I REJECTED HIS REJECTION

RY

so fast I knocked ov

ay in the café hit the til

d," Tunde

don't

ed aggre

f counter where Idris's fingers had been, because the skin on the back of m

e," I

s for him, and I had a rebuttal for every one. He didn't make a single on

s someh

lse under his collar with every step, slow and heavy, like something breathing. At the door he reached for the

n off the street, and then the d

been holding for what

him through

iron, and his coat was moving. I don't know how else to say it. Something was moving underneath it,

st, were wrong. The knuckles were

side me. "Oh, he is not doin

my s

lly, it's

road lifted his phone. Idris must have heard them, because his head came up, and even from wher

uld see his lips movi

gh the glass. He dragged his head up, and his eyes were not brown. They were something paler, some

e shut

d them again,

man with the umbre

and perfectly polite. "Thank yo

once been anything but a person. A black car was idling at the curb with its lights off. He did

glass for a v

full of lanterns. But about the rest. About how much it hurt him. I had decided it was a small hurt, a pride-hurt, a fine th

an hold his own body t

d, after a while.

m f

fine. You t

h him. He touch

your

un

ounter, and then, instead of going back to wipe things, came and stood in front of me with his arms folded. The joke

t came out wet.

believ

ch is a thing I'm not always wil

t know,

s not

t a yes,

"And if he's lying, I'll ruin him. And if he's not..." He pause

e an i

grabbed his jacket. "

four b

's a sho

un

n try to grow fur on my sidewalk. I'm walking you to your door, I'm checking yo

know, because I heard him through the door say, loudly, "I can hear you lo

, because I told myself for years

a san

k about him. I thought about him so hard I could have drawn the shape of his hands. I thought about t

was stil

I had worked very hard on her. She owned a business and kept her accounts in order and could walk past a man in a good

had leaned. For one second, with the whole café watching, every cell I owned had tur

t then. I hated the part of me that had s

um and pressed, the way you press a

w

y apartment is on the fourth floor, and the window over the sink looks out on no

me, a woman in an old T-shirt with her braids

e brown eyes for

ere no

in the black glas