The Death of Vivek Oji

by Akwaeke Emezi

Osita wished, much later, that he’d told Vivek the truth then, that he was so beautiful he made the air around him dull, made Osita hard with desire.

I couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through—how much of my mother’s life I missed because I was a child—but I wondered if that was what changed her.

Beautyful. I had no idea why that spelling was chosen, but I liked it because it kept the beauty intact. It wasn’t swallowed, killed off with an i to make a whole new word. It was solid; it was still there, so much of it that it couldn’t fit into a new word, so much fullness. You got a better sense of exactly what was causing that fullness. Beauty. Beauty. I wanted to be as whole as that word.

Some people can’t see softness without wanting to hurt it.

That act of putting nourishment into his body—it was such an alive thing to do.

They were keeping me alive in the sweetest way they knew how, you see.

My expression made me cringe. It was, for lack of a better word, adoring. Unfettered. As if there was no danger of anyone seeing me gaze at him like that.