Read Online From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson - Free Book Online Page B

closed, over those breasts, hiding those breasts. I remembered something stupid Mama had said— It’s okay to be nice to women —so I wiped the bench dry with my jacket before we sat down. Angie moved closer to me. So close, our shoulders were touching. Then I was shivering. Not from the cold but from something—shivering from the inside out. We didn’t say anything for a long time. Watching the rain. Watching the empty park. Trying hard not to look at each other.
    â€œI always thought you were cool, Mel,” Angie said.
    â€œYeah,” I said, kind of glancing at her but mostly looking straight ahead. Sitting on my hands and looking straight ahead. “I thought that about you.” I tried to sound calm, but the words came out shaky, like they were barely on the tip of something in the back of my throat. I know it sounds like a lie, but I leaned over and kissed her then, quick so that I wouldn’t be thinking about it. So fast my teeth bumped her lips. Stupid, stupid me.
    Angie laughed. She closed her eyes when she laughed and I had never seen anybody laugh like that. It made me smile, from someplace deep that I had forgotten about.
    â€œYou never kissed anybody before?”
    â€œI kissed lots of people,” I said, sitting up straighter, looking off.
    â€œNo you haven’t,” Angie said. When I glanced at her again she was looking at me, straight on. She knew I was lying.
    â€œI been kissing girls since I was ten,” I said.
    â€œLie number two,” Angie said, laughing.
    I swallowed. No, Angie. Lie number three. There’s another one. Bigger and worse.
    We didn’t say anything for a long time, looking off, watching the drizzle, slick against gray-black ground. Rain dripped from the hoops. I thought of the hollow bounce of a basketball and the sound repeated itself in my head—over and over. And the silence filled us up.
    â€œI don’t have a lot of friends,” Angie said quietly, after a long time had passed. “You mad at me for teasing you?”
    I shook my head. “It’s nothing.” I felt lame making her think I was mad.
    â€œSometimes I don’t know the right things to say,” Angie said. She wiped her chin with the back of her hand. “I talk to myself a lot. You don’t have to worry about saying the wrong things to yourself.” She smiled a little bit, the corners of her mouth turning up, but nothing else about her face changed. I wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to know what it would feel like to have her fingers against my palm. “I’m kind of to myself mostly,” she said. “It’s better that way.”
    I nodded, taking my hands from beneath my legs and staring at them. I can palm a basketball, almost. Ralphy says it’s about control and muscle. Maybe I had weak hands.
    If I was a real liar I would say I took Angie’s hand then, that I leaned over and kissed her again. But it didn’t happen that way. She kissed me. Maybe that was okay because only for a little while did I think about Mama and Kristin kissing and then, after that, it was Angie, all Angie. Beautiful, beautiful Angie.
    We kissed for a long time. When we stopped, we just sat there, a little bit embarrassed. It was like all of the words went out of us. Maybe we didn’t need any right then.
    The rain had started coming down harder, but it didn’t seem as though Angie was in any hurry to get out of it. Something about her sitting there, like nothing mattered, like it wasn’t even raining, made me want to tell her everything. But I just shivered and continued looking straight ahead.
    â€œI don’t have a lot going on,” I said. “I, you know, collect my stamps and watch some TV and write . . .”
    â€œPoetry?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œI write some poetry sometimes,” she said softly. “Stuff about life and my family.” When I looked at her, she was smiling. Looking at