You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

by Akwaeke Emezi

Feyi had already decided who she wanted to be that night,

“Fuck I care about a husband.”

Feyi liked the proofs of want, like Milan making reckless choices in that bathroom, like this man making a fool of himself right now.

In the light of day, it was just reckless and foolish. In the bloody glow of that bathroom, it had felt different, but Feyi knew Joy was right. Milan had done what felt good for his dick,

he’d want to share this morning quiet with her, he’d break it with his voice, with his hands. She felt possessive of herself,

before she made the mistake of thinking an escape could be a real life.

Feyi to become the girl he’d screamed at in his father’s house, someone he could intimidate because 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.

“Imagine that, Feyi. We’re alive, and I love you.”