When I Think of You

by Myah Ariel

Back then, I was chasing myself—so obsessed with who I wanted to be that I missed the chance to get to know who I was in the moment. I still miss that girl. But I wouldn’t want to be her again.

“Thank you for saying that. But all things come in due time.”

Is there such a thing as loose dick?” Warren Beatty. Nick Cannon. Others also come to mind, but Neha sputters ahead before I can respond.

lmaooo

The good stuff’s in front of you waiting to be experienced with the guy who is your actual person. Because with the right guy, none of it ends like this.”

“Because he’s your mirror,” I say. “You see him, and all your wants and desires reflect back at you. Then, when he inevitably falls short of your high expectations, it’s not just him you’re disappointed in, it’s also yourself, for misplacing all that hope.”

Tragedy has a way of doing that, you know? Reminding you that you’re human and capable of being gutted.” “And still surviving,” I add.

If I’m honest with myself, holding on to all that stuff after all this time feels like a choice. Like in doing so, I’m choosing to be weighed down. Now is as good an opportunity as ever to stop being a bag lady. Someone who hoards all her trauma and drama, packing it away in various bags for safekeeping. Carrying them along with her everywhere she goes so she can unfurl them from time to time, if only just to admire all her problems. It’s time to move on.

And he said, ‘There’s people that won’t like you no matter what you do. You just can’t give ’em a reason for it.’

Another guy, Kyle, seemed promising at first. But when weeks of Good morning, beautifuls and Sweet dreams, loves by text didn’t materialize into anything IRL, my spidey senses went into full effect. It didn’t take long for me to discover he was married—to my hairdresser. So I took a double loss on that one, spending the next year looking for a new beautician who was trained in protective hairstyles.

lmaooo no wayy

Inclusion may be everyone’s favorite buzzword nowadays, but in my experience, The Powers That Be often prefer the likes of us to be hypervisible while staying quietly content. It’s just the sad reality of being a Black creative in Hollywood, I suppose.

“Kind of crazy that we’re the grown-ups now,”

FACTS

“Well, for starters, it’s a verb. You don’t just feel love, it’s a state of being. Like breathing. You don’t think about it, you just do it. When you’re in love with someone, it changes you.”

There’s something freeing about losing yourself to a song on the dance floor of a nightclub. Surrounded by my girlfriends, all of us wearing too much makeup and too little clothing but feeling ourselves no less. I can’t tell where the bass starts and my heartbeat stops but at some point they feel like one singular pulsing thing.

“Celine gave Danny an ultimatum—he could have you on his crew or her in his bed, but not both,” Bella reveals. “And I gotta hand it to her, it was a good line.”

And no matter the response I’d keep my head

down and press forward. Not because I’m so strong and brave, but because my life depends on me lettin’ things be. A reaction only gives ’em what they want anyway.

Because sometimes, unconsciousness is the only remedy for a hot mess day like today.

So, my confession . . . You know that feeling when a song comes on the radio that you haven’t heard in years, and instantly, it’s your favorite song all over again? That’s you. You have been my favorite song all over again since the moment I walked into WAP and saw you at that reception desk.

Because when all is said and done, you are perfect to me. And I am ready to stop pretending that getting along fine will suffice in the place of perfect. And that means I’d be a fool not to try again with you. If you’ll let me.

Because on the dance floor when you asked me what I wanted from you, I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. But I am now. My answer is everything.

Truth is, I didn’t free-fall into love with Danny Prescott. I jumped headfirst and tumbled my way here. And even after all those cuts and bruises, I’m still falling, wondering if maybe this time we can land together.

“There are no boundaries with me, Danny,” I manage to pant out in the brief seconds when our lips aren’t locked. “You can touch me anywhere, everywhere. I want everything I can get from you.”

Don’t confuse history with mere memories of the way things made you feel.

But I’m beginning to see that sometimes the strongest people became that way simply by leading heavy lives.

“We don’t really learn about grief until we’re in it,” Danny says, staring vacantly at some point past my shoulder. “We can read a million pamphlets and watch a hundred talk shows on the topic, but nothing prepares you for what it feels like. It’s gaping and persistent and cold.

Because having your heart broken hurts like hell but breaking the heart of the person you love most in the world is a special kind of agony.

It’s especially insulting to me as a woman of color, a Black woman, who has to work three times harder than everyone else to even be seen. Not

to mention to be listened to, valued, paid, and promoted.”

All things come in due time.