The Mare

Velvet

He texted me that he wanted to see me. He wanted to see me away from Brooklyn so nobody would know. He said just one last time, because it should not end with that disrespect or an apology on text. I said, “How do I even know it’s you?” Right away he typed back, “Wherefore art thou?” He said meet him at Riverbank Park up near Washington Heights. He said “plz.”

So he picked a time after school, but I didn’t go to school. I took the train into Manhattan and went to Penn Station, where I always met Ginger. I bought a Krispy Kreme donut and a soda and stood eating it because to sit you had to show your ticket to a guard who was keeping homeless people out. I looked at the covers of magazines and at the people like me and the people like Ginger walking past each other. I could walk down the stairs and ride through a tunnel to get to my mare and to the house with the blue and white diamond floor.

Instead I paid my last money to see a movie with J. Lo in it, except she got pregnant in like the first five minutes and then died and it was all about white people. I wondered if maybe it was luck to see a movie where a pregnant girl died and then she was just gone. I knew that was evil to think, but what a weird thing in a movie. Then I don’t remember what else I did until I came off the subway at 145th Street. He said to text him so he could wait there for me and he did. He looked nervous and embarrassed. I was not embarrassed and I was not nervous.

We went to a place by the water. The same water I saw out the train window when I went to see Ginger. He said, “I come here by myself to think.”

I said, “It’s nice.”

We sat on a bench. It was still cold, so not many people were out. The water was blinking and bright in flipped-up pieces. We looked at it and he said, “So you gonna be in a competition on the horse?”

The way he looked at me in front of Brianna’s girls. His voice saying Awesome sarcastically. “No,” I said. “I’m not.”

He looked at me quick and then away. “Why not?”

“My mom won’t let me,” I said.

“Oh.”

I said, “So why—” at the same time he said, “You know—” Then he said, “I didn’t mean what I said in front a them.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

“I told you I couldn’t be with you. I know I shouldn’t’ve let nothin’ happen, but—” He sat forward with his arms on his legs. The water pushed and pulled, bright and dark like eyes. People went past. A lady smiled.

“But what?” I said finally.

“I had feelings for you.”

Had. “Then why you—”

“Because feelings by themself ain’t what matters.”

“You had feelings for me but it don’t matter?”

“That ain’t what I said!” He got up and I did too. He walked to the water and came back. He came close and I thought he would touch me; I could feel he wanted to. “Just, if you feel one way and what’s right is the other way, you gotta do what’s right, even if—”

“You made me come all the way out here to say that shit?”

He sat down. “To say I’m sorry. I ain’t gonna be able to say it no other time.”

I knew what he meant. That he would see me on the street and act like he didn’t know me. Even if he had feelings. I said, “You a asshole. You say you love me just so you could get away from the police and—” Get your dick sucked; even to think it made me feel like shit. My face flashed hot, and I looked down to hide it.

“You know that ain’t true. You know it. I wouldn’t be here if that was true. I wouldn’t never have come to see you and told you about Brianna. I wouldn’t never showed you—”

And he took his Romeo picture out of his pocket. My body shut off; my face went cold. I snatched the picture and tore it in two. His face fell and he stood up. “It don’t matter,” he said. “I was gonna give it to you anyway.”

“I don’t want it.”

I didn’t feel wind, but the torn picture was moving anyway. He said, “A’ight, then.” And stood up and walked away. I covered my heart with my hands, like it might cry out. And maybe it did because all of a sudden he stopped. He turned around and came close enough for me to hear him. He said, “You don’t have to worry about Brianna’s girls. They ain’t gonna bother you.” He went to go again but then turned back again and said, “And also I’m sorry you ain’t gonna be in the competition. ’Cause I think you’d win.” Then he turned around and left for good. I watched him until he was all the way gone. Then I picked up the pieces of his picture and kissed it and held it to me.