“G-Genevieve?” I say unsurely, my heart pounding. The open space looks like it leads into a sitting room. There must be another room beyond that, where her voice is coming from.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
My hesitation lasts a second, then I’m grabbing the handle of my trunk, tilting it and rolling it inside.
I turn to close the door, except, the door is no longer there.
2: HUNGER
I’m overwhelmed. Great gusts of emotion howl and tumble inside me like tornadoes made of glass, shredding my guts to bits. The front door is closed, but I’m pressed with my back against it, eyes clenched shut with strain, clawing at the wood and biting my lower lip to the point of pain, but not enough to break skin; I at least have enough control left for that.
Ha. Control. I’ve never oncebeenin control, as I’d confirmed last night. What I have is a semblance of restraint—all my mother’s lessons can’t have gone to waste, after all—and I’ve been operating on a hair trigger for days, my famously compact composure as fragile as a cobweb. Seeing Rosemary again very nearly tipped me over the edge.
Fuck.Rosemary. Fuck. Fuck.Fuck. I clench my eyes shut tighter when I feel a traitorous, childish sting.
What is shedoinghere?Whyis she—?
No.
Stop.
I breathe.
And breathe, and breathe, and breathe.
When I open my eyes, the stairs seem further than they should be.
“Please don’t,” I try to snap, but the words come out wary and exhausted. I’m still not sure who I’m talking to. My rapidly deteriorating mind, perhaps.
Rosemary’s still out there. I can hear her.
Before I can stop myself, I’m inhaling. Deeply. Helplessly.
My stomach practically tries to shrink in on itself, my mouth flooding with saliva.
All my life I’ve known hunger. My mother had called it a curse, this unfettered need to consume regardless of how depraved the appetite. She’d trained me to ignore it, to grow so used to its consistent pang it became as inconspicuous as my heartbeat.
So I remember, vividly, the first time I truly began to understand the depths of that hunger. Though the ache had sharpened then, it hadn’t been when Rosemary and I had first met, nearly thirteen years ago, now. It had been a few weeks later, the first time she and I had spent significant time apart.
I hadn’t felt the ache of missing her—or rather, I’d found it easy to ignore because we’d texted and called each other throughout the three-week Christmas break; I still feel a heady rush when I think back to every phone call I’d had to sneak away to make; all those secret text messages, exchanged under the covers and in the dead of night, my phone on silent, screen darkened—my control so perfect my mother hadn’t had a single suspicion I was having my first true taste of something she’d have deemed forbidden.
Then school had resumed, and we’d returned to campus. We met that same day, practically the moment I’d arrived—she’d turned up a few hours before me—and I hadn’t even bothered to unpack my bags.
I’d caught sight of her standing all shy and expectant in front of Chiamaka Hall, and something in me had come sharply awake—a slumbering beast startled to life by the brightening of her features when she’d spotted me.
I heaved in air in great, big gasps, as if all this time I’d been suffocating, and seeing her again had forced my lungs into rapid, excessive motion. The sun had shone on her short, dark curls, framing her oval face, her dark skin warmed and glistening, her lips so soft and full.
I remember half-jogging, stopping just short of entering her personal space. She’d clutched her left arm with her right hand, her pretty, blunt light-green nails digging into skin, teeth sinking harshly into her lower lip, like she wanted to fall into my arms as badly as I suddenly wanted to fall into hers.
That unfamiliar desire had been obvious in its reciprocity but terrifying in its intensity, preventing us from closing the distance, like if we so much as touched, we’d end up fucking passionately for all of homophobic Nigeria to see.
We’d spent the day together in the room she shared with a single roommate, recapping our holidays—things we’d already discussed a hundred times but felt new because we were saying them face to face.
I remember, as the hours had passed and the sun had set, thelookin her eyes, the way they’d pathetically tried to mirror this new, gaping want that had spread through my limbs, digging savagely into my bones like the prickly roots of a stubborn tree. The way we carefully hadn’t touched since we’d reunited; we’d been on her bed, lying on our sides, the few inches of spacebetween us making every part of me ache with the need to be closer.
I remember the way those dark brown eyes had periodically darted to my mouth; always quickly—a microsecond and away, probably hoping I wouldn’t notice. Her roommate had gone clubbing, and even after the sun had set, Rosemary and I had refused to leave the bed. Refused to move, like moving would disrupt this feeling, as frightening and novel as it was.
She’d mentioned something about classes. Cracked a joke, I think. In the warm silence following our laughter, the ache had grown unbearable. We’d shifted closer at the same time, my naive moth drawn to what she thought was a safe, warm light, instead of deadly, crackling ultraviolet.
