Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Angie Thomas

Double-decker bus, downtown New York City, 9:07 p.m.

LET’S START WITHthe facts:

There are twelve hundred miles between Jackson, Mississippi, and New York City.

It takes two flights and a mad dash through the Atlanta airport to get to New York City.

The Atlanta airport is too damn big to make any kinda “mad dash” through.

There are 2.9 million people in the entire state of Mississippi.

There are 8.3 million people in New York City alone.

Yet even in a blackout, New York doesn’t feel big enough when you’re sitting next to your boyfriend while four seats away from your crush.

The double-decker tour bus creeps down some busy Manhattan street, past a park with a stone archway entrance. According to our bus driver, Mr. Wright, it’s Washington Square Park. If it weren’t for that, this would look like any other Manhattan street to me—skyscrapers towering above, packed sidewalks, and traffic-jammed streets.

My first thought when we arrived in New York? Everything’s cramped as hell.

Second thought? Everybody stays busy.

The blackout hasn’t even stopped that. My whole class was on this bus when the lights went out. Picture it, twelve rising juniors plus a first-year teacher on a class trip from Mississippi. Scratch that—twelve Black rising juniors from an “inner-city school” (does anybody say “outer city”?) with their twenty-something-year-old white woman teacher when a blackout hits the Big Apple.

Fact: New Yorkers don’t call it “the Big Apple,” just like Atlanta folks don’t call it “Hotlanta.” A couple of us Mississippi folks do call it “Da Sip,” though.

We all freaked when the power first went out. We hit up social media and discovered that it was a city-wide power outage. Then our phones blew up as our families back home checked on us. My daddy, a southern Black man through and through, was like, “See? I don’t trust that New York mess. I knew we shouldn’t have let you go up there.”

Daddy has an interesting relationship with New York. He and Momma visited once back in 2003 to come see Daddy’s younger brother, Graham, and there was a major blackout back then. Kinda ironic that I’m in one now. ’Til this day, Daddy will tell you all about how he and Momma were sightseeing on the Brooklyn Bridge and had to walk back to their hotel in Manhattan because of the blackout. Momma was pregnant with me too. Had just found out a week before. Daddy claims his feet are still calloused from the journey.

“That’s the last city that ever needs to be without lights,” he always says. “I ain’t scared of much, but you couldn’t pay me to be in New York during a blackout again.”

New York is kinda creepy with all the lights out. Headlights and brake lights glow for miles and miles, the brightest things around. People shine the flashlights on their phones as they navigate the sidewalks. I think the weirdest part of all of this is that shit don’t stop. Back home, a power outage is a good excuse to sit outside and do nothing, especially during a heat wave like today. Here, everybody’s finding a way to keep it moving and keep it mostly calm.

Mrs. Tucker ain’t one of them. Poor woman is on the verge of a breakdown. She goes over the class roll for the fifty-millionth time, like somehow one of us snuck off this bus.

“Rashad?” she calls out.

“Present,” he says, from the first row.

“Jazmyn.”

“Here,” my bestie says behind me.

“Kayla?”

“Here,” I say.

“Tre’Shawn?”

“Here,” my boyfriend says beside me. He gives me a smirk, probably thinking, how long before this lady loses her mind. When she does, it’ll fill in one more spot on the Karen Bingo we got in the class group chat for every time Mrs. Tucker does something Karenish. Take yesterday morning, for example. We had arrived at LaGuardia and were filing onto the shuttle bus to go to the hotel when Mrs. Tucker asked our Latinx driver what country he was from.

“Jersey,” he said.

“No, where are you from-from?” she asked, in the kinda tone you use on a kindergartner. She’s lucky that man didn’t cuss her out.

Back to Tre’Shawn. I hate that he looks so cute when he smirks. His dimples appear—it doesn’t take much for them to show—and his light brown eyes get this twinkle in them that melt me. I’m supposed to be mad at him, dammit. So I roll my eyes and stare ahead.

He groans. “Kay, c’mon. You still upset that I—”

“Micah,” Mrs. Tucker calls out louder than usual. That’s her way of telling Tre’Shawn to be quiet while she takes roll. She really does act like we’re preschoolers.

“Present,” Micah says with an easy smile a couple of rows ahead of us. Even in the blackout, he’s fine. Black boys with dark skin tend to look majestic in the moonlight. He lounges in a seat to himself, his long legs stretched across it and his back to the bustle of New York as if he doesn’t wanna gawk at people like the rest of us. But I think he’s sitting that way so he can see me.

You see, he sent me a text a few hours ago. Seven words that could shake everything up:

Do I have a shot, lil momma?

I’ve left it on read since I saw it.

Because I don’t know.

Which kinda makes me a shitty girlfriend.

Who shouldn’t be mad at Tre’Shawn.

Because ditching your girlfriend to hang with your homies and lying about it isn’t as big of a deal as talking to somebody else.

And flirting with somebody else.

And purposely finding ways to spend time with somebody else.

Like going to study hall when you know he’ll be there.

Or deciding to do a story in the school paper about the track team just because it means you’ll have to interview him.

Then letting him take you home after school one day.

And laughing and talking and getting so caught up that when he leans over the gears and tries to kiss you.

You almost let him.

But you don’t. I didn’t.

I just almost did.

Which is still bad.

Mrs. Tucker finishes the roll—yes, everybody is exactly where they were when she checked forty-five minutes ago—and heads to the lower level.

