Nevaeh

And if you were more structured and disciplined?

I was sitting on my bed this time she came over, paper in hand. It stayed folded as she took a seat next to me.

"I'd be working on Capitol Hill," verbalizing her response. "Maybe a senator or a congresswoman. I have a degree in Criminal Justice. I wanted to be an attorney, a prosecutor actually. I did an internship at probation and parole. But then I saw how bad felons were being mistreated, and that the majority of them were African American. Then one day they're bringing in somebody for a probation violation report—it was my cousin who was addicted to heroin. I was the one who had to write up the report. I was devastated. I left not too long after, got a sales job instead."

She continued on, telling me about growing up in the church, how it was her whole childhood. She was church secretary as soon as she could hold a pencil. All-day Sunday services, then cleaning the sanctuary on Monday, choir on Tuesday, Bible study Wednesday, board meetings on Thursday, missionary work Friday, choir again Saturday. She loved God, and Jesus, Mary, Peter, Paul, Joseph. Really, she loved everyone in the Bible. But then her body started waking up.

"My hormones were racing out of control and no one at church explained what to do about any of that," rolling her eyes. "Other than don't kiss a boy because if you do you're going to end up pregnant. And don't kiss a girl or you're going straight to hell with gasoline drawers on. No forgiveness for that."

I could imagine her, 15 years old, burning in a church pew. I could feel the intensity in her sitting across from me, those two forces aimed against each other; desire and everything the world does to try to force it down.

"My favorite verse is I Corinthians 13:4-8: 'Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, love never ends,'" her eyes closed, chin nodding in time with the rhythm.

"And, here I am, an impatient, erratic, arrogant, boastful, proudful, irritable, resentful woman who rejoices in wrongdoing and all in the name of love. I'm enduring a lot of bullshit in the name of love. Love for who? Love for what?" Her exasperation looked around for an answer. "Like really, what the fuck? Love is within and it moves through me, but it took me a long ass time to realize and recognize love."

"What's it feel like when you recognize it?" I asked, grateful for the river beginning to pour out from behind the door she had kept closed so long.

"Oh, you know what that was like," She smiled, settling into the flow. She went on telling her love story. "Everybody sends a stand-in to the first date. I sent in my 'sweet Southern church girl.' He sent his 'quiet provider with a strong backbone.' Time goes by and the real ones arrive. That was my toilet bowl boyfriend."

"Your…wait, what?" I asked, laughing, not quite sure I'd heard her right.

"Oh, he hates when I call him that," she replied, laughing along with me. "He's always saying, 'I have a name!' It was when I was locked up in Philly, it's an old building. People talk through the plumbing. You flush first so the line clears. Then you lean in and sound carries through the pipes, cell to cell. At first all you get is a voice and a tone. You can lie about the facts but you cannot fake that electricity. That is how I met him."

"Eventually, we got to know who we really are. I cuss and yell. Turns out he's soft and tender. I yell at him but he does not yell back. He says, 'okay baby, calm down, I got you.'" She laughed from low in her throat. "Tender," she said. "Tender like dough."

"He's a good one, they're not all like that. I'm in here because of another man. My first love. It was a whirlwind romance." She paused, remembering. "But that whirlwind ended with an indictment."

I nodded. It wasn't the first story I'd heard like this, a wayward romance that ended up somewhere those first innocent flirtations couldn't have guessed.

"My lawyer comes in with that indictment and it says in