What's Mine and Yours

by Naima Coster

“They seem so old,” Inéz whispered. “My grandmother is less astonished by my life.” “Welcome to the burbs, mami,”

At sixteen, she’d been full of lust and opinions, capable of real feeling and sound judgment. She hadn’t needed lectures or coddling; most girls didn’t. They needed choices.

Noelle figured this was bound to be her life if she stayed tethered to the people she had known since she was a girl. They’d be decent in some ways; they’d astonish her with how they seemed to keep up with the news, the shifting language around identity and race. Once, she’d even overheard Lacey May refer to Alma as a person of color. But they’d be incensed, too, by the encroachments they saw on their world—the stars cast in movie franchises they had formerly adored, the people who had the nerve to go to marches and complain and vote in elections. They would guard everything they had, however little, as if their lives were prizes they’d rightly won that others had no right to claim. They’d never admit how willingly they’d played their parts.

I don’t need death to remind me how good life is. If I had an infinite amount of life, I’d be happy to go on living.