“Behave, everyone,” she says in a singsong voice. “I’m going to check with the driver and see why we’re not moving anymore.”

Um, maybe because the traffic lights are out, and cars were already bumper to bumper before that? We’re the only ones left on the bus. All the other tourists hopped off a while ago and decided to walk. Never happening with Mrs. Tucker.

She disappears down the steps, and the second she’s gone, we all bust out laughing.

“Ay, five dollars say she ask the driver if she can speak to his manager,” Rashad says.

“Pshhhhiiiid, fool, she probably already did,” says Jaysean, not to be confused with Tre’Shawn. First day of school, Mrs. Tucker asked if they were twin brothers even though they don’t look alike. They just have similar first names and the same last name.

“No, ma’am,” Jaysean told her. “Our ancestors were probably owned by the same slave master, though.”

The look on that woman’s face was priceless.

Aja leans over the railing of the bus. “Why the hell these people still going into restaurants? Don’t they know it’s a blackout?”

“They still gotta eat, Aja, dang,” I say. We’ve been real touristy, I gotta admit. We say “they” and “them” a lot ’cause even though we’re all humans, New Yorkers may as well be aliens compared to us. It’s fascinating to watch them.

Not like they don’t do us the same way. This morning we grabbed breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and the waitress was like, “Where are you guys from?”

“Mississippi,” we all said.

“Oh my God!” She acted like we said Mars. “Your accents!”

I honestly didn’t notice that I had one until I started talking in New York. Now I realize that my words ooze out like maple syrup, a foreign sound to them. They spit theirs out fast, like holding them too long will burn their tongues. A southerner just has to try to catch up.

My uncle Graham claims he was quiet when he first moved to New York because he was ashamed of his accent. He likes to tell people he “ran from Mississippi like Flo Jo with a fire on her behind” and never looked back. He and his husband, Jean Claude, live in Brooklyn with their daughter, Lana, and son, Langston. I was hoping to go to Brooklyn to visit them somehow, but I doubt I can get away from Mrs. Tucker for a couple of hours.

Jaysean leans over the rail of the tour bus. We’re inching along at the end of the park. Washington Square Park, I think that’s what it is. “I could fuck up some pizza right now,” Jaysean says.

“Forget pizza, I’m tryna holla,” says Rashad. He leans over the railing and yells out, “Ay, shawty! What that mouth do?”

Ewww!He would say some nasty mess like that.

“Man, have some manners!” says Micah. “Act like you been somewhere before.”

“You know damn well that fool ain’t been nowhere,” Tre’Shawn says, and he and Micah share a laugh. Tre’Shawn doesn’t know that in some ways they’ve been sharing parts of me too.

Tre’Shawn looks at me, a boyish smile playing at his lips. “I’m just lucky I ain’t gotta holla at nobody. I got everything I need right here.”

He leans over to kiss me, and I feel Micah watching.

I pull back, but not ’cause of Micah. I don’t think.

Tre’Shawn sighs. “Dang, Kayla. You won’t let this go, huh? It’s been almost a week.”

“You lied to me, Tre.”

“Yep! On period,” Jazmyn says behind us.

Tre’Shawn glares back at her. “Mind your business, damn!” He looks at me. “I told you I’m sorry. Is it really that big of a deal?”

“It must’ve been for you to lie about it,” I say. “All you had to do was tell me you were hanging with your boys. Why say you were sick just to skip being with me?”

It aches my throat to even say that. Now, let me be clear: I am not a clingy girlfriend. And even if I was, that doesn’t make it cool to lie.

Tre’Shawn is quiet at first. The bus picks up a little speed and makes a turn, causing a car near us to honk. That’s the soundtrack of New York City—honking horns. I’ve heard more of them in two days here than I’ve heard my whole life back home. Our driver, Mr. Wright, fusses from the main level of the bus, spitting out cusswords in his thick Jamaican accent. Earlier, Mrs. Tucker asked him where he was from too.

“Earth,” he said. “Still debating if I’m staying, though.”

The class group chat agreed—he’s our favorite bus driver so far.

After a moment, Tre’Shawn sighs. “I guess I didn’t wanna upset you, Kayla. You know I don’t like to let you down. And if we keeping it one hunnid? That show you wanted us to binge-watch looked corny as shit.”

“For your information, I pick out good shows.”

“The same way you pick out good football teams?” he says.

“Um, as a Falcons fan, you cannot ever talk about other teams being bad,” I say. “Y’all were up twenty-eight to three and still lost the Super Bowl to the Patriots.”

He winces. “You had to go there, huh?”

“You asked for it by throwing shade at my Saints,” I say. “Don’t be mad because you’re probably the only Falcons fan in the entire state of Mississippi.”

Tre pretends to cough. “The Ain’ts” he says, and coughs again.

I examine his hand. “That’s a nice Super Bowl ring you’ve—ah, nope. Not one.”

Tre snatches his hand away, and I bust out laughing. Back home, football is religion, and the Saints are . . . well, the patron saints. I was practically born in black and gold. The first outfit my daddy put on me was a Saints jersey. (The second one was a Jackson State University T-shirt because JSU is a sub-religion in our house, followed closely by Delta Sigma Theta sorority and Omega Psi Phi fraternity.)

