Thy Neighbor

Chapter Three

She hears the heavy tapping of the headboard and the muffled screams. Trevante's dates couldn't keep it down even if they tried. Usually, Ciara could tune it all out. At its worst she pust on her favorite podcast, full blast from her headphones, and waits for the sex scene next door to be over. It also didn't help that Ciara is trying her damndest to be celibate. Sex isn't coming to her door every night like it is for Trevante.  Trevante's trysts are absurd. 

As she lies in bed in annoyance, her mind drifts back to that morning when she held Trevante in her arms. It has been a while since she gave a man that type of energy. Her last being her ex-boyfriend. He was nothing like Trevante: thin frame, thick glasses, wicked smart. They could talk about the world's problems for hours and how they were going to fix them – together. He was as nerdy as she was, as awkward as she was. And he was her first. He made her feel things that she never felt before, made her mind wander in class and her hand twitch with anticipation of the night ahead. And moved her to make the same noises she heard from Trevante's apartment.

She thought he was going to be the last to make her sound that way. When she graduated from college and started working in nonprofits, she changed. She was at high power meetings and he wasn't. She would miss dates for networking events, ditch weekend trips for work retreats. She started to distance herself from their future to focus squarely onto her own. When she had the opportunity to move to Philadelphia to go to the graduate school of her dreams, she made the decision without his consideration. He wasn't on her radar. So he left.

And she felt it. Moving into her apartment was the lonliest day she never imagined. The person that motivated her to achieve her dreams, the one that made her think she was the Michelle to his Barack wanted nothing to do with her. And in revenge, she set out to prove that she didn't need him.

Drug dealers from Southwest Philly. International MBAs with broken English. White boys looking to try something different. Her apartment was a turnstall for every man she wanted. She became irresistible: the drug dealers thought she was innocent, the MBAs thought she was such a bad girl. But then she met her match.

Ciara met Y'lan at a speaker's series at their school. He had a honey brown complexion with a soft build and wide smile. His Atlanta accent crept as he spoke. He was nothing like Ciara had ever seen before: beautiful and smart. Knew every rap lyrics on the radio but wouldn't miss a Sunday at church. He worked in faith based non profits, looking to maybe one day become a minister. But he thought his calling wasn't in the pulpit but in the streets with the people.

He could talk to men on the corner about faith and family, never chastising them for not holding the same faith as his own. He could walk into schools and speak to students about education, talking in their language and relating to their stories. He could walk into any church and convince them to support programming for children. He was built for that life.

When Y'lan met Ciara, he felt something that he never felt before. Her wide glasses made her seem studious, her four inch heels made her seem daring. Ciara's confidence about her plus-size frame was evident too. She carried herself as if she was the finest thing moving and Y'lan could feel that. In all the right – and wrong – places. When she challenged the speaker on the panel, his heart skipped a beat. He thought he met the one.

But she wasn't ready to be anybody's. Ciara would have one foot in the church and the other stepping hanging the bed of a Meek she met weeks prior. She wasn't committed and she knew it. One day, she had enough. As she left a date's apartment, she sat in her car and bawled. She knew that she coped from the lost of her ex-boyfriend the wrong way. She knew that she couldn't keep up this lifestyle. In that moment she cried out and God heard her.

Walking out of that conference, she was primed to be the person she knew she could be. As she grabbed her things, Y'lan gently tapped her on the shoulder.