“I guess I’m telling you because I don’t think I can imagine Jane being my girlfriend. She reminds me of how I felt around Olivia. My sister. I mean they’re nothing alike. Probably would’ve hated each other. But she gives me that feeling of having someone who always wants to see me.” Ayanna left out, thinking it was too weird to say aloud, some of Jane’s appeal was she seemed so completely disinterested in being in love with anyone but herself. Her guiding focus seemed to be a deep cultivation of herself and her ideals. Almost every woman Ayanna had ever met seemed to have internalized the idea that being a woman was to always seek some external approval like from God, from daddies of all genders who encouraged please-like-me-at-all-costs mentalities. It wasn’t that people who weren’t women didn’t want approval, but Ayanna felt regularly to be seen by other people as a woman meant you were expected to build your life around wanting approval. Hanging out with Jane was a reminder not everyone felt that way. The closest thing Ayanna had to having future plans was a desire to care about other people but to never let their opinions about her be the North Star of her life.

Ayanna realized some of the ease she felt with him came from not having to find a way to ever tell him, “The world is full with spirits and I can see them.” He already knew this information, accepted it, and wanted to know, to see more. It was hard not to be jealous of how comfortable he was with all this.

A tree branch almost hit her in the face. Ayanna ducked and nearly tripped into Felix’s back. She caught herself on a tree trunk and scraped her hand a little bit. It had only ached to refer to Olivia in the past tense. Ayanna watched blood bloom out, how it became thinner in the rain hitting her raised palm. Felix was still walking ahead of her, unaware of their near collision.

14