Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton

All the Great Love Stories . . . and Dust

Dhonielle Clayton

New York Public Library, 8:03 p.m.

SOME STORIES AREbetter told in the dark. Not just the scary ones where someone gets chased through the woods. Or the whodunits where a bunch of suspects are trapped in a house. But even love stories can glow when the lights go out.¹

I sneak past the Astor Hall doors in the library. A stream of people flood the street, their faces full of panic probably about the coming sunset and how dark the city will be soon. But I can’t wait to see it. Two people sit beside one of the building’s stone lions, and I can’t stop watching them. When I was a little girl, Gran would take me here and we’d greet each one, and she’d whisper that the pair of lions—Patience and Fortitude—protected all the library books from harm. I’d stare up at my smug grandmother, always asking her why anyone would want to hurt books, and she’d wink, then remind me that the stories we tell can be dangerous.

The boy leans in front of a girl who looks about my age, her braids as thick as the ones I took out last week and her skin about my shade of brown. I wonder if she has freckles like me. She gazes at the boy strangely as if she has a question to ask him, a question like the one I’m carrying around inside me.

Makes me wonder if there’s already a love story between the two of them. Or space for one. And if one day, I could have that too.

“Hurry up before we get caught.” My best friend, Tristán, waves me forward into the Children’s Center.

I run behind him as they start to manually close the outer doors and finish closing the library early due to the blackout. The metal screech echoes.

We tiptoe into the darkening room.

“Lana, just say you lost—I’m not trying to sleep here and definitely not missing Twig’s party for our bet.” Tristán thumps my arm. “I told him I’d emcee,” he says in his signature podcast radio voice. “Can’t let my boy down.”

“It could be like From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but like the library edition,” I tease. “A slumber party.”

“What?”

He doesn’t remember how many sleepovers we used to have. How he’s been a snorer and sleep talker since kindergarten. “We read it in the fourth grade. Mr. Ahmed assigned it.”

“I don’t have the kind of memory you do.”

I wave my latest scrapbook journal at him. “If you self-reflected more and actually documented things, maybe you would.”

“Or if I’d been born with genius-level memory like you, elefantita.” He tries to touch the retro elephant-print scarf I have tied around my pin curls. Sweat soaks the edges of it and I fiddle with the bobby pins holding it in place. I can feel my bangs start to puff; the perfect victory roll headed for disaster. This retro look isn’t going to make it until the party. Bad idea. July ruins outfits. I smooth the front of my romper. But I need everything to go perfectly tonight. It has to.

I suck my teeth and pretend to hate how he’s called me a tiny elephant our whole lives—all because of my legendary memory that teachers and librarians could never shut up about. It was always a new elephant something with every birthday or Christmas. My room is filled with them. Small reminders of him everywhere, making sure I could never forget. “Do they really have good memories?”

“What?”

“Elephants.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Who is everyone?”

“You’re acting funny.”

I kick at him. “Your face looks funny.”

“The ladies don’t complain.” He pushes my leg out of the way. “Too scrawny! Don’t even try it.”

I sideswipe him as we investigate the room. He turns on his flashlight app. The glow of it makes his dark skin perfect. We are giants weaving through all the tiny chairs and tiny tables. The scent of the heat wave creeps inside, mingling with the library smells of paper and ink and dust and glue. Almost like everything is sweating, if that’s possible. “I’m not done yet,” I say, ducking down another aisle of books.

“Pay up. I win. Let’s call it. We need to get to Brooklyn. Twig’s waiting.” He glares over the bookshelf at me, triumph tucking itself into the corner of his mouth. “You took too long.”

“The party doesn’t start until like ten anyways. We’ve got plenty time.” I run my fingers over the tiny book spines. “You’re trying to run down the clock. You’re scared.” I stare back at him even though he can’t fully see me.

“The clock is done, yo. We went to three bookstores and now we’re here about to get stuck in the library, and you still haven’t picked anything.” He chases behind me. “And you’ve been too quiet.”²

“I guess you can’t hear me talking to you right now.” I round the corner and cut off his path, reaching up to shove his shoulder. He’s so much bigger than me. Last summer he was looking directly into my face, his deep brown eyes always full of challenge, and now he’s a whole foot taller.

“You know what I mean,” he says.

“I don’t . . . so enlighten me.”

He circles me. “Something’s up. Spit it out.”

“You’re paranoid.” I turn away from him.

My phone lights up.

Another text from my other best friend, Grace. She’s asking me if I’ve told him the thing.

I can’t. The words are all jumbled up inside me.

