Addie on the Inside Read Online Free

move on. With or without. It’s not as if
you have a choice.”
    Today I had my first cup of coffee. I sat down at the other end
of the sofa, tucking up my knees, cupping the mug the way my
grandma cups my face. Johnson jumped down from his perch
behind me, rubbed against my legs, and settled at my feet. I
didn’t speak, I didn’t want to ruin Grandma’s sacred time. I
thought about my grandpa, gone two years now and his papers
still piled by the side of his chair. I looked over at my grandma’s
face. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling. Maybe she was
thinking of him. Maybe she was simply glad that I was there.

Young Man
    After they met, Grandma told me, “I like your young man,”
sounding older than she usually does and making me laugh
because, I mean, DuShawn?
    Young man?
    Not so much.
    He did act the part, I guess, asking polite questions
and saying he was sorry to hear her husband had died.
Apparently, I forgot to tell him it was two years ago.
I had this funny moment then, picturing DuShawn and me
together for the rest of our lives and him growing old and
dying the way my grandpa did and what would that be like
and how would I feel.
    Lucky is what I felt. Lucky not to be old or sick or lonely.
Lucky to have
    a young man
    my grandmother likes.

Beautiful
    DuShawn is the kind of boy
who always has a rubber band
working its way through his fingers,
who thinks spitballs are an art form,
who makes everything into a joke,
including, sometimes,
himself.
    DuShawn is the master of sly looks
and cool moves
and smiles that charm the teachers
and, sometimes,
me.
    DuShawn never says anything straight
when he can detour to a wisecrack.
    But once when it was dark and we were walking and
I told him I’d heard Becca Wrightsman tell Royal Wilkins
I was plain as dirt, he did not take a detour. He said,
“Don’t believe what girls say about other girls.
You’re beautiful, Addie. They’re just jealous.”
    I didn’t say anything then,
and neither did he until
he asked if I wanted a stick of gum.
    I said yes, even though I worried
it might be the trick kind
that burns your mouth and
makes you cry.
    It wasn’t. It didn’t.
    DuShawn, it seems, is more than
one kind of boy.

Here We Go Again
    â€œListen to this,” I say to DuShawn,
but when he sees I am holding
a book of poems by Langston Hughes,
he says before I can even read him
what I wanted to, “Here you go
again.”
    â€œWhat is that supposed to mean?”
I shoot back, knowing that it means
here
we
go again, that our voices
will start rising and our palms
will start sweating. Let the fighting
begin.
    â€œWhy you got to read
that
poet?”
DuShawn asks. “Why you always
Maya Angelou’in’ me and askin’ me
did I hear that new song by Bee-
Yon-Say? Why you out-blackin’ the
black guy?”
    â€œAnd why are
you
talking like ‘you
from the hood,’ when the only hood
you’ve ever been in is the one
on top of your hoodie? Talking
ghetto doesn’t make you any
blacker.”
    â€œI talk the way I talk, girl,” to which
I say, “I am not your girl. I’ve got a
name.” “Yeah?” says DuShawn.
“I got a name for you too, want to hear
it?” I want to throw the book in his
face,
    but I like Langston Hughes too much
for that. “I am going in,” I tell DuShawn,
and he says, “I’m already gone.” He
takes off down the street, leaving me
sitting on my front porch steps alone with
Langston.
    I never get to read him the poem.
It isn’t about being black.
It’s about loving a friend who
went away. DuShawn’s friend
Kevin isn’t speaking to him
anymore.
    I thought he would like the poem.
I thought it might make him feel
better. Well, he probably would have
just snorted and said, “Me and Kevin
didn’t love each other, girl. That is
so gay.”
    Here we go again, throwing words at
each other the way people