Trigger warning: Self-harm and sexual assault
SONG: J. Cole - She Knows
🌺
April Levesque
Enkindled beeswax votive candles are in a sedulous hemicycle, their flames stretching, stretching and stretching, enduring the harsh grouches of the caliginous weather. A dark-skinned boy slopes a bouquet of white roses of york against the effervescent, monumental portrait of knife-palette slashes, coloured pencils, shading, pen outlines and fingered smudges.
My portrait.
Is Elias stupid? Last night, he somehow found my number on Whatsapp — he has been trying to contact me for days since Bodie was arrested. With end to end encryption, we texted for hours and I discovered he is Bodie's older brother. He knew Bodie tried to get me to listen to him at Roy's party, and it left me wary.
Coward, he called me. You're a fucking coward.
I'm being cautious.
Why? No comment. Then, he urged: Join us in the protests.
No.
You're a fucking coward.
I have something you might want, I told him. It's a painting I did of Bodie. I was planning to put it out somewhere in the public eye, maybe the school, but ... I'm too scared. You can use it for your protest.
He travelled to my house, his own in one of the derelict districts. I climbed out of my bedroom window and gifted the painting. His expression was gobsmacked in marvel at the beauty. The best artwork I've ever created. The highlight of my creativity. He conjectured printing out copies, using the art as banners and signs... How did he get it in school?
The grey-white lines whelming Bodie's skin are intended to be scars — formulated by society, the creators of society and himself, the powerful; visible to the ignorant-sighted and to the accountable, cherished by the fighters. The background are diminutive, delicate writings of lines from his poems: Laws of nature balanced, stars can't shine without a lil' darkness; but where are they at home? All I see is no glow.
Another: Your care is thoroughly shown, your respect is unknown.
His short dreadlocks are entangled in a ponytail, a tousle of coiled hair at the angular chin. Hooded, dark-tawny irises coruscate the everlasting fatigue and discouragement — a perfect combination, a perfect cry out for help. The corner of his lips faintly tilt, as if he doesn't know how to genuinely smile. Above the illustration is:
BODIE BANKS
2003-2021
SAY HIS NAME
dsome he was! He could have grown into an established writer, could have children if he wished.
Zavian Malik (a Muslim, was born in Dubai) presses his fingers to his lips. Be quiet. This is for him. He appears to be in his early twenties, despite being seventeen. He has that classic beard, handsomely shaven to his ears, and curly, dark, rich hair and lashes, and eyebrows thick and defined, lips plump and nude.
"This is reckless!"
Treyvon Mensah nods at his friends to leave.
Treyvon is gorgeous. Tall and mildly chubby, a durag, has a baby face — don't let that fool you. He is a grunting young man. One of the few who don't change their personas in a private school full of white kids. "This is for him," he retorts in the same spite.
YOU ARE READING
Trying To Endure
Romance{ BOOK 1 of the SANITY SERIES } Secrets are made to stay hidden, and people will take any means necessary to keep it that way. But to April Levesque and Derek Matthews, silence has no place in their worlds. ...
