“Yeah.” A beat passes, and the space between us, only a few inches, feels like it’s getting wider by the moment. “It’s not like I don’t want to come.”

“Sure. Totally get it.”

“It’s just…have you looked at the news? The protests are going to be crazy.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“It’s going to get violent.”

“Yeah. Crazy.”

“It’s probably not a good idea to—”

“—go down, yeah, totally get it. You don’t need to say anything else.”

Damien’s shoulders relax. “Cool, thanks for understanding.”

In that moment, I feel my blood boil. It feels like he’s happy to get out of it, to not have to stare in the face of what’s going on in Baltimore. How nice it must be to just…check out and be happy with ignoring the world. How easy it will be for him to close his door when I leave and go back to whatever he was doing.

“No problem.” I step back, needing to put some distance between us. He may be pretty, but the way he disassociates from what’s happening? Ugly.

“I’ll see you around at school?” he asks. “I wanna see your photos fr—”

“Yeah. See you.”

I hurry to my car, turn the keys so hard and fast I’m afraid they’ll spin around in the ignition, and drive toward the chaos, cranking up Lauryn Hill to drown out my own thumping heartbeat.

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About the Author

Photo by Sarah Nicole Lemon

Born and raised in the DC Metro Area, Kosoko Jackson has worked in digital communications for the past five years. He is currently an MFA candidate at Southern New Hampshire University’s Mountainview MFA program and has a strange love for indie folk, disaster movies, and odd tea flavors. Yesterday Is History is his debut. Visit him at kosokojackson.com.

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