They talked every day after that, mostly online until she was comfortable giving him her phone number. Then, they wouldtalk all night when the city was quiet, and the streets were filled with blankets of snow. She told him about poems and stories that she never showed anyone. He told her about his mother’s passing and how hard it was living with his stepfather, who reminded him every chance he had that he wasn’t his real son. He spared her the details of his broken ribs and busted lips. She could feel the bruises in his voice enough to know.
They swapped stories, playlists, and dreams. It was digital intimacy in its purest form.
By the time the snow hit the ground that year, he knew her whole name—Princess Love Melendez—her go-to Coney Island order, and that she hated her arms.
“Flabby and droopy,” she would say. “Just like how I feel.”
But he had grown to love every inch of her, body and mind. She became his safe space when he escaped the wrath of his stepfather. She was the only light in his darkness. She knew that she gave him something to look forward to, and he became something she wanted to build toward.
The day he realized he had fallen hard crept up on him like a thief in the night. He pulled up to her parents’ house in his beat up dark blue Ford Fusion and parked on the side of the street. She came rushing out, excited and smiling like the sun lived inside of her. When she reached the car, she paused.
“Nigga, pull up. I am a lady! You don’t see this big ass puddle of water right here?”
“Damn, nigga! I ain’t see it! My bad!” He laughed in response.
“How the hell you expect me to walk over? What you think, I’m Jesus or somethin’? You want me to ruin my shoes? I just got these.”
Zay chuckled. He loved how her playful nature mirrored his own. It was one of his favorite things about her. As she climbed into the passenger seat and clinked her seat belt,T.E.D.’s song suddenly blasted through the radio. She screamed in excitement. He drove down the street, stunned. When he reached the corner, he parked at the stop sign, and they both jumped out. They circled the car and met at the hood screaming, dancing, and reciting the lyrics together as if they were the only people in the world. It was one of the most memorable moments of the beginning of his success as an artist. In that moment, he knew that he appreciated her more than he’d realized before. Her constant support and belief in him were magic. That made her magic to him.
They hopped back into the car, talking and cracking jokes the whole ride downtown. Zay had taken a left off Jefferson and parked near the Detroit Riverwalk. The city buzzed behind them, but out here, it was quieter. Calmer. The water moved like a slow lullaby, reflecting the lights from Windsor, Canada, across the river.
They hopped out of the car and walked side by side under the dim streetlamps, fingers brushing but never quite intertwining. Princess wore a bubblegum pink hoodie, the strings pulled tight around her face, and a pair of gold hoops that caught the light every time she turned her head to laugh.
Zay couldn’t stop looking at her.
“You ever think about what life could really look like if we made it out?” he asked. His hands were tucked in his jacket pockets, and his Timberlands scuffed against the pavement.
“Out of what?”
“Detroit. The grind. The mess. Just . . . out.”
Princess looked at the water thoughtfully. “I think about it every day. But I also think . . . the story starts here. All the best ones do.”
He smiled at that. She always had a way of making things sound like poetry.
Just as he was about to say something else, the sky cracked open, and rain poured down without warning.
Princess shrieked and covered her head, but Zay grabbed her hand and laughed, pulling her into a sprint.
They ran, drenched and breathless. They laughed so hard they could barely see where they were going. By the time they reached Chene Park’s amphitheater, they were soaked through. Their shoes squished, and hair clung to their faces. They didn’t care. They were alive and young and in love with a moment that didn’t cost them a thing.
Zay let go of her hand and jogged up the steps to the stage. The open-air roof covered them, and the city skyline stood like an audience in the background.
“One day,” he said and spread his arms wide, “I’m gonna play this stage. Whole crowd screaming my name. You watch.”
Princess raised an eyebrow. “Just one day?”
He pointed at her, eyes lit with fire. “Soon. You’ll be front row too. Pink hoodie and all.”
She laughed and shook her head then turned it back toward the water.
Zay reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his digital camera. It wasn’t fancy, just something he’d saved up for from selling CDs and helping his cousin clean out basements.
“Hold still,” he said.
She turned just slightly with her hood up, eyes soft, lips curved in a half-smile, looking out at the river like it had all the answers.
Click.