We watch every Saints game as a family—me, Momma, Daddy, my big sister, Ciara, and my big brother, Junior—and we often make the three-hour drive to NOLA to our beloved Superdome. It’s a miracle Tre’Shawn and I have lasted this long with him being a fan of the Falcons. My family calls them the Failcons. One time the Saints were playing the Falcons, and Daddy and Junior forbid Tre from coming in the house. Said he’d have to watch from the porch. Momma let him in but made him sit on the other side of the den. At least she compromised.

Tre cups my cheek. “Awful football choices aside, I love you,” he says. “Hanging with my boys was fun, but at the end of the day I would much rather been with you, watching that corny show.”

“Or even a Saints game?” I ask.

Tre frowns. “I guess. But I’d definitely root against them.”

“You’re a sad, sad man.”

“Whatever, Kay,” he says, with a laugh. “Can you forgive me?”

Out the corner of my eye, I see Micah watching us. The fact that I care that he’s watching gives me no right to be mad at Tre’Shawn.

“Yeah. I forgive you.”

I let him kiss me this time. It’s comforting and familiar. I could kiss a hundred people with my eyes closed, and I could easily pick out Tre’Shawn’s lips from the rest. He’s been my first everything—first kiss in fourth grade, first boyfriend in eighth, first love, first person I had sex with. We’ve been a couple for so long that people at school practically combine our names. Tre-N-Kay. Everyone expects us to be together forever. What do I look like, not living up to their expectations?

That’s who I am. Kayla Simmons, expectations meeter. Besides, I love Tre. I could honestly see myself with him for the rest of my life.

But every now and then there’s this little voice in my head that wonders if that’s because he’s the only person I’ve ever been with. It’s kinda like jeans. I know that sounds weird, but when you get that one pair that just goes right with everything, it’s hard to let them go. That one pair is usually as comfortable as sweatpants, too, and they’re perfect on those frustrating days where nothing else fits right. That’s Tre’Shawn for me.

Wait, am I really comparing my boyfriend to a pair of jeans?

I ignore all of that and kiss Tre some more. I love the taste of his lips, sweet and sticky ’cause of the cotton candy we shared earlier in Times Square before we hopped on the tour bus. His hand travels under my T-shirt, fingers gently grazing my back. That his go-to move. He likes the way it gives me goose bumps.

“Hey, hey, hey! No, no, no!” Mrs. Tucker bounds down the aisle. She pulls me back from Tre’Shawn. I almost ask her what gives her the right to touch me.

“No hooking up, please!” she says, sounding real strained. I mean, the Karen is all up in her voice. “Kayla, sit with Jazmyn. Tre’Shawn, you sit with Micah.”

Oh, shit.

No.

New York City just got a whole lot smaller.

“This is SoHo,” Mr. Wright, our driver, says, “where they’ll charge you a salary for a glass of water and call it gourmet.”

Everybody laughs, even Mrs. On-the-Edge Tucker. We’ve finally gotten away from Washington Square Park. Mr. Wright has been cussing other drivers out left and right so he can maneuver the streets and continue our tour of the city. Either Mrs. Tucker went Karenator on him, aka the final form of Karen, or he’s dedicated to his job. I doubt that man is shook by her, so he’s probably dedicated to his job.

SoHo seems to be my kinda place. There are upscale boutiques everywhere that sell clothes I may never be able to afford. A girl can look, though. The architecture of the neighborhood screams artsy. In fact, the word artsy was probably made just to describe SoHo. This is the one neighborhood Momma still talks about to this day. She said it was her favorite place to people watch when she and Daddy visited.

Now here I am, watching people sit at tables outside of restaurants and have candlelit dinners. This one couple has their chairs together close and they cuddle up to look at a phone, the light of it illuminating their faces. It’s too cute not to stare.

I bet neither one of them ever compared the other one to jeans or caught feelings for someone else.

I stretch my neck to try to catch a glance at Tre and Micah for the millionth time. Mrs. Tucker’s new seating arrangements took Rashad from the front row and put him directly in front of me. Mrs. Tucker’s in his old seat now so she can “have a good view of all of us.” But wide-shouldered Rashad is making it hard for me to see my boyfriend and my—

My nothing-but-something. That’s what Micah is.

“Girl, you okay?” Jazmyn asks beside me.

Not in the least bit. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Leave it to Tuckaren to kill somebody’s vibe,” she says. She uses a pen to scratch a hard-to-reach spot under her bun.

She says something else, but I miss it because Micah and Tre’Shawn are laughing up front. I know both of their laughs well enough to recognize them without seeing them. Tre does this kinda ki-ki laugh that literally sounds like he’s saying “ki-ki.” Micah’s laughs come straight from his gut and sound like somebody’s granddaddy who used to smoke.

Fact: Being fine does not mean you automatically have a nice laugh.

Listening to them laugh makes my brain do that annoying thing where it immediately thinks the worst. My therapist says it’s part of my anxiety—expect bad stuff as opposed to good things so I won’t be hurt. Anxiety plays the most frustrating mind games. My therapist gave me some exercises to try to combat it, but not a single method is working right now. Instead I’m wondering if Micah and Tre’Shawn are laughing about me. I’m one of the main things they have in common, right? It would make sense.

Micah’s probably like, Yo, did she freak out the first time you tried to kiss her too?

And Tre goes, Nah, bruh, but we were in like fourth grade. Didn’t know what the hell we were doing anyway. She was scared as hell that she got pregnant ’cause our tongues touched.

And that would lead to them laughing like they are right now.

“Kay!” Jazmyn says my name like it’s her tenth time calling me. “Dang, girl. What’s wrong with you, for real?”

