You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

by Akwaeke Emezi

She liked the city as an entity better; it didn’t care who you were or what your damage was, it ate everyone up indiscriminately.

Her father had quoted Toni Morrison at her while explaining that a job was a job, you went to it and then you came home, and home was where you belonged.

And that’s something I’ve learned in the years since, that there are so many different types of love, so many ways someone can stay committed to you, stay in your life even if y’all aren’t together, you know? And none of these ways are more important than the other.”

“Tonight, we are celebrating Feyi and the art she makes, work that reminds me that grief can also be

the softness when the spikes are removed, something that gives your palate joy, something that can fill your belly. And for that, Feyi, I thank you.”

He tasted like sin and coffee.

“Careful,” Alim warned, his eyes smoky. “We’re not going to get around to talking if you keep looking at me like that.”

“A lot of people have come up this mountain,” he was saying. “You’re the first one I don’t want to let back down.”

“I’m glad you did. And then today, I blinked, and you were in my arms, and all I could think was that I’ve spent a significant amount of time trying to change what I feel into something else, and I can’t. I am so tired of denying myself, Feyi. Not even for my children. Not after giving up Devon. There’s not enough life to keep living like that, so yes, it will hurt my son, but I want you. I want you for myself, and that, that is why I kissed you.”

“And I want to spend an obscene amount of time discovering you. It’s honestly half the fun.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” Alim dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I’m saying you make me feel not alone, Feyi. I don’t think you understand how hard I’ll fight for that, how long it’s been since I had that.” “Twenty years, four months, three weeks?” He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s like that?”

“He loved people being messy as fuck—he said it was one of the best things about being human, how we could make such disasters and recover from them enough to make them into stories later.”

What we decide to do is ours, if you want it to be.

“You fill me with light till I feel like I’m about to splinter apart from it, so there’s that. It’s a feeling I’d like to keep around.” “Convenient. What was second?”

“You’re my friend,”

“It’s nice to dance it with someone who you’re safe with. When it can just be dancing.”

“Because I could wash my hands and do other things with them, if you’d rather.” Feyi laughed and pushed him gently back to the counter. “I’m starving,”

“Yes,” he replied. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you—so am I.”

“I love you, but pass me the motherfucking popcorn, ’cause this is about to be a shitshow.”

“For you, Feyi? Anything.”

His feelings are real, she’d tell Joy, you should have heard him. You could build a house on how sure his voice was; you could build a house that would never fall down. And Joy would laugh, but it would be true, Feyi knew it would be true.

“You’re a whole world to me, Feyi. I could spend the rest of my life learning you and I’d never get tired.” He let out a brief chuckle. “I should be asking you why you feel this way about some old man.” “Don’t be ridiculous. You know exactly how exceptional you are.” “Ah, sweetness.” He shook his head and squeezed her hands. “Sometimes I count the decades I might have with you, if I’m lucky?”

she had chosen to be soft, chosen to care, chosen to allow her heart to shed the deep rot-dark scales it grew on that road. Men like Nasir didn’t see the other parts, the fork in the road, the thing she was before she decided to live again.

What did survival mean? Madness, certainly. Guilt, but she didn’t want to lean into that.

“You can see it in any stage it’s in,” she said. “I don’t care. I like showing myself to you.” There was a tinge of something new in the air between them, as if they both understood without having to say it that once the painting was complete, Feyi would leave the island.

“What?” He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them lightly in his hand. “You should tell my dad you’ve fallen in love with him.”

“I’m in love with you,” he said again. “I love you, Feyi. I love how you skin fear and move through it. I love how you lean into grief and somehow use it to be even more alive. You’ve shifted my whole world, brought me light and company and a joy I forgot I could feel. I’m not letting a little distance get in the way of this.”

“I can’t wait for you to see mine.” He was coming home with her. They were going home together. “Fuck, I have no idea how we’re going to do this.” “That’s fine, my love.” Alim’s breath was warm against her skin. “We have time.”