jasmine had said that by the time she came back from england, her skin would have lightened into a golden brown—the shiny, honey kind, that glows in the sun—and when she spoke, her voice would fade on r's and soften on t's. she'd sound airy and posh. despite her foreigner's tongue, north america would embrace her with those open, invisible arms once again—even new york had missed the smell of her hair—and all things would be correct in the universe.
maya waits on the porch step, an american flag slung over her shoulders, counting blades of grass and long, impatient minutes. her bracelet jingles against her wrist like it was anticipating something. this whole week had felt like a great expectance, full of daydreams and maybe hallucinations, ending with the climax: jasmine's presence back in her life.
it has been slow moving, without her around.
her mother had her in the house all the time, helping straighten things out, helping her zip dresses one size too small that she would wear to meet with men who fell in love with the things under her clothes before they had a chance to see the rest of her. she had walked miss washington's dogs, ate her soggy ham sandwiches, watered her flowers. three banana yellow acacias sat in the palm of her hand collecting nervous heat.
because maya was nervous. because she was always dreadfully nervous, when it came to jasmine. her name was enough to send dazed uneasiness and excited worry throughout her system.
two months of jasmine had brought maya feelings her mother likened to withdrawal. toned down depression — those days where she drifted in and out of rooms, out of moods, listless and sort of lifeless; dull. the fatigue — more like the absence of energy, than real tiredness. with jasmine, there was always something she wanted to do. without her, watches ticked in slow motion.
the anxiety — the fear that things would be different, now, because on the phone, british jasmine talked about films and pounds and tea when american maya wanted to talk about paint and the new sneakers she bought with her dog walking money, and grape soda. the hallucinations—blurry dreams, where jasmine turned into an angel and visited her in her sleep, pressing feather soft kisses against her forehead, on her hands, on her lips.
her mother insisted that it was makeup, but maya was convinced that jasmine's lips were naturally glossy, and that they tasted like blueberries, the fresh, garden kind, because she ate so many. she held down the wants for confirmation of this claim in the lowly parts of her heart. they rose only at night, and on the days where she heard michael jackson songs on the old school radio stations and the missing was so strong it quieted the breath in her lungs.
the missing was coming to an end. it had given maya time to think, to go over all those almosts that happened between them, and do something about it.
maya had, of course, been trying for a very long time to initiate things.
there had been valentine's day, when she had wrote jasmine one hundred secret admirer letters ranging from compliments on her hairstyles to i think even the moon has a crush on you, with crescent moon stickers stuck to the bottom of the page. there was the month of smothering—where maya walked her home everyday, and got her lunch before she sat down, and had a new painting for her every week, whenever she wanted. then there was the ignoring period, where, upon realizing that people noticed how hard she was trying, and laughed at her for it, she closed up within herself, and stopped trying altogether.
and then christmas came: jasmine kissed her blind under dying mistletoe in the girls' bathroom, and maya came into existence again.
suddenly it was the other girl's turn to impress. on their shared fifteenth birthday, jasmine had performed a song underneath the short, romantic birch trees in her backyard, and sprinkled heart-shaped red glitter over maya's head. she had even ordered her a photography book signed by the photographer himself. there was the best time, the brightest moment of maya's life—one thursday after school, they had danced in bathing suits in the rain, all alone in the dark, with rain cooling her skin and spirit. maya had been so happy she cried for ten minutes after jasmine had left. there was reciprocation, here.
but that was two months ago. time unraveled love that kept still. maya was determined to keep it going.
she had stolen her mother's old ugly watch for today, the one with the rust and too big wrist—just for jasmine, so that when she rolled down maynard road at seven thirteen p.m., maya would be there, on her door step, with pretty flowers protected by her fist, wearing musky guy perfume that stung her eyes but made her feel like a warrior and with her hair in a tight bun just so a pretty ribbon could fit nicely on it, all in the hopes that maybe this would change things.
even if it didn't, it would be so nice to see her face again.
💫 💫 💫
at seven eleven, maya runs her fingers over the bumps in her hair. she thinks about crazy things; about cutting it all off, about braiding it with leaves. anxious thoughts.
at seven twelve, she wipes the sweat off her hands onto the back of her pants for the sixth time that day.
at seven thirteen, a gray sedan with all its tinted windows down hits a mailbox, and a door flings ope. a cloud of blue fabric tumbles out of the backseat, running in maya's direction.
the flowers drop from her hands and the flag slides off her shoulders. maya's body connects with wet grass in a matter of seconds—but she can't stop smiling, can't stop feeling, everything.
"maya fucking hart, you will not believe how much i missed you," jasmine whispers, her voice in maya's ears, chest, fingertips.
"i missed you more," she replies, and this is true.
jasmine sits up, maya's body still wrapped around hers, and breathes in deeply.
"is that perfume i smell, miss hart?" she asks, a curious tone in her voice.
excitement claims her whole body. "yes, actually. do you like it? i thought i'd try something new, it's frankie's but it smells so good —"
"it smells like poison," she says, wrinkling her nose. "but i got something from england that'll offset this nastiness. let's go get my suitcase. i'll show you what i mean."
maya smiles warily at her, her skin prickling with regret. jasmine traces a circle over her cheek, briefly—and maya thinks she imagined it, it happens so fast — before plucking herself from the ground and sprinting back in the direction of her car.
maya pockets a crushed acacia and runs after her. she was okay. this is good. this is what she had been waiting for.
(A/N: this is the longest first chapter ive ever published and its still trash smh)