I seriously have to get out of my own head. “Sorry. What’s up?”

“I said, are you and Tre’Shawn good?”

“For now, yeah.”

“For now?” Jazymn says. “Is he on some fuck boy shit?”

I roll my eyes. “Jazzy. Tre’Shawn is not a fuck boy.”

“He lied so he could hang out with those idiots he calls friends. Sounds like one to me.”

I shake my head at her. I’ve gotta admit, every single person on earth needs a Jazzy in their life. She’s been my best friend since before I knew what a friend was. Our parents were soros and frat brothers, and they tailgated at every JSU football game together. Jazzy’s parents filed for divorce a few months ago, so that’s not happening anymore. She’s quick to stick up for me. Probably too quick at times. But hey, I go just as hard for her too. You mess with one of us, you mess with both of us. And that’s on that.

When it comes to Tre’Shawn, she’s not a fan at all. I don’t honestly get it. Pretty much everybody loves Tre. But ever since our elementary school days, Jazzy will take one look at Tre’Shawn, roll her eyes, and hiss, “Ooooh, I can’t stand him!”

In other words, this ain’t new.

“He wasn’t being a fuck boy,” I tell her. “He just didn’t wanna binge-watch my shows.”

“That’s a sorry reason to lie, Kay,” she says. “I don’t be wanting to watch your corny shows either, but at least I tell you to your face.”

“Excuse you?”

“Kayla,” she says, tilting her head. Her tone makes it seem like this is a come-to-Jesus meeting. “Don’t nobody wanna watch Gilmore Girls reruns but you. Own that.”

“Whatever. It’s better than watching the same episodes of Supernatural over and over like some people.”

“That is one of the greatest shows to ever exist, and you will deal,” she says.

“Mmmhmmm, sure,” I say, as my phone vibrates in my lap. It’s my family. Again. Because I’m the baby of the Simmons gang, you’d think that my parents would’ve been a bit more chill with me. They managed to get two other kids to adulthood in one piece each, you know? Maybe they could loosen the reins a bit. Never. In fact, instead of having two parents, I kinda have four with my brother and sister. The family group chat has been popping since the blackout. This time, it’s my sister, Ciara. It’s around nine a.m. in Tokyo, where she’s doing a semester.

Kay-Kay, y’all still stuck on the bus?

Before I can even reply, my brother, Junior, butts in.

Get out and walk, sis.

Then he adds, You and Tre better not be fooling around in the dark.

Oh my God. I quickly type out, I’m not walking. I don’t know where to go. And don’t worry about us.

I barely put my phone down when it dings again. This time, it’s Daddy.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I can’t with them right now. I can’t.

Luckily, Momma comes to the rescue.

I’m sure Mrs. Tucker is keeping a close eye on them, Freddie. That woman could work for the Secret Service, as thorough as she is.

Then Daddy goes, I still don’t trust that New York mess. This could be more than just a little blackout. Something more serious.

It wasn’t in 2003, Momma adds.

Luckily, Daddy writes. Besides, you were the one who panicked the most back then.

Ooop, Ciara writes.

I send the two eyes emoji.

Momma sends back the side-eye one.

Kay-Kay, keep trying your Uncle Graham, Daddy writes. If you can’t get him, find the US Embassy. Tell them your granddaddy was a Vietnam vet. They’ll help you out.

Is this man serious?

Ciara writes back, Daddy, there’s no need for a US embassy in New York. It’s part of the United States.

Daddy goes, Could’ve fooled me! Whole different country from here!

Here comes Junior.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. . . .

Then Daddy says, Boy, you’re Mississippi born and bred. Don’t act brand-new ’cause you’re in Dallas.

Momma says, Now that’s a whole different country. Texas is like its own continent.

Ciara says, It’s bigger than some countries too.

Hold up. How did this become a geography lesson all of a sudden? I sigh and type, Gotta save my battery. Putting my phoneaway. Will keep y’all posted. Love you!

I stick my phone in my backpack and peek up ahead again. Tre’Shawn and Micah are having a real animated conversation. Micah’s hands never stay still as he talks, and Tre tends to nod a lot. In some universe, they would be best friends. They like the same video games, the same music, the same sports. The same girl.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s really why I caught feelings for Micah, because he’s so similar to what I already know. Same brand of jeans but a different style. I’ve quickly realized though there’s not always logic with feelings. Logic is a brain thing, and the heart has a mind of its own. It doesn’t need the brain, no matter how much I wish it did.

“Okay, what’s up?” Jazmyn says.

I look at her. “Huh?”

“Why are you on the verge of freaking out over Tre being up there?”

“I’m not freaking—”

“Kay, you can’t see your face, but I can,” she says. “You’re almost breaking a sweat, and don’t tell me it’s ’cause of this ‘heat wave’ either. This is cool compared to at home.”

Very true. New Yorkers love to complain about the heat and humidity here, and I’m still trying to figure out what humidity they’re talking about. Mississippi is a gigantic sauna for most of the year. This is nothing.

I rub the back of my neck. Jazzy’s gonna bug me ’til I spill. I haven’t told anybody about me and Micah. Not that there’s a me and Micah. But the stuff going on between us, if there’s something going on between us—see? I don’t even know where to begin.

So I don’t. I pull up the text message and hand Jazzy my phone.

It lights up her face in the dark, and her eyes get wide. “Holy sh—Kay.” She looks at me. “This is from—”

I nod. “Yep.”