“Is this because you’re leaving? Everything will be here when you get back.”³ He pulls a few more books off the shelves, sets his phone upright so the light beams down on them, and thumbs through the pages. “I’m supposed to help you and your dads move you into your fancy-ass Columbia dorms before I bounce to Binghamton. Relax! I can feel you tripping.”

“I’m not,” I lie. “Stop distracting me. You’re a cheater.”

“Fine, ask for a redo. I know you want to. I’m ready for all the whining. Blame the blackout, Lana.”

“Shut up. You’re already getting all butthurt. You’re just scared I’ll win.”

“I usually do.”

“Let you tell it,” I spit back. “Stay lying.”

“You ever get tired of trying to beat me?”

This is the game between us. Always a bet about who can do whatever thing the best.

At six, when his family moved into the brownstone next door, he knocked on my door and said, “Bet I can ride my bike faster than you can.”

Not hello or hi or even hola. Not We’re your new neighbors or We just moved here from Miami. Nope. He just handed me the tres leches cake his mother made and challenged me.

At eleven, he almost drowned at the Kosciuszko Pool after saying he could hold his breath the longest.

At fourteen, he could watch the scariest horror movies ever made back-to-back but would lie about having to sleep with the lights on.

And today, at eighteen, it’s this: What’s the best book ever written?

But whenever he loses, he twists the whole thing to make himself the winner. That’s really his favorite part. There’s always a story that lingers long after the bet.

Tristán lives for the shit-talk.

I clutch my scrapbook journal tight to my chest. The pages threatening to expose themselves, the fragile rubber band barely holding it all together.

“Stop trying to cheat.” I hold my phone up, the light beam washing over thousands of tiny spines, as I move to the back of the room. I try to focus. I try not to let him get into my head. I try not to get distracted by everything I promised myself I’d tell him today.

“We gotta get back to Brooklyn. Twig’s been sending me mad texts.” He flashes his phone screen at me. There is a flurry of notifications, some from Twig and some from different girls sending heart and smiley face emojis. “He keeps saying I’m not there for him anymore.”

Tristán’s dad moved him and his sister to the Bronx at the beginning of the summer. After Mami died last year, they couldn’t keep up with the bodegas and needed to be closer to his aunties and grandma so they could help with little Paloma. Now, we meet here. Halfway between Bed-Stuy and Mott Haven. But everyone in the old neighborhood misses him. He’s the type that leaves behind a gaping hole.

“You still have my mic at your house?” he asks.

“Yes, for the hundredth time.” His podcast equipment is still tucked under my bed where he left it. “But a bet’s a bet.”

He flashes his phone light over the murals ringing the room, colorful images of New York City brought to life with bright wallpaper.

“You really going to pick a kiddie book?” He pulls back his locs into a ponytail. “That’s your idea of the best book ever written?”

“Children’s books are the reason you even like to read.” I scan the shelves for Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe, or maybe I’ll grab Honey, I Love by Eloise Greenfield or The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton. I was made for this challenge. Papa is a famous author, his books on politics and race relations sit in every bookstore window, and Dad is a therapist who uses books to unlock people’s struggles. Plus, Gran used to read to me on summer nights like this one. We’d curl up in the nook of my bedroom window with my younger brother, Langston, and in between the page turns, she’d complain about the city noises and how much she missed her little library in Haiti from when she was a child.

My last name shouldn’t be Beauvais. It should probably be Livre or Mots or something that translates to books or words or story.

He won’t beat me. “Show some respect.”

“Not gonna win.” He bites his bottom lip and clutches his book bag to his chest where he’s hidden his pick. “We should get out of here in like thirty minutes. The trains aren’t running and the ride apps are backed up. I just looked and it’s a forty-eight minute wait for a ride. So we need extra time.”

“We aren’t going to miss the party. Chill,” I say.

“We can’t be last minute with the trains not working. You gonna remember the time, elefantita?”

“Of course.” It’s just a party, I want to say.

“You better. I can’t miss it just ’cause you’re being all weird and shit and feeling like you’re over high school.”

“You’re wack. I don’t even like you.”⁴ My heart is doing a weird flip-floppy thing and I can’t seem to calm down. All the memories crowding in my brain. All the worries about what happens when we can’t spend the summer together. All the fears about what happens next year when we’re in two different places.

It’s making my brain foggy. I can’t think through our latest bet, can’t figure out the strategy to beat him.

This wasn’t how I imagined the night would go.

It was supposed to kick off a new scrapbook. A new set of memories. A new set of the most amazing moments to replay in my head over and over again. A new set of pictures to draw and collage around my words.

I clutch the old scrapbook to my chest again, the edges slick from my clammy hands.

Gran said this is a summer of new stories. Adventures. Magic. Even romance. That the City of Light would teach me about myself, give me extraordinary firsts, help me find a story to write. That Paris would offer me enough to fill a hundred scrapbooks. That she had unfinished business there and she’d show me how to finish the things one starts.

