Sweet Thing

Changes

Quan

As I freed clothes from hangers and cleared out my closet, Lupe thumbed through my CD collection and Kembe napped on my bed. Alan had proposed on Valentine's Day and now I had to leave the only house I'd ever known. My moms was gonna get us into his house ASAP, despite anything that mighta been happening with me or how I was feeling. Typical of her when it came to him.

"Quan, you got a Lloyd CD?" she asked with audible surprise.

"Yeah, all four," I answered. Lupe picked one and put it into my Xbox to let it play. It sounded nice. She swayed to it for a few moments, but returned to her pillow by my feet.

"I can't believe that your mom is really moving you. She's not gonna wait until the end of the school year? Summer is only like two months away now."

My arms fell to my sides and I shook my head. I told her, "It don't matter to her. I'mma be going to some new school next year, too. You'd think if you stayed in a community this long, you'd wanna finish out your senior year, but I can't even get that."

"I'm sorry, baby, I know moving is tough. I'm lucky to have only done it once. Going from the Bronx to west Indianapolis was a shift, even though I was really young. Don't forget I'm here for you."

"Nah, I won't, princess." I dropped to my knees to kiss her. I wasn't worried cuz my mama was gone and Kembe was fast asleep. Although we kissed every time we saw each other, every single one was special. Lupe valued me. I could see it in her eyes. Sometimes, I'd look over at her and she was already smiling warmly at me. Nobody did that, not my moms, not Alan, not Uncle Mac, not my dad, not anybody. Kembe loved me, obviously, but he was still a little boy and too young to express it yet. I knew Lupe didn't have feelings that deep, but I knew she cared about me and that was close enough.

"Quan, do you think you know what you wanna do with your life and everything yet?" Lupe had a knack for asking me those philosophical questions out of nowhere. On the phone at night, she could ask me about the size of the universe or fate or the afterlife and we'd discuss it for hours on end.

"Yeah, I'd be a teacher if parents start being cool with a fag around their kids by then. If not, I'mma be a professor of sociology at a university somewhere. What 'bout you?"

"Stop calling yourself a fag, you're more than that, Quan. And I'mma do something that'll make muy dinero," she grinned. "I wanna be an accountant for a huge corporation and make six figures, you know? I jus gotta find a way to pay for college first and all that and I can get there easy, no problem. If I don't die first, that is."

"Why would you die first?" I sat cross-legged against the wall, and Lupe put her head in my lap. Her curls were soft in my hands and I happily played with the untamed strands. They bounced back into shape when I gently unfurled them.

"Trans* girls get killed a lot, Quan. And so do Brown girls in general, so being both is kinda dangerous. Especially in places where there's not many girls like us to have a community."

"There's girls like us," I protested, "they just live in the city and stuff. We're out in the 'burbs."

"It's worse for us in the city. More people are there to potentially get us."

"I guess you're right, but where in America could you go that's completely safe for us? Nowhere." A tear rolled down Lupe's cheek and I wiped it away with my own trembling hand. I'd been trying to speak optimistically, but it was just a strong front I put up for Lupe. It was like seeing the sun dim when Lupe cried. She was the happiest, most positive thing in my life and to see her smile stolen stealthily by reality stung. "You can cry, princess, you can cry."