath, after the fallout and the fuckups and the fear, I’m still standing. I, Annie Li, Chaos Bringer. Still me. Maybe even more me.
And now?
“I think he just proved he will keep you safe,” Izzy says softly.
The vulnerable spots in his armor, the mistake that he made, the one that failed to protect me? It was based on his own insecurities and anxieties. Fear.
And those cracks have been filled with a big, impenetrable “Fuck you, bitches.”
I breathe. A real, full breath. And when I exhale, it’s like I’m letting go of something I’ve been clutching too tight for too long. I let it drain out of me, slow and quiet.
And what’s left isn’t nothing.
There’s a new fear.
