There’s silence on the other end for a few seconds, followed by Iris’s big gasp. “Oh, my gosh! He’s the guy!”
“What?” I’m silently begging her not to put things together.
“The guy you told me about before! The one you said you liked. Kenan’s in New York for the summer. You and he—”
“Ooooh, girl, you breaking up,” I reply hastily. “Gotta go.”
“Lo, I will need the details.”
“Bye, Bo. Kiss Sarai for me,” I say and disconnect.
Whatever is happening between Kenan and me is best left alone, and not poked at or simpered over by well-meaning friends. It’s our business. Not Iris’s. Not Billie’s or Yari’s. Not JP’s. That conviction goes beyond the concerns Kenan expressed to me today. It’s me just wanting whatever happens with us to be . . . different from the conquests I’ve bragged about in the past. I’m not ready to be more than friends with Kenan at this stage, but it’s already starting to feel special. None of the other guys felt special to me. Maybe because I’ve never let them.
Hearing Kenan talk about therapy yesterday, what it’s meant to him and to his family—how he endures the sessions for his daughter and how much he loves her—nudged me over the edge to do this. I’ve never had the kind of protection and commitment I heard from him for her. I had the opposite. A “parts unknown” father and a mother who never put me first the way Kenan does Simone.
I climb the stairs.
Inside, the church is modest and filled with empty pews. A makeshift paper sign on the wall reads “SUPPORT GROUP” and sports a red arrow pointing down. I follow a string of arrows leading to the basement, my heart clamoring with every step. When I reach the basement, two women walk past me, headed upstairs. One is sniffing, and the other is wiping the corners of red-rimmed eyes.
Dammit.
I finally work up the nerve to come in, and it looks like I’m too late. Maybe subconsciously that’s what I wanted.
“Can I help you?” a woman, maybe mid-thirties, with brown hair and kind eyes, asks.
“Uh, no. I . . .”
I’m what? A coward?
“I’m just, uh, lost,” I say, lying in church. “I thought the blood drive was down here.”
“It’s not until Saturday,” she points out with a slight smile.
“Yeah. I realize that now. I’m gonna—”
“I thought you might be here for the support group,” she interrupts, while packing paper plates and cups, putting away cookies.
She pauses in cleaning when I don’t respond immediately.
“I’m, well . . . like I said, I’m lost.”
We stare at each other, exchanging truth with a look, even as we skirt around it with our words.
“They were, too, when they first started coming.” She points up the steps where the two ladies exited. “Lost, I mean. It really can help to talk about it, even to strangers who have their own stuff—stuff like yours. To pull it all apart—find the pieces that don’t fit, toss them out, and get new and improved parts. Healthy parts.”
“Yeah, okay.” I turn to head back up the steps. “Well, good luck.”
“Maybe it’s good that you were late,” she goes on as if I haven’t already brushed her off and lied to her. “We could talk one-on-one your first time here.”
“Maybe another time,” I say, not even bothering to tell her she’s mistaken. “Have a good night.”
“You could tell me a little about yourself. A little bit of your story?” She pauses. “Or I could tell you a little of mine. It took me a long time to speak out, but now I do all the time. At first it was to help myself. Now it’s to help other people.”
“I’m happy for you, but I gotta get going.” I point vaguely north, the direction of my apartment, one foot on the first step leading back up and away from this conversation. “I live just a few blocks away.”
“For me it was my father,” she says softly.
I glance over my shoulder and meet her eyes. It’s not pain I see there, but the strength Iris mistakenly attributed to me earlier. This woman has it.