This trip . . . this summer feels like one where everything will change.

But now, stuck in this dark city and this dark library, I wonder what that will mean for us.

“So what time should we leave then, elefantita?” he asks.

I rattle off exactly what he told me and tell him how long I estimate us getting from Bryant Park to Bed-Stuy, given the usual traffic patterns made a mess by the blackout.

He scowls at me. “Glad you remember.”

I scoff. “You’re pressed.”

“Or try responsible,” he replies.

“Okay, Mr. Responsible.”

I can feel his smile.

“What?”

“I think I want you to buy me new headphones. Need ones that’ll work better with my mic. That’ll be my prize.” He thumps my shoulder. “A good parting gift for our last summer bet.” He tries to peek at the books I’m pulling from the shelves. “Since you’re leaving me here and all.”

“You mad?”

“Who am I going to argue with while you’re gone?”

“Keisha.”

He sucks his teeth and corrects me: “Kelly.”

“Oh, excuse me. Let me make sure I get all of their names right.”

“Stopped talking to her last week.”

“Not smart enough? Oh, wait, no, let me guess—bad breath or snaggletooth?” My pulse races. There’s always a girl chasing Tristán Restrepo. They come and go, one after the next. He’s the smartest, the tallest, the most charming boy on the block. Well, used to be on the block, used to live in the brownstone next to mine, used to be waiting for me every morning. He’s always been my shit-talking neighbor—and best friend. But I don’t know what we’ll be as we spend the summer apart and go to different schools in the fall.

“She doesn’t have enough to do. Always waiting on me.” He sighs. “But back to the bet . . . if you happen to win—which is unlikely—what do you want? I’ll have to grab it before you head to the airport tomorrow night. Everything is probably closed now because of the blackout.”

“What if it’s not something you buy?” I almost whisper.

“What?”

“Not telling you yet.”⁵

I can almost hear him thinking, trying to puzzle out what I might want. He’s always so arrogant, believing he knows what I’m about to say.

“I’ll grab you a gift card to that spa you always talking about. To get your mustache waxed.”

“If I got a mustache, it’s more than you got.” I pucker my mouth at him and put the books back on the shelf.

“Freshen up those eyebrows, then. Or tattoo them on.”

“What do you know about eyebrow-tattooing?”

“You know Magdalena Cruz? She was in Calc with us last year. She got them shits.”

I look up at him. “How would you even know that?”

He grins. “Guess.”

I roll my eyes.

“The new girl I just met is part Guyanese. She gotta get them done weekly. Eyebrows for daaaaaays.”

My heart tightens. “Another girl. Of course.”

“Can’t help it if the ladies love me. I’m popular. She cool though. You’ll like her. She’s friends with Seymour’s cousin.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever, what?”

“You always have a crush.”

“Big heart. So much love—” He sticks his tongue out at me. “—to give.”

“While I’m gone, you’ll bump into a girl and next thing I know, your nose’ll be as wide as the Lincoln Tunnel. You’d sell your whole house to make a girl happy.”

“Everything but Mami’s picture.” He lifts a picture locket from under his tank, kisses it, and does the sign of the cross. “But you never like anyone.”⁶

Tristán pats his backpack where his book lies. “Just surrender, champ.” He puts his warm hands on my bare shoulders. It sends an unexpected shiver through me as if they’re suddenly different from the hands I’ve known my whole life. The same hands I’ve had endless rock paper scissors wars with. The same hands that dunked me in the pool. The same hands that turned clammy while clutching mine during horror movies. The same hands I held when sitting with him day and night at the hospital while watching his mother die.

But it all feels so different. Like there will be a before and an after I’ve said the thing. Like there’s no going back after the words come out. Like this will be the fissure in the permanent memory of us—a what we were and what we will be.

Tonight it feels like a new story between us.

“Not so quick . . .” I grab his shirt and pull him out of the room. “Book the Ryde and by the time it gets here, I’ll be done.”

“Where we going now?” he complains as I drag him from the ground floor up the stairs to the first floor. “Ryde says twenty-eight minutes.”

We duck around in the dark. The tinkling jingle of my jewelry echoes. I shouldn’t have worn so much tonight. The white marble arches of Astor Hall curve above us. Tiny balls of flashlights dance on the ceiling, and it feels like we’re trapped in a great big cave.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I glance up even though I’ve seen it more than a thousand times. But never like this. I might love it even more in the dark.

I remember how the noises of people moving around would echo through the hall. The quiet is beautiful.

“You about to see all type of marble. Arches and stuff in Europe.” He makes a snoring sound.