“Have y’all been—?”

“We’ve nothing,” I say. “Well, we hung out a few times. That’s it.”

“When? You didn’t tell me!”

I should’ve known that was coming. “It wasn’t a big deal, Jazzy.”

“Um, it was to someone.” She holds my phone up.

I sigh through my nose. “Apparently.”

“You feel the same way?”

I shrug.

“Damn,” she says, and hands me my phone. “This is a lot, Kay.”

“I know. And now—” I nod at my boyfriend sitting with my crush.

“No wonder you’re freaking out.”

“Right.” I close my eyes. My head throbs from all the drama. “What should I do, Jazzy?”

I’ve wanted to ask somebody that for months now, but I never knew who I could ask. Jazmyn’s usually my first choice, but her parents’ divorce is enough for her to deal with. My second option is Ciara, but I didn’t wanna dump this on her. It seems minor compared with all she’s dealing with while being Black in Japan. There’s no third or fourth option who won’t tell my business all over the school. My mom? She’d be like, Give it to God, baby. I doubt that God cares about high school love triangles when there are famines and disease all over the world.

Jazmyn scratches her hair with her pen again. “The answer is obvious, Kay. Drop Tre’Shawn and get with that fine-ass Micah.”

I almost choke. “What?”

“You heard me. You should’ve been dropped that fool. I can name a thousand legitimate reasons why y’all shouldn’t be together.”

“Jazzy, I’m not trying to hear your anti-Tre’Shawn campaign. I need a non-biased opinion, please.”

“Um, I said all of my reasons are legitimate. Do you wanna hear them or not?”

I sigh and turn toward her, my back to the hustle and bustle below. “Fine. List ten of them. Only ten,” I say, with a warning eye. “I don’t wanna hear this all night.”

“All right, fine, let’s see. Number one: he thinks he’s all that.”

“He does not!”

“Ha! Girl, yes he does,” she says. “He walks around school like he’s God’s gift to the human race. He cute, but he ain’t fine-fine.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” I say. “What else?”

“His laugh is reason enough,” Jazzy says. “Sounds like he’s strangling on water and trying to clear his throat.”

Okay, that is a pretty accurate description. “I think it’s a cute laugh.”

“You’re brainwashed; of course you do. Three, his jokes are corny. Okay yeah, sometimes they make me laugh but dang, boy. Get better material.”

I laugh. “Quit hating.”

“All facts, boo. No hate. Four, when he smiles, his eyes light up and make him look like a total goofball,” she says. “Five, he cannot dance. He has that one lil move that he does over and over again but for some silly reason, he thinks he’s got skills.

“Six, he wears the same cologne all the time. I’m always like damn, switch it up, my dude. Nope, he only wears Ralph Lauren Polo. Every time I smell it, I think of him now. Seven, he licks his lips a lot, especially when he’s thinking hard. Eight, his hands are way too soft. Nine, that little fuzz above his lip. Grow it or cut it, please. Ten, speaking of lips, his are way too plump in the first place. And bam, there you go. Ten reasons,” she says.

“Wow,” I say, as I look at her. “You noticed all of that?”

“Yeah.” Jazmyn shrugs. “How can I not?”

How can I not?

Half the stuff Jazmyn just said, I haven’t paid much attention to. Here I am, his girlfriend, and I hadn’t realized he only has one dance move or that he licks his lips a lot. The cologne thing I knew. He wears Ralph Lauren because I love it so much.

But it’s not really bothering me that I didn’t notice all of these small details. It’s the fact that my best friend did.

It makes me think of something my mom once said. She and Daddy first met at Jackson State their freshman year. Daddy was a drum major, and Momma said he didn’t walk around campus, he strutted, as if he knew he was “all that and a bag of chips.”

“Lord, I couldn’t stand that man,” she said. “Every small thing about Freddie Simmons irked me with a passion. But one day, I realized something. All those small things irked me mostly because I was mad at myself for being attracted to them. I had strong feelings for that man, all right, just not in the way I thought. They’re not lying when they say there’s a thin line between love and hate.”

I stare at Jazmyn. For years, I couldn’t explain her disdain for Tre’Shawn, but now it’s like I finally see a part of her that she’s hidden. Or maybe it was there all along, and I didn’t wanna see it.

“We’re girls, right?” I say.

“You even gotta ask that? Of course we are.”

“And you’ll be completely honest with me, right?”

“Absolutely,” Jazzy says.

I bite my lip. “Do you . . . do you secretly like Tre’Shawn?”

Her eyes widen. “What—Kay—”

“Hold up, what you say?” Tre’Shawn snaps up ahead. He’s out of his seat and towering over Micah. Micah looks ready to rise, but Mrs. Tucker quickly scrambles over.

She pulls my boyfriend away. “No fighting!” she says. “New seating arrangement! Kayla, come sit here with Micah. Tre’Shawn, you sit with Jazmyn.”

Shit.

My night keeps getting worse.

“What did you say to him?”

“I told you, Kayla. I didn’t say much,” Micah claims.

“Okay, but what did you say?”

The bus creeps through Chinatown. Mr. Wright said it’s home to one of the best ice cream shops in the city.

I miss the days when all it took was an ice cream cone to fix everything. There’s not enough ice cream in the world for all I’m dealing with.

