Seven Days in June

by Tia Williams

“Look at history,” Eva continued, rubbing a temple. “Roxanne Shanté out-rapping grown men at fourteen. Serena winning the US Open at seventeen. Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein at eighteen. Josephine Baker conquering Paris at nineteen. Zelda Fitzgerald’s high school diary was so fire that her future husband stole entire passages to write The Great Gatsby. The eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley published her first piece at fourteen, while enslaved. Joan of Arc. Greta Thunberg. Teen girls rearrange the fucking world.”

“No matter how perilous the journey, it’s never over for true soul mates. Who doesn’t want a connection that burns forever, despite distance, time, and curses?”

Hope was Lizette’s greatest downfall. She was like a kid at one of those toy claw machines at Chuck E. Cheese. The claw never actually picks up a toy, no matter how strategically you aim—the game is obviously rigged. But you try every time, because the hope of it finally working, just this once, is such a thrill.

The program encouraged therapy, but fuck no. He was a writer—why would he give his shit away for free?

While Shane Hall had had tremendous success thanks to his writing, the writing happened to come from a person who was never supposed to be famous.

“Listen, caring about things don’t make you soft. It makes you alive.”

He loved that kid too much. He didn’t know how to mentor without loving. Maybe doing this wasn’t healthy.

He knew Ty probably wouldn’t make it to his planetarium internship. He might not make it, period. Shane couldn’t control that, but he would stay in touch. He always did. He had a Ty or a Diamond or a Marisol or a Rashaad in every city. He’d keep them all alive by sheer force of will. The new Shane didn’t love and then vanish.

One day, when she was lonely and pimply and thirteen, Eva stole it from her bedroom. Lizette never noticed. Her mom never noticed anything.

“I feel like the office vixen on a network drama about sultry lawyers.” “Worked for Meghan Markle.

Shane tricked his readers into seeing humanity, not circumstance. You walked away from his books dazed, wondering how he’d managed to rip out your heart before you realized what was happening.

Shane was allowed to be exactly himself. His whole career, he’d done whatever the hell he’d wanted—evading interviewers, dropping off the face of the planet, sleepwalking through events Eva would kill to be invited to—and generally been awarded for bad behavior in a way that, in the history of creative pursuits, no female artist had ever been indulged. Women didn’t get to be bad boys.

Girls are given the weight of the world, but nowhere to put it down.

“Look, this quote-unquote current sociopolitical climate? It’s always been my climate. I’ve been up against Trumps and Pences and Lindsey Grahams since forever. The first one was the guard I was trapped alone in a cell with at eight years old. No laws, no cameras, no mercy. What happened in that hour made me the kind of person who doesn’t feel obligated to workshop racism with white people.” He shrugged. “The burden isn’t on me to explain it, Rich. The burden’s on y’all to fix it. Good luck.”

Also, you know how Eva has Sebastian’s signature branded on her wrist? The zig-zag “S”? This Shane guy has a “G” signature branded on his wrist. SAME PLACE, SAME ZIG-ZAG SCRIPT. G is for Gia, obviously. He’s obsesseddd.

omg... I gasped

“Stop writing about me.” Only Eva could’ve noticed the change in his expression. She saw the flinch. The slow, satisfied curl of his lip. His bronzy-amber eyes flashing. It was like he’d been waiting years to hear those words. Like the girl whose pigtails he’d been yanking during recess all year had finally shoved him back. He looked gratified. In a voice both raspy and low, and so, so familiar, Shane said, “You first.”

AHHHHHHHHHH

“You a dealer? My bad if I owe you money.” “I look like a dealer to you?” “I’ve had girl dealers.” He shrugged. “I’m a feminist.”

And he knew that he was fucked.

i love when men are obsessed withtheir female love interests ugh

“You burst into my solitude, demanding to be seen. You were overwhelming. Just wild and weird and brilliant, and I never had a choice. I liked everything about you. Even the scary parts. I wanted to drown in your fucking bathwater.”

“I idealize you in fiction because I idealized you in real life,”

Back in the dark ages, when his loneliness was like quicksand, when he’d ruin himself to make it stop—and the only bright spot in all of this was loving a beautiful girl with demons ferocious enough to slay his own.

If reviewers were to be believed, his novels could rearrange the way a reader thought, sparking existential epiphanies. But he could never reach himself.

He’d always appreciated families from a distance, looked at them like they were a fascinating experiment: all that intimacy and domesticity couldn’t have been more foreign.

Before Eva had so dramatically collided with him on the bleachers, Shane had felt like he was slipping away. And there was certainly no school counselor, no parent, no concerned social worker grounding him to the earth. Then he met Eva, and she breathed the same air. She stuck to his bones, imprinted herself on his brain—and thoroughly rearranged his world, in the best way.

Teenage girls couldn’t wait to be ruined.

It felt like she was supposed to come next. Like the chapter had already been written, and they were just taking their places. Like he already knew her by heart.

“If you have the opportunity to make a moment meaningful, why not take it?”

“Do you ever think of me?” Lightly, he ran his tongue along her neck, up to her ear, nibbling on her lobe. “I never learned how to stop.”

Whatever Shane sparked in her, she’d thought she’d outgrown. But they weren’t who they used to be. They were better.

Shane wasn’t a thing to outgrow. He’d always fit. No matter how old or young or sophisticated or raw she was. No matter how much time had passed. Shane was inevitable.

Books were her kids. They cuddled up with her at night, kept her warm, quieted her thoughts when her marriage seemed thin, her life choices felt pointless, or her job seemed stagnant.

“Missing you never ends,”

“I never realized I was lonely,” he said. “Until I met you and I wasn’t anymore.”

When the cops got there, it took all three of them to drag him away from you.”

Why did she get that kind of adoration, when Lizette had never experienced it? It wasn’t the order of things. It wasn’t fair.

booooo

Back then, I was convinced that I ruined everything I touched.”

“I love you,” said Shane. “Dramatically, violently, and forever.”

I wanna be where all your paths end.”

It was Ty, phoning him to death—which was a little much, given that they’d just talked that morning

uh oh

You might feel bored or lonely or even rejected, but she can’t help being sick.” Audre rested her hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Mom feels guilty about who she is. Make her feel happy about herself.”

It was only five minutes past their 10:00 a.m. reservation time; he’d be there soon.

anxiety inducing

You push stuff away that isn’t safe and obvious, Mom, but love isn’t safe and obvious. Love is risky. Take the risk, woman.”

Lizette would never get it. Eva needed her for everything. She’d just never had her.

She wanted steady love. A love that was too ordinary to inspire fiction. A collection of sacred, small, everyday moments—not high-stakes drama. She wanted a relationship that was a choice, every minute of every day.

he wondered why the sweetest things in his life had to be poisoned with tragedy.

Women are expected to absorb traumas both subtle and loud and move on. Shoulder the weight of the world. But when the world fucks with us, the worst thing we can do is bury it. Embracing it makes us strong enough to fuck the world right back.

“This is for the misfit.”

EVA: Sometimes I wish you were here. Experiencing this with me. SHANE: It’s all I think about.

Mr. Hall, you should really go to therapy. Black men don’t go, and it’s an epidemic.

“I’ve been roaming around forever, and I’ve never been anywhere I wasn’t itching to leave.”