lies.
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BEFORE THE STORM
WHEN I WALKED BACK INTO MY FRIEND Emily’s church, I saw the pretty girl right away. She’d smiled and said “hey” to me earlier when we were in the youth building, and I’d been looking for her ever since. Somebody’d pushed all the long church seats out of the way so kids could dance, and the girl was in the middle of the floor dancing fast with my friend Keith, who could dance cooler than anybody. I stared at the girl like nobody else was in the church, even when Emily came up to me and said, “Where were you? This is a lock-in. That means you stay right here all night.” I saw that her eyebrows were shaped like pale check marks. That meant she was mad.
I pointed to the pretty girl. “Who’s that?”
“How should I know?” Emily poked her glasses higher up her nose. “I don’t know every single solitary person here.”
The girl had on a floaty short skirt and she had long legs that flew over the floor when she danced. Her blond hair was in those cool things America-African people wear that I could never remember the name of. Lots of them all over her head in stripes.
I walked past some kids playing cards on the floor and straight over to the girl. I stopped four shoe lengths away, which Mom always said was close enough. I used to get too close to people and made them squirmy. They need their personal space, Mom said. But even standing that far away, I could see her long eyelashes. They made me think of baby bird feathers. I saw a baby bird close once. It fell out of the nest in our yard and Maggie climbed the ladder to put it back. I wanted to reach over and touch the girl’s feather lashes, but knew that was not an appropriate thing.
Keith suddenly stopped dancing with her. He looked right at me. “What d’you want, little rich boy?” he asked.
I looked at the girl. Her eyes were blue beneath the feathers. I felt words come into my mind and then into my throat, and once they got that far, I could never stop them.
“I love you,” I said.
Her eyes opened wide and her lips made a pink O. She laughed. I laughed, too. Sometimes people laugh
The girl didn’t say anything, but Keith put his hands on his hips. “You go find somebody else to love, little rich boy.” I wondered how come he kept calling me little rich boy instead of Andy.
I shook my head. “I love
Keith walked between me and the girl. He was so close to me, I felt the squirmies Mom told me about. I had to look up at him which made my neck hurt. “Don’t you know about personal space?” I asked.
“Look,” he said. “She’s sixteen. You’re a puny fourteen.”
“Fifteen,” I said. “I’m just small for my age.”
“Why’re you acting like you’re fourteen then?” He laughed and his teeth reminded me of the big white gum pieces Maggie liked. I hated them because they burned my tongue when I bit them.
“Leave him alone,” the pretty girl said. “Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”
“Don’t it creep you out?” Keith asked her. “The way he’s staring at you?”
The girl put out an arm and used it like a stick to move Keith away. Then she talked right to me.
“You better go away, honey,” she said. “You don’t want to get hurt.”
How could I get hurt? I wasn’t in a dangerous place or doing a dangerous thing, like rock climbing, which I wanted to do but Mom said no.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Go home to your fancy-ass house on the water,” Keith said.
“If I tell you my name, will you go away?” the girl asked.
“Okay,” I said, because I liked that we were making a deal.
“My name’s Layla,” she said.
Layla. That was a new name. I liked it. “It’s pretty,” I said. “My name’s Andy.”
“Nice to meet you, Andy,” she said. “So, now you know my name and you can go.”
I nodded, because I had to hold up my end of the deal. “Goodbye,” I said as I started to turn around.
I turned back to him, my fists already flying. I punched his stomach and I punched his chin, and he must have punched me too because of all the bruises I found later, but I didn’t feel a thing. I kept at him, my head bent low like a bull, forgetting I’m only five feet tall and he was way taller. When I was mad, I got strong like nobody’s business. People yelled and clapped and things, but the noise was a buzz in my head. I couldn’t tell you the words they said. Just bzzzzzzzzz, getting louder the more I punched.
I punched until somebody grabbed my arms from behind, and a man with glasses grabbed Keith and pulled us