“You have terrible taste. That’s why you don’t appreciate this. Never have.”

“I’m just not into all this bougie shit like you. Our library in Bed-Stuy was never good enough. You’d always drag me all the way here.”⁷

“It’s my favorite place in the whole city. You know that.”

“I know. I been meeting your ass here these past two weeks.”

I don’t turn around to scowl at him as I start up the staircase. There are so many stories here. It always felt like maybe all the words in all the books leaked out somehow, seeping into the brass and wood and marble, making the place magic. That it was a place lovers of books came, a place where storytellers and writers were born, a place where nothing mattered but what if . . .

“Excuse me. You two—STOP right there!” comes a voice followed by the sharp beam of a flashlight. “What are you doing here?”

Tristán puts his hand up to block the brightness. “Okay, okay.” He grimaces and whispers hard to me. “I told you this was gonna happen.”

“The library closed hours ago. You’re trespassing,” the red-faced white man says, lifting his phone to no doubt call NYPD.

I step forward in front of Tristán. “Sorry, sir, I left my backpack on the second or third floor. I can’t quite remember. But we’ve been searching for it everywhere.”

“You’ll have to get it tomorrow when the library reopens,” he barks.

“But it has my wallet and everything in it. My house keys. I won’t be able to get home in the blackout,” I lie.

He jams his hands to his hips as if exasperated by us. “I’ll get it.”

“But you wouldn’t know what to look for.”

“You can describe it.”

I rattle off an incomprehensible description.

He grimaces. “I suppose you’re right, but he”—motioning at Tristán—“can wait with me.”

“I need him,” I whine.

Tristán holds back a chuckle and I elbow him.

“I’m afraid of ghosts,” I add and bat my eyes like I’m helpless and couldn’t possibly fumble around in the dark on my own.

A man without pants darts past us all. “What the hell are you doing in here?” The security guard starts screaming and pointing his flashlight. He takes off after the man, leaving us.

We race in the opposite direction, ducking into the empty Gottesman Gallery to hide behind the massive stone columns.

“You’re not afraid of anything,”⁸ he says through panting. “About to get us arrested.”

“You afraid?” I slide my back along the cool marble and sit on the floor. “Turn your flashlight app on again.”

He crashes beside me. “I’m not scared.”

“Okay.” I tug one of his soft locs and he jumps. “Ol’ still scared-of-the-dark—”

“Shut up.”

“You still got your turtle nightlight?” I pull off my huaraches and let my sweaty feet air out. A blister has started to form on my baby toe.

“Donatello is living his best life. Stop hating.” He flinches as we hear a distant noise. “You think there’s really ghosts in here?”

“Probably. It’s where I want to live after I die,” I say.

“You said you were gonna haunt me,” he reminds me. When we were twelve, Tristán bet me that he could conjure his grandmother through a Ouija board we found at one of those botánica Santería shops. We’d lit all the candles from his mother’s prayer altar and sprinkled ourselves with Florida water and sage. We waited for spirits for five hours. I told him none would show up. I won and he had to do my math homework for the week.

But Tristán told the whole seventh grade we met Biggie Smalls that day instead.

They believed him. People always do.

“Let’s wait it out to make sure he doesn’t come back yet,” I say.

“Your feet just hurt.”

I wave a sandal in his face.

“Feet stink too.”

“Smell like roses. Best toes ever. Look at that sexy-ass big toe right there. Perfect shape. And my polka-dotted polish is fly.” I try to touch him with my foot and he squirms away. “You’d get more girls if you liked feet.”

“Or I’d be a creep,” he says. “Like what you call those men on the train.”

Tristán rode the subway with me to and from school every day, long after we got too big for our parents to take turns dropping us off. His presence, even when we were small, warded off everything on our way from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side.

I sprawl out on the floor. He lies opposite me, our heads beside each other’s. One of his locs rubs against my cheek. I don’t brush it away. I lift my phone, the soft light finding the glass boxes of exhibits. A poster advertises The Greatest Love Letters of Literature. I let the light linger over a few poster-sized letters stretched and blown up beneath clear panes. “Remember when you wrote Nella a love letter in ninth grade?”

I can feel his smile in the dark.

“It was the best letter she ever got,” he says.

“You wish.”

“I’m eloquent.”

I couldn’t argue with him about that. He could charm his way out of detention or get a grade raised from a B+ to an A-. All the teachers at Stacey Abrams Prep adored him. He would be a great radio host one day.

He starts to read one love letter out loud in his serious “on-air” voice: “I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” His voice holds a beautiful deep bass. I remember when it had its little boy squeak to it. “Keats knew his shit. This probably made Fanny go wild.”

“Maybe.”

