LEAH
They were making me sick.
I wasn't exaggerating, either. I loved them both like nothing else, but it was times like this one when my roommates were too cute for their own good. I'd walked into a few different situations involving them and I was happy to say that this time everyone was fully clothed. One of Ayanna's limitless 90s playlists was in rotation, her and Max taking advantage of Aaliyah's "I Don't Wanna." He pulled her from the sink where she'd actually been doing dishes. With a few words in her ear and tenderness in his eyes, Ayanna couldn't deny him. Pressed together, they slow danced right on the kitchen rug. Wholly content, completely at peace, their connection was one for the ages. You then could understand how confusing it was in the same breath.
Ayanna and Max had all the making of a relationship.
They were thick as thieves, the best of friends, and had no shortage of attraction towards each other, but they'd never crossed that line into a full-blown romance. Ayanna, very quietly, stopped it from ever going there. All you could do was feel sorry for Max. He loved Ayanna more than he did himself. I was no expert with these things, but that never seemed to bear well for people in the end. We had covered the subject numerous times and Ayanna held her position. Nothing official was going to happen between them. Their dynamic boggled the mind, but that was just it. They had a dynamic. They had each other.
Some of us weren't that fortunate.
Ayanna noticed me watching and tapped Max on the shoulder. "Push off, man. My girl is cutting in."
She pushed him away, beckoning me with one finger. I laughed as she forced me to slow dance. I felt better. Not amazing. Not even normal, but it was an improvement and all I could really ask for. Ayanna had been keeping an eye on me, harassing me was more like it. She'd even woken me up this morning to go running. We had lunch at my favorite vegan place, she'd painted my nails the perfect shade of lavender, and sat through a documentary series she'd normally snore her way through.
Every effort she'd put forth was for me.
I was grateful and glad to report that I hadn't even thought of Darius today. He was such a non-factor that I declined his calls and blocked him on every platform I could. I was just now realizing I'd rather let Ayanna spin and dip me on the kitchen floor than suffer through another one of his faux-intellectual monologues. With strength she shouldn't have, Ayanna brought me up and smacked my backside playfully. She gave Max a shake of the head and a thumbs up.
"What do we owe the pleasure, Ms. Trudeau? Thought you'd be chained to your desk by now," Ayanna said returning to the sink.
That was usually the case. My one day off from school and the gig I still managed to spend with my head in a book. Literally. Not today. You could set your watch by my routine. My life was a perfectly constructed box. I depended on the control, had overdosed on it for a multitude of reasons. The one time I had let myself go, disaster had ensued. Never again would I let myself spin out like that, but monotony had its own downfall. I was less human and more robot and maybe it was time to change that.
Within reason.
"What are we doing tonight?" I asked.
Ayanna and Max shared a look. Ayanna took the lead. "We were about to order out and call it a night. Unless you had something else in mind, that is."
Her slow smile made me uneasy in a good way. She had read me without any explanation and was rolling with it.
"I'm open to a few possibilities," I said.
Max put his hand against my forehead. "Leah, is that you? Does our resident overachiever want to actually slum it with us? We have to make something happen."
![𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙧𝙚 [𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚] od mochaxmars](https://img.wattpad.com/cover/189005929-80-k482360.jpg)
"I'm activated," Ayanna said, already scrolling through her phone at rapid speed. In no time at all, she ran through a few perspectives. "Let's see what we got: black film series, queer sip and paint, or 80s trivia at that bar down the street?"
I already knew she was keeping it PG for my sake. I wasn't naive, but I was very much a square. All of those things appealed to my academic and cultural sensibilities. I think I could stretch them to something else. "What if I want to do something different?" I asked carefully.
"How different are we talking?" Max asked.
"Existentially."
"Don't make me become a bad influence," Ayanna said. "I think I have something in mind. Zhao will be in the building."
I looked at Max for guidance, noting the slight upturn of his lips. "This rapper who just got out from doing time."
"Time for what?"
"Shooting up a club, allegedly."
"And we, The Three Muskateers, have to welcome my favorite rapper home. We in there."
I don't know what I had in mind, but paying a visit to a trigger-happy rapper wasn't it. I was uneasy with the prospect alone. Pointing at the digital flyer, I pointed out the obvious. "It says private location, limited space, with no start time. How are we supposed to get in? How do we even get there?"
Ayanna put her hands on my shoulders. "The devil really is in the details, ain't it? What's my name, Leah? You relax and let me work my magic. We're in there like swimwear."
Against my better judgment, I relented. It became clear that me wanting to get out and actually doing it were two very separate things. As much as I'd gone through, I was still sheltered in various ways. I was Harlem born and bred, but my upbringing, my family was firmly upper-middle class. My father was a founding partner at his firm, my mother a professor, my sister a pediatric surgeon. I was an American born to two very Haitian parents, their sole focus to force education, propriety, and virtue down their daughter's throats. What they thought of as protection had really done a disservice. I still had the habit of wondering if my free time was productive enough. Fun didn't come easy for me.
"Put it in troops." Ayanna held out her fist. Max grasped it. I carefully put mine on top. "All for one, one for the function."
♥
It was a few hours later when we left the brownstone, all of us adhering to the dress code.
The color of the evening was black. Apparently it was a must if you planned on getting into Zhao's affair, something Ayanna had gleaned from a few different conversations. Max was simple in t-shirt and jeans, hair in a single braid down his back. Ayanna, true to form, had taken the theme and run with it. Her mane had been parted into four braids, baby hair done in an art-worthy design. She wore a velvet button-down three times her size, no pants, knee-high socks, and Doc Martens. Another pair of her signature sunglasses rested on her head, the lenses shaped like daisies.
She had a look.
I had a situation.
Seeing my confusion, my best friend stepped in. My wardrobe consisted of daytime casual, business casual, and casual casual. All that was left to pick from was my workout gear. Nothing in between. She worked with what she had, most of the items coming from her own closet. When I finally stood in front of the mirror, I actually looked like something and all it took were scissors and Ayanna's ingenuity. Cropped sweatshirt, faux-latex mini-skirt, and platform sneakers. She pulled my hands down, already knowing where they wanted to go.
