When I start to date in college, my collection of intimate pet names will run the gamut of well-thought-out, uplifting names, like Stevie—a play on my last name, Stevens. Fe Fe will stick around. Baby will return, it’s my go-to, for some reason, and works only when I’m in a truly intimate relationship with a man. But something else will happen as I age. I will return to Felicia, and it will feel like a prestigious name.

For a while it will hold, and then, it will seem to dissipate altogether when I step into dual roles of teacher at an academy and youth pastor of a church. Then, I’ll become Pastor Stevie. Before the community settles on this title for me, when I’m still little Fe Fe from Robert Taylor, I will ingest too many disgusting, spirit-breaking insults floating in the atmosphere, some meant for me, others, like stray bullets, piercing tissue because I happened to be standing nearby while the violence ensues.

After returning home from Roseland, feeling awful, I didn’t have the nerve to go to Tonya’s house and deal with her dragon of a mother. I went to get Precious instead, and just hoped Tonya would come by. I saw Stacia down in the playground sitting on the bench’s back, her feet on the seat: Project kid behavior, I thought. I called her name through the gate, something I didn’t usually do, and she ran into the building and all the way upstairs. Even though she smelled like a skunk, from sitting around people smoking weed, I was so glad to see her. She joined us in the square, and we started a game. I watched the stairs every chance I got, but Tonya didn’t come down that evening. Though I didn’t have everyone, it felt good to be back home with my friends, who in that moment felt like family.

I didn’t know why, but the next day at school, Stacia had an attitude.

Precious could feel it too; she kept looking at us look at each other. Stacia sat at the front of the class, next to Ms. Pierce, while me and Precious got sandwiched between the masses of students. We sat kitty-corner to one another, though, so we smirked and winked at each other all day.

Stacia wanted to talk about Tonya. She must’ve seen her do something on the block while I was away, and I guess she’d been thinking about it the whole time I was at my aunt’s house. She couldn’t wait to get me alone. When we had our first group bathroom trip, she stood outside my stall until I swung it open.

“How come you brought that dirty girl in the square?”

I pushed past her and went to wash my hands at the sink, concentrating hard on the spaces between fingers, washing like they were caked in dried paint.