“You’d die to get a hundred letters like this.⁹ Stop fronting.”

“Whatever. Gran got a love letter in May. Well, more like a love email, and then an old-fashioned one arrived. That’s why we’re going to Paris.”

He whips around to face me. “You just telling me? Yo, that’s wild. Gran still got it. Been fine forever.”

“Shut up!” I swat at him.

“Who sent it?”

“Supposedly a great love of hers. A man she thought she would marry back in Haiti. She was eighteen. Called him her first real love. Said he left for a job in Paris and never came back. And now, one of her best friend’s—Auntie Althea’s—dying wishes was for Gran to go see him.”

“Whoa. Gran ’bout to get snatched up. Granpapa been gone for a long time. Now, her best friend, Althea is gone, too. She’s got to be lonely.”

The memory of my grandfather’s warm brown face filled in: the creases around his eyes, deep wells and tiny smiles, the smell of the pipe tobacco from his shirt pocket, the way his mouth curled as his words slipped from French to Creole and back again. His loss feeling like it happened only moments ago.

Tristán plays with my bracelet. “You good?” I hear the concern in his voice. He came with me every week to see Granpapa as his memories turned slippery, sliding away no matter how many scrapbooks Gran and I made for him.

I nod.

“But imagine having to write a letter every time you wanted to talk to someone. Like how did people really start liking each other or fall in love and shit?”

I roll my eyes. “The art of the love letter is a real thing.”

“Nella didn’t think so,” he says.

“’Cause Nella is queer,” I say. “Thought everyone liked you like that.”

“They should,” he boasts.

“And why is that?” I tease.

“I’m handsome and smart and am a Renaissance man.”

I make a vomit sound. I was there when he learned that term three summers ago. His mother had taken us to all the art museums in the city right before she’d gotten really really sick. She attempted to teach us both the appreciation of art so that maybe Tristán might take his talent with drawing and painting to the next level. We’d wandered every gallery, looked at every painting or sketch or sculpture, and collected tiny postcards of as many art pieces as we could. He asked so many questions that a docent asked if he planned to be a Renaissance man—a person who wanted to know all the things and have all the talents. He spent the summer trying to do just that . . . and dragging me with him.

“You still can’t even spell it,” I say.

“Oh, I can. I just love love and I’m man enough to say it.”¹⁰

I let my flashlight rest on another blown-up love letter poster. After his mother died, he said his heart would be forever broken. I always thought that’s why he didn’t like being alone. He was either helping his dad at one of the bodegas they owned, helping his little sister do this or that, or next door sprawled on my couch . . . or with one of the many girls he kept on rotation.

His phone pings. “Ryde will be here in seventeen minutes, elefantita. Better hurry up.”

Panic shoots through me.

“Maybe I should write this new girl a love letter. She’s mad old-fashioned. Worse than even Fatima was.”

I clench my teeth and try not to let my stomach twist. “Fatima hated me.”

“She hated anyone closer to me than her. She would’ve hated Paloma if she wasn’t my nine-year-old sister.”

“She would’ve been your pants if she could. Thirsty-ass.”

“Is there anyone still in here?” a voice shouts from the hall entry.

We freeze.

Beams of light cut through the space. “Library is closed.”

We wait for the person to walk away before sitting up.

I wiggle my feet back into my sandals.

“You about to lose. Get ready to pay up,” he whispers.

We tiptoe on the third floor, passing murals illustrating the history of the recorded world. I used to point and pester Gran with all my questions about how everything came to be. I pull him into the Rose Reading Room.

The arched windows let in the twilight, allowing the room to reveal its treasures: long wooden tables with hooded lamps bordered by layer upon layer of shelves, red tiled floors with marble paths, and chandeliers. My breath catches as we walk down the long aisle. I remember being a little girl standing in the very center of it for the first time, clutching my bullet journal and pen to my chest, and saying that I would be a writer, that I would have a book that could live here.

Carts hold books. Tristán starts to pause at each one, combing through them as we walk past. “Boring . . .” He lifts one. “Racist.” He points to another. “Meh.” He pushes a third out of the way.

“Bet the book you picked is meh,” I taunt.

“You wish. I’ll have you know it’s hilarious. A great book should make you laugh. That’s part of its job.”

“Or cry,” I say, walking between the tables. A few personal books have been left behind. I riffle through the pile. It has everything from the books we were forced to read in school to the ones Daddy loves, to romance and weird fantasy. I wonder what this person was researching and why they left all these behind. Maybe they’d be too hard to carry home in the dark? I open the jacket flaps and spot the same penciled-in name—Eden Shepard. Why’d you leave these here?

