It was no wonder why, by fifteen, I already knew what it felt like to feel nothing. But that night there was this boy in the third-floor stairwell. I wouldn’t even know his name until weeks later. He shot an old basketball toward the ceiling with a disciplined flick of his thin-boned wrist. I saw him first from behind when I rounded the landing that dipped from the fourth floor to the third, where my mother and I lived. Without even seeing his face, I knew I had never seen him before. I could tell his legs were long though he folded them into himself like a grasshopper perched to jump. Underneath a thin blue tank top, his muscles curled broad, smooth, and even like a legato along his spine. A red Chicago Bulls cap covered his Afro—knotted black florets just begging for long fingers to cut and curl through to a scalp. I remember I paused just to peek at him longer before I passed. Gray sweats bunched about his knees, the fine sparseness of the hair on his coco-colored legs marked his immaturity. The delectable strength and tone in his calves ignited my electric. As if sensing someone scoping him out, the next time he shot the ball toward the ceiling he lost his cool. Just a little break in form and the ball went in its own direction, back behind him and almost into my stomach. I turned just in time for the ball to miss my middle and hit my side.

“Damn, boy, watch it! Shit… goddamn! Ow …”

When the boy I liked without first even seeing his face finally did turn around and stand, I was disappointed. He really wasn’t all that, not like his backside had insinuated. His face was ashy, acne-scarred; I sucked in my breath when I saw a quarter-sized circle of bleach-white skin marking his cheek like blush slapped on in such a hurry it did more harm than good. He jumped up to help me, said something like “Aw, my fault,” then threw up his hand like he was waiting for some secret handshake. But I had nothing better to do with my night than join the rest of the world and shove a Black boy back into his place. A flair for the dramatic was another of the few things my father had given me, so I couldn’t accept the apology without letting my annoyance be known.

After I cursed him out loud, in my head I added clumsy Black ass Negro but was too scared to say it. He was a foot taller than me.