I glance back. The moonlight just barely reveals Tre’Shawn with his jaw set hard and his eyes in our direction. Jazmyn sits straight as a board at the very end of the seat they share, as far as possible from my boyfriend as she can be.

She’s sent me a bunch of texts. I haven’t read any of them yet.

Micah watches Chinatown pass by. “It’s dope how there are all these different pockets in the city that are so unique. Which neighborhood do you think you’d live in?”

“Stop trying to change the subject and answer my question,” I say. “What did you tell Tre’Shawn?”

Micah shrugs. Nothing ever seems to bother him. As someone diagnosed with anxiety, I envy it, even admire it. At the moment it’s frustrating as hell.

“I said the truth, Kay,” he says.

My heart pounds. “Which is?”

“That it was really shitty of him to lie to you just to hang with his friends, and that he better watch out or someone else may scoop you up.”

Holy—“You didn’t. Micah, you didn’t.”

He shrugs again. “I keep it real. Didn’t you say that’s one reason you like me? Even highlighted it in your piece in the school paper.”

I did. It was one of the main reasons Micah’s track teammates said they made him captain—he’s honest to a fault and he expects honesty right back. The guy you can trust with just about anything. I once wondered if hearts were included.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him and myself. “It wasn’t your place to say that.”

“I have no problem speaking up for someone I care about,” Micah says.

I glance away. It’s hard to look at Micah when he talks like that. Best way I can describe it is like staring into the sun. You know it’s not good for you, but part of you wants to stare because of the warmth it gives.

“It still wasn’t your place to say that,” I mumble. “Now he’s mad.”

“Let him be. You were mad when he lied and ghosted you.”

“I forgave him earlier,” I say.

“Did it take lying to yourself to do that?”

“What do I have to lie to myself about?”

“You tell me,” Micah says.

I shake my head, ’cause that’s easier to do than respond. “Just stop, Micah.”

“Fine,” he says. He turns to watch the streets below.

Micah first transferred to our school last year, right after Christmas. Until then, I didn’t know it was possible for someone to turn my life upside down with so little effort. He’d catch my eye in the hall, and my whole face would get warm. He’d scoot his desk near mine when our teacher put us in a group together, and I’d secretly hope that our arms might brush or our feet might touch. After every encounter, I’d beat myself up for having those feelings.

Sitting so close to him now, I’ve got butterflies in my stomach. I wish they’d drop dead.

Out of nowhere, Micah goes, “You notice how in New York, people can be here and not be here?”

I look at him. “What?”

“Like over there.” He nods at this couple who are clearly tourists. They point out the buildings, even in the dark. “They’re here-here. Noticing everything around them. But then you got somebody like that dude.” He points at this guy whose eyes are completely on his phone as he walks. “Chinatown is just a sidewalk to him. He knows it so well, he doesn’t even have to look where he’s going.”

“Probably a native New Yorker,” I say.

“Probably. But even if I was from here, I’d rather be like them.” He points out the couple again. “In awe of all the things instead of not appreciating them because they’ve always been there.”

He looks at me as he says it.

“What are you trying to get at?”

He leans a little closer to me. “Who said I’m trying to get at anything?”

Fact: Anytime Micah gets close to me, I get goose bumps, as if my skin comes alive at the thought of him touching it. Anticipation can be torture if you let it.

I scoot away and glance back. Tre’Shawn watches, but I can’t read his face in the dark, which is worse.

“I didn’t mean to piss him off,” Micah claims.

I look at him again. “Oh really?”

“Promise. I never said I was trying to scoop you up. Homie got mad at the idea of me saying somebody might.”

“Because you don’t say that to another person about their girlfriend, Micah.”

“Even though it’s true?” he asks. “He’s damn lucky to have you, baby girl.”

Logic says that having a girlfriend who purposely tries to hang out with another boy isn’t exactly luck. “That’s sweet of you to say, but you don’t really know me, Micah.”

“Then let me get to know you.” He turns all the way toward me. “Let’s play twenty questions.”

“What?”

“Twenty questions. We gotta do something to pass time.”

“Micah, stop trying to—”

“Get to know you a little more without any ulterior motives?” he asks. “No funny business. Promise. Like I said, it’s just a game to pass time.”

We are moving slow again—I could probably walk faster than this bus is going. It wouldn’t hurt to do something to keep me from getting worked up. This could easily become the tour bus ride from anxiety hell any moment.

“Fine,” I say. “I start first though.”

“Of course. Shoot.”

“All right. What’s your biggest fear?” I ask.

“Dang. Trying to make a dude vulnerable from jump,” he says. “Drowning. I fell into a pool when I was two. Still remember it in flashes. I’ve hated water ever since. What’s yours?”

“Can’t come up with an original question? Wow,” I tease, and he rolls his eyes. “Losing everyone I love is my biggest fear. I cried like a baby when my sister moved overseas and my brother went to Dallas. Stupid, because they’re still alive. But it hit that fear, I guess.”

Micah nods slowly. “I can get that. I’d probably feel some kinda way if I had siblings and they moved away.”

“I forgot you’re an only child.”

“Proudly,” he says. “We catch a lot of flak but we’re dope as hell. Just don’t like to share much.”

“As the baby of my family, I was spoiled and didn’t like to share either, so I get it. Okay, next question: cat or dog person?”

“Dogs all day. Cats are demons.”

I gasp. “What? How dare you!”

Micah puts his hands up. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, all right? One scratched me up when I was eight, and I haven’t trusted them since. I won’t ask your preference. It’s real clear. So my question: Morning person or night owl?”