“Or think.” He grabs one of them and waves it in my face. “This how you like your men?” A romance book with a bare-chested white man stares back at me.

I roll my eyes and push it away.

He makes a kissy-kissy noise in my direction. “Get you a white guy like this in Paris? Pierre? Gustave? Pepe? Maybe you’ll get your first kiss.”

“I’ve been kissed before.”¹¹

“Not a real real one. Like a good one.” He pretends to hold someone and kiss them. “You get kissed and complain. So those don’t count.”

“French guys have a reputation. I heard they’re good lovers,” I boast. “Also, I already speak French.”

“When you know Colombianos are the best. You know that.”

“Zoraida says y’all are cheating-ass dogs.”

“Zoraida is a hater. She had a new boyfriend every week last year. Almost ended up with two prom dates.” He throws the book back on the table. “Remember Chris . . .”

“Ugh, here you go.”

“You talked to him for all of five minutes . . . and his pants always looked like he was preparing for a flood.”

“And all the girls you date are super models out here?” I remind him.

“Nah, nobody said that.” He holds up another romance book from the discarded pile and tries to reenact it, holding the bookshelf as if it’s some woman. “Romance books can’t be the best books ever written,” he replies.

“Okay, snob. They’re some of the best selling books ever. Those ladies make money. Gran can’t get enough of them. Prolly reads two a week. What if my book turns out to be a romance novel?”

He scoffs. “What do you know about love, anyways? You never have a boyfriend . . . or girlfriend or whatever. How you gonna write about it?”¹²

“How do you know?” I snap back.

“’Cause I know everything about you.”

“No, you don’t.”

He laughs. “Okay, Lana. This the game we playing today with fifteen minutes left?”

I turn away from him. “Anyways, I’m busy.” I run my fingers over more spines. “And I have an active imagination. Enough to write a romance novel.”

“You always say that. Never give anybody a shot.”

“Why should I? Since you out here trying to play matchmaker.” I don’t look at him.

“There will be mad dudes at the block party tonight. Everyone trying to holler at you. Last time to shoot their shot before we all leave. Trust me.”

“Whatever,” I say, trying not to look at him.

“You’re afraid of it,” he teases.

“I am not. It’s just so loud.” I turn away from him.

“What do you mean?”

“Like my dads. They’re so loud. Like their love. You know how my house is.” I think about setting my scrapbook journal down but press it to my chest as if the weight of it could slow my heart.

“Your papa and dad are always all over each other.”

“Vomit.” I suck my teeth.

“Or beautiful.”

“Langston hates it too.”

“He’s a rising senior now; of course he does.” Tristán holds up another book. “They have a great love story. Didn’t they meet in a bookstore?”

I brush away the legendary love story of my two dads. Their meet-cute in a bookstore, their whirlwind travels across the world, and the surrogate they hired to happily have my brother and me. Picture-perfect. Nothing can live up to it. Especially not me. That’s once-in-a-lifetime type of love. I’ve visited every bookstore in every single borough of this city, and no one has shown up to convince me. “I just have other things to do.”

“Excuses.”

“Not everyone needs to be up under somebody all the time. I’m not afraid of being alone.” As soon as the words slip out, I regret them. I feel him flinch even in the dark. “That’s not what I meant . . . I . . .”

“It is. You said it.”

My pulse races.

“You think I’m pressed.”

“No, I don’t. You’re twisting my words.”

“It’s okay to want to be with people. To like to get to know other people. Not everyone is all right on their own. You out here judging me for it.”

“You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Whatever.” He walks away. The moonlight washes over the annoyed clench in his jaw.

My heart backflips. I didn’t mean to make him mad. I didn’t mean to push that button. I didn’t mean to make him feel like something is wrong with him. This was not how I thought it all through in my head. This was not how I envisioned telling my best friend the truth.

“Then, what is it?” he asks.¹³

The words won’t form. He wanders to the opposite side of the room. Shoulders slumped and fussing with his hair like he does when he’s pissed.

Hurry up, Lana, I tell myself. Pick something. Anything.

Grace texts again. The same question flashes up at me.

Did you do it?

I abandon my plan of using a romance novel . . . but maybe a good love story might be the only way to try to tell him. My brain toggles through all the possibilities like it’s one of those old-fashioned card catalogs probably tucked into one of the backrooms here.

A flashlight cuts through the room. The noise of keys and heavy-soled shoes.

We both freeze.

“Anybody in here?” comes a voice. The security guard.

I hold my breath. Tristán doesn’t say a word.

We wait for the sound of the man’s footsteps to disappear. I look back at the table of discarded books and jump up. I comb through the pile, finding If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. The book Dad calls one of the great Black love stories. The bittersweet tale of Fonny and Tish, childhood friends who plan to be together, but whose plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested and accused of a crime he did not commit.

