Member-only story
Intervention
On healing & heartbreak.
At once I was a girl
Caught up
I met a light skinned boy who played Division I basketball at the school
That raised Michael Jordan.
I used to go running between my work study job at the library
The summer of my freshmen year of college
And I would come to the front circulation desk and say,
“Will you hold my keys?”
He would just stare at me. Wide-eyed. With big green eyes.
One summer, years later, when I was no longer a girl,
But his woman.
I laid up under the covers and he told me,
In great detail,
The exact outfit I was wearing
The day he first laid eyes on me.
He teased me. The red tank with one shoulder and blue graffiti letters sprayed over the chest. “Baby Girl.” We laughed. He told me about the ribbons I used to put in my ponytail for track meets. Pink. Not our school colors. I guess some shit don’t never change. Just random and wild card. But in the heat you always knew where I was at. 800M gets crowded the first lap or so.
