On Rotation

by Shirlene Obuobi

. I don’t think you realize how spec...

I’ve never met anyone...

Angie, he’d said. Can you please just keep your thoughts to yourself for once?

How many times had I looked at that face just to watch it light up like this?

“It’s like, these days, no one’s problems are as big as yours. Like what I do isn’t important.”

Shutting me out. Leaving me behind. For so long, Nia and I had been a reliable source of love for each other. A fountain of validation.

Nia and I were supposed to be forever. I hadn’t even thought to imagine a future where we weren’t.

All she had to do was say the word.

this hurt so much more because I could never have seen it coming.

“it was just a function of time. Maybe you were outgrowing each other, and it just took you a while to notice.”

I wasn’t first, second, or third priority in anyone’s life.

At first, this revelation had hurt beyond measure, but after several days of alternating between feeling sorry for myself and studying away the pain, I’d come to terms with it.

This is you becoming an adult, I decided. Letting go. Learning restraint.

“Letting go. People grow apart. It happens. You have to let go—”

I’d been heartbroken before, so many times that I had practically lost count. It had always hurt but . . . not like this.

“Then, Angie,” Ricky said softly, “you find a way to move on.”

“I’m really glad you’re here, actually.”

I hadn’t expected it to feel like home.

“how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

Maybe he just likes you.

The secret to long-lasting love is simple. You wake up. You roll over and look at your wife. And you say to yourself, today, I will choose you. I will love you. And you keep doing that every single day until you die.’”

“You’re thinking so hard right now,” Ricky said, squeezing my hand. “Everything okay?”

Ricky hummed in affirmation, and then he kissed me again, so slow and deep that I almost felt at peace. When he pulled away, his eyes were bright.

Oh, Ricky. Ever understanding, endlessly considerate. Next time he asks, I thought, I’ll say yes.

how could I not love a man who loved like this? With his whole heart, even when choosing love was hard?

We were supposed to be ride-or-die.

The sun of your stars. The moon of your life.”

Friendship doesn’t have any of that, and so finding a person who will hold you down for no reason is rare.

Labels aren’t good for anything. All they do is limit you.”

I laughed, feeling light as a feather, feeling like I could own the world.

Learning to enjoy my own company. Taking myself out

It was funny, how afraid I’d always been of being alone. I’d clearly been missing out; being alone was lit.

We could talk about anything and everything,

our insecurities, our interests,

I hadn’t recognized that I was getting ahead of myself. Love had seemed so simple.

Always trying to do the right thing for everyone, all the time.

“I want to be with you all the time.

How brave he was to tell me the truth.

Only ever with someone who actually cares about me,

Look at how he’s looking at me. He loves me so much.

Love wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

was supposed to feel safe. It was supposed to feel like home.

Don’t you trust me?”

“I make time,”

Rinse and repeat, day after day.

This was what love was supposed to feel like: uplifting, encouraging, renewing.

Never mind being a strong independent woman who didn’t need no man; what if I needed Ricky? What if my attempts at self-determination had actually been self-sabotage?

together like this, we were unstoppable.

“You were disrespectful to me. I won’t tolerate that. Being family doesn’t get you a free pass to talk to me however you’d like.”

Dorothy Appiah was legendary for her stubbornness, but I could hold my own in a battle of wills.