My heart squeezes.

“I have it,” I call out to him.

“Good, elefantita, the Ryde will be here in eleven minutes.”

I hold my breath until he turns around and finds me. The tiniest halos of moonlight dance across the tables and floor. It all feels so weird. The city so dark, so vacant. For the first few hours, the whole place felt trapped under a blanket. Everything a little stiller and quieter, like the city has written a new story for itself. The pen pausing to think for once.

We sit just out of view of the door, finding a beam of light.

“You first,” he says, his voice still tight with anger.

“No,” I reply. “You can go.”

“Nope, might as well do what we always do with our bets.”

I sit there, my fingers drumming against the thick book cover, trying to win a gamble that feels bigger than all the other ones combined.

He cradles his backpack and waits. “You had so much to say before but now nothing.”

I take a deep breath and hand him the book. He examines the cover then flips to the back. “Papa made me read this,” I almost whisper.

“Isn’t it a sad story, though? He gets locked up or something. Don’t they have to wait to be together?” Tristán’s eyebrow lifts with confusion.

“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s bittersweet. He’s taken away for a while, but she loves him so much she is right there by his side. Loving him through that.” My voice feels all wobbly. My eyes start to well. I crane out of the light, leaning back into the dark around us so he can’t see. I pick up my scrapbook journal again.

He reads the first paragraph of the book and then hands it to me to read the second. The muscle memory of how we used to be when we were little comes back to me, our brown legs tangled together in my window nook. I pause after one sentence—“I’ve known him all my life, and I hope I’ll always know him”—and look at him.¹⁴ I start to tell him, but the words get stuck in my throat.

“It’s beautiful,” he admits. “I remember the story now.” He unzips his bag. “You ready for this masterpiece . . . for this brilliance . . . for the best book to ever be?”

“Yes, Tristán,” I reply, pushing down the lump in my throat.

“Close your eyes.”

“Nope. What are you up to?”

“Just do it. C’mon.” He places his big warm palm on my face, forcing my eyes closed. “It’s part of the mood. I’m going to read it to you. Its magnificence must be experienced this way.”

“Okay, Tristán. You act like you got some James Earl Jones/Barry White-type voice.”

He clears his throat. “You’ll eat those words when I’m famous. My podcast will be the most listened to all over the world. Watch.”

“Let you tell it.” I hear the crinkle of the book open.

“I am Sam. Sam I am. That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am!”

My eyes snap open. “Are you serious?”

He grins. “I do not like that Sam-I-am! Do you like green eggs and ham?” The big orange and green Dr. Seuss book blocks his face.

I yank it down. “Why are you playing?”

“I’m not. I think this is the perfect book.”

I feel my own scowl. “But why?”

“It was funny. Good color palette. I’ve never forgotten the words to this.” He points a finger in the air. “So that’s a test of a good book. The rhyme sticks with you.”

“Tristán.”

“What?”

“Really?”

He puts a hand on his chest. “Really!”

“Dr. Seuss drew racist cartoons.” I roll my eyes. “Like horrible ones of Black and Asian people. It was bad, bad. He tried to do better, but like . . .”

“Damn, I didn’t know that.” His voice gets tight and serious. “I don’t have time to pick another one.” He flashes his phone, where the Ryde app shows the little car making its way through traffic to come pick us up. “So you got this one.”

“You’re letting me win? We don’t do that.”

“I would never but . . . fine . . . you won.” Tristán holds up If Beale Street Could Talk.

“Oh, really?”

“Bet. Beale Street is definitely better. So what you want? Name your prize. What do I owe you?”

“You’re not being serious.” I sigh deeply.

“I am. C’mon. What do you want?”

I try not to bite my bottom lip as I work up the courage to say what I really want. The heat of his gaze warms my cheeks. I don’t turn to look at him. I fixate on the books above his head.

“You’re about to ask for something ridiculous and come for my pockets.¹⁵ I know it. I still have to get paid. The tutoring gig doesn’t pay out until Thursday, and I owe for studio time—”

“I don’t want anything that costs money,” I almost whisper.

“What?” He thumps my arm.

“Ow!” I rub it and scowl at him.

“What you want?” He forces me to look at him.

My whole body quivers. “I have a question.”

“You’re playing.”

“I’m not.”

His eyes narrow. “What is it? That can’t be what you want. You just won . . . whooped me, actually.” One of his locs falls close to his face and I wonder how long they’ll be by the time I get back or if he’ll cut them and be a different person when I return from Paris. “You love winning. You can’t just want a question.”

“That’s what I want.” My heart knocks against my chest.

“You’re acting funny.”