“Morning easily. You?”

“Look who’s being unoriginal now,” he says. I roll my eyes. “Morning too. I always get the best runs in first thing in the morning. Chocolate or vanilla?”

“Chocolate for sure,” I say.

“That’s why you’ve been staring at me so hard? All this chocolatey goodness over here?”

My mouth drops, and Micah cracks up. “You walked right into that one,” he says.

“Jackass,” I say, and he only laughs more. “PlayStation or Xbox?”

“Play. Stay. Tion. All day, every day, forever,” Micah says. “You play?”

“Yep. I’ve got Call of Duty on lock. My brother, Junior, and I play online a couple of times a week. My sister joins every now and then, but the time difference makes it hard.”

“Damn,” Micah says, with a small smile. “I should start calling you New York.”

“New York?”

“Yeah. I keep discovering new things I like about you, just like I do with the city.”

My cheeks get warm, and it’s got nothing to do with the heat wave.

This is the problem. I can easily fall into a “normal” with Micah before I realize it, which is a disaster waiting to happen when my boyfriend is only four seats away.

No, I can’t do this. I can’t. I hop up. “Um, you know what? I should probably . . . I should probably find a new seat.”

Micah frowns. “What? Why?”

I grab my backpack. “I just need some space.”

Someone takes a gentle hold of my arm. “Kay?” Tre’Shawn says. “You all right? He ain’t messing with you, is he?”

“Wow. You really bugging,” Micah says. “You act like you scared I’ll scoop her up.”

“Ain’t nobody worried ’bout your nosy ass,” Tre’Shawn says. “You need to stop speaking on things that don’t concern you.”

Mrs. Tucker is out of her seat and stepping between me and Tre’Shawn and Micah. “Everyone, back to your seats!”

“I care ’bout Kayla, so this does concern me,” Micah says.

“Kayla ain’t your concern!” says Tre.

I break away from his grasp and I put my hands up. “You know what? You two can figure this out on your own. Mrs. Tucker, I’m going downstairs.”

Micah and Tre’Shawn both call after me, but I ignore them and climb down to the main level of the bus.

It’s deserted down here. I’m not surprised. Like I said, all the other tourists got off a while ago and walked. Only the driver, Mr. Wright, is down here now. He nods and hums with an old R&B song on the radio. Hard to believe this is the same man who cusses people out so easily.

“Ah! Hello, my dear,” he says, with that thick Jamaican accent. “Did that bossy woman up there send you down here to check on me now?”

I smirk and take the seat behind him. Bossy is an understatement when it comes to Mrs. Tucker. She power trips to the highest degree. “No, sir. I wanted a different view, I guess.”

“But the best view of the city is up there!” he says. “We’re about to pass City Hall, in fact. You tourists love to see that place.” He picks up his mic and tells the whole bus.

I shrug. “It’s just another building to me.”

He chuckles heartily, and I smile. His laugh reminds me of my dad’s.

“You’ve got that right,” he says. “It’s just another building at the end of the day.”

I settle into my seat and stare out the window. The blanket of darkness hasn’t lifted from the city, yet it seems like everyone’s already made good with the new normal. That’s one thing I like about New Yorkers. They roll with the punches like they never feel the contact.

I take a deep breath. The situation with Tre’Shawn, the possibilities with Micah, the reveal with Jazmyn, they’ve all been suffocating me. Never thought I’d almost feel relieved to be by myself. Now the question is: What do I do?

“You wanna know something?” Mr. Wright says. “Tourists fawn over the city. Manhattan, Manhattan, Manhattan,” he mocks. “But you haven’t seen New York City until you’ve visited Brooklyn.”

“You sound like my uncle. He lives there.”

“Eh, is that so?” he says, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. “Which neighborhood?”

I shrug again.

“Oh no, no, no. You gotta know the neighborhood. Neighborhoods make all the difference, my dear. I live in Bed-Stuy.”

I tilt my head. “Like that old rapper?”

“Old rapper? Oh, no, no, no.” He shakes his head. “You can never step into Brooklyn and refer to Biggie Smalls in that manner. No, no, no.”

“Biggie. Right.” My bad for not remembering the name of a rapper who died before I was born. “I think my uncles and my cousins live in Bed-Stuy.”

“And they didn’t teach you no better than that? Bomboclaat!”

That sounded like a curse word. “I haven’t seen them since I was a kid. I hoped I’d get to visit them during this trip, but that’s probably not happening.”

“Why not? You could catch a train.”

“Mr. Wright, you’ve met my teacher,” I say.

He laughs again. “Understood. If I could, I’d drive you over the bridge myself right now. There’s supposedly a big block party in Bed-Stuy tonight. It’d give you southern kids a real taste of New York.”

“Yeah, if only,” I mutter, and sigh. My life is full of “if onlys” at the moment.

In the rearview mirror, I see Mr. Wright tilts his head while staring at me. “Something on your mind, dear?”

“I’m okay, but thank you,” I say. This man has to navigate a double-decker bus through Manhattan. He doesn’t need to hear about my problems.

“Child, you may as well spill it,” he says. “It’s written all over your face. Is it a boy? Or a girl? Or a nonbinary person?”

I’m impressed at his openness. Back home, I probably wouldn’t get that benefit. “It’s a boy. Two boys, actually.”

“A love triangle,” he says. “Those can be messy.”