“I’m not.” My pulse races.

“Spit it out then. The Ryde is about to be here. Twig’s still blowing up my phone.”

“Never mind.” Vomit rises in my stomach. This was a bad idea.

His hand finds my bare shoulder.¹⁶ “What is it?”

My eyes water. I shake my head and push away the tangle of fear. My feelings start to unravel. “Could you . . .”

His phone pings a thousand times. My eyes cut to all the notifications. He scrunches his nose. “Could I what?”

“Could you ever love me the way you love them?”

Confusion settles on his face. “Who is them?”

I clutch my scrapbook journal tight. “All the girls you’re always talking to.”

“You’re my best friend,” he says.

“I know you like . . . love me. But . . . like . . . ?”

His eyes widen—a mix of surprise and I don’t know . . . “Oh,” is all he can manage.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“That’s not something you can just forget, Lana.”

“It’s cool . . . it’s fine.” I turn away from him.

He grabs my hand. “Stop—”

His voice gets serious. There’s no leftover laughter.

“I don’t want to play this game anymore.” I’m biting back tears, ready to run out of here.

He pulls me closer. “You don’t get to say something like that and run off.”

“You don’t feel that way about me . . . it’s fine. Just let me go. Forget I said anything. I have to go home to pack anyways. I’ll see you when I get back—”

“Why don’t you kiss me, then?” he asks.

The question is a firework between us.

“What?” I search his eyes, wondering if it’s the truth or if he’s just being nice. I turn to go again.

He pulls me back. “Just wait . . . say what you need to say.”

“I’m scared.” My voice breaks.

“Of what?”

“Everything,” I whisper.

He takes my scrapbook journal from my hands.

“Don’t—” But I don’t fight him as he removes the rubber band and lets it spill open, exposing itself . . . and me. Pages chock full of pictures of us and all the things we’ve done this summer. Movie tickets, menus, photo booth strips, checklists of what we’d planned to do before I left, transcripts of his podcast.¹⁷

His mouth opens and closes a bunch of times. Tristán Restrepo, the boy who always has something to say, who has thousands of listeners, who never holds back his feelings, can’t find the words. “This is beautiful, Lana.” He looks up at me, the brown of his eyes glazing over.

I can’t hold his gaze.

“You remember everything.” His palm finds my cheek. “Elefantita.”

My stomach squeezes.

“I’ve always loved how your brain works. Remember when we made snow globes in fifth grade?”

I nod, afraid if I speak, I might vomit. This is not how you tell someone you love them.

A knot twists in my stomach.

He smiles down at our photos. The shape of his mouth is beautiful in the moonlight.

I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. Just spit it out. Get it over with. You can’t go to Paris without telling him. “Could you love me love me? Or like me like that?”

His phone pings, announcing the Ryde’s imminent arrival.

This wasn’t how I planned this out in my head, not how I wanted it to look all documented in my scrapbook journal, not how I talked it all out with Grace. I wanted to look back on this night and remember how brave I’d been, how clear and confident I’d spoken, how I’d been more like him and less like me in articulating my thoughts and feelings.

“You two!” The security guard stands in the doorway, flashlight blinding us. “Get out of here now.”

The security guard walks us to the staff exit. His screams and his threats echo in the darkness, but I can’t hear him over the thudding of my own heart.

We burst out onto the street. The street is dark and terrifying. I reach for Tristán, and he reaches for me.

The memories wash over me.

At seven, holding hands on the train platform with our parents on the way to school.

At nine, side by side walking to the hospital to visit Mami when she was first diagnosed.

At twelve, curling our tongues in the mirror as he taught me how to roll my r’s in Spanish so I wouldn’t fail.

At fifteen, staying up all night as I read him Pride and Prejudice so he could write a decent Lit paper.

At seventeen, shoulder to shoulder in front of his mother’s grave, watching her lowered into the ground.

The Ryde driver calls Tristán and he directs him to the corner. “You ready?”

“No.” I bite my bottom lip to keep it from quivering. I fight away the tears bubbling up inside.

This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell him I’ve been in love with him forever. The way I promised Grace I would say it.

His eyes scan my face. “Of all the things you remember, you can’t put two and two together and know how much I love you? How much it’s always been you?”

“What?” A tear escapes my eye. “I never thought—”

Before I can finish, his hands are on my back and his bottom lip brushes against my neck, my ear, then my cheek, before he kisses me. His touch stamps out all the worries. His tongue answers all the questions. His warmth is hotter than the blackout heat wave.

He whispers, “I’ve always loved you, but I never thought you had space to love me back,” and kisses me again.

We pause to take a breath.

I can’t fight away a smile. “Will you remember this?”

“Forever.”¹⁸