I hold my forehead. It’s starting to ache just at the thought of this mess. “Yeah, and I’ve got an inkling it may actually be a love square.”

He winces. “Ohhhhh. Quadruple messy.”

“Right. I don’t know what to do.”

Which is a foreign feeling. I always know what to do to solve a problem. It’s part of being an expectations meeter—nobody expects me to end up in bad situations because I always make the right choices.

This is totally different from choosing to not get pissy drunk at a party or picking an elective that will look good on my college applications. Hearts are involved. But unfortunately, I don’t even know what mine wants. Tre’Shawn and Micah have both wiggled their way into little compartments inside of it.

“I may not know details, dear, but I have some advice if you’d like it,” Mr. Wright says.

“I’ll take whatever advice I can get, to be honest.”

“If only my children started saying that.” He chuckles. “Now, I’m going to assume that you don’t know which of these young men you should be with, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s been a long time since I was around your age, so I may sound like an old man by saying this, but why do you have to choose?”

Umm . . . I know New York is a bit more eccentric than Mississippi, but is he saying what I think he’s saying? “So I should be with both of them?”

“No, no!” Mr. Wright laughs. “Although nowadays that is an option, but that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m saying that maybe instead of choosing one of them, you could choose yourself, my dear. No one says you have to be in a relationship.”

I bite my lip. “Even though I have feelings for them both?”

“All the more reason to give yourself time,” he says. “Your heart will never lead you wrong, but it can be hard to hear it. You have to give it space to speak. That’s a form of love too.”

Footsteps thump against the staircase, and seconds later Tre’Shawn’s long legs make their way down them. He dips his head to see me. “Kay? You all right?”

I catch Mr. Wright’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He mouths three words: Help your heart.

“Yeah,” I tell Tre’Shawn. “I’m getting there.”

He gives Mr. Wright a polite smile and sits beside me. “What’s going on? For real?”

I put my hand on top of his on the seat. My adorable, loving, cheesy boyfriend with the soft hands, bad dance move, and dimples.

“I think that deep down, you know what’s going on,” I say.

“Huh? No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do,” I say. “Look, I’m not coming at you about lying, okay? But ask yourself why you lied. You said you didn’t wanna break my heart, but . . .” I swallow the lump in my throat. It’s been there for a while, along with a truth I didn’t wanna face. “But I wouldn’t have been heartbroken over you not wanting to stream TV shows with me, Tre. You wanted space, and you think that’s what would’ve broken my heart.”

“Kayla—”

“It’s okay if you did,” I say over him. “I promise, it’s okay. But if you love me, just admit it. This wasn’t about a show, was it?”

He casts his eyes down, and he slightly shakes his head, as if he’s arguing with himself.

But after a while he quietly says, “No. It wasn’t about that. Shit,” he hisses. “Kay, I’m sorry. That’s foul as fuck—”

“It’s okay, Tre. I want space too.”

He looks up at me. “What?”

“Yeah,” I say, with a small smile that makes zero sense at a moment like this. “Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much everyone expects us to stay together. I wonder if that’s why we’re still together.”

“Nah, Kay. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I murmur. “It’s hard for me to imagine myself not being with you, and that . . . that scares me. I don’t know who I am if I’m not your girlfriend. I don’t think it should be that way.”

Tre takes my hand in his and gently rubs his thumb along my palm.

“It shouldn’t be,” he says.

We don’t say anything for a while, allowing New York to fill in the silence.

Fact: Micah did something to me, and I’m realizing that it goes beyond the feelings I caught for him. He helped me see that there are so many possibilities for me, for my heart. Forget what anyone expects: the only person I have to truly worry about is me.

To be honest, I don’t know what I want right now. But like Mr. Wright says, maybe I should give my heart some space.

“Change is good,” I murmur.

Tre’Shawn kisses my cheek. “Yeah. It is.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. This doesn’t feel like a breakup, just a break.

“Damn,” Tre’Shawn says, after a minute. “Remember how we used to plan our fantasy trip to New York?”

I laugh. “It didn’t include a blackout, that’s for sure.”

“You wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, right? And ride over the—”

“The Brooklyn Bridge,” I say. “Yeah. My parents walked over it once during a blackout. My mom was pregnant with me, in fact.”

“For real? Dang. It would be dope if we could go see it somehow.”

Mr. Wright clears his throat. “Not to stick my nose into matters that don’t concern me, but I could make a wrong turn here or there and get you to the bridge. Maybe even to that block party I told you about, dear.”

Tre’Shawn sits up a little. “Block party?”

“Don’t even,” I say, ’cause I see him getting excited. “There is no way Mrs. Tucker will let us go to a block party in a blackout.”

“Who says she has to know that that’s where we’re going?” Mr. Wright asks.

Tre’Shawn laughs into his fist. “Yoo. What if we pull up at the party and convince her to let us stay? We can say it’s some kinda cultural festival.”

“For you southerners, a New York block party is a cultural festival,” Mr. Wright adds.

I don’t know if I’m offended or impressed. But I gotta admit—“That might work.”

Mr. Wright makes a turn. “Oh, would you look at that. Seems like I’m going in the wrong direction and headed toward Brooklyn.”

Tre’Shawn and I laugh. He gives my hand a little squeeze.

Who knows, maybe in a couple of months people will be back to combining our names and expecting us to be together forever. Maybe we will be. Or maybe I’ll end up with Micah.

I don’t know. But for now, I’m fine with being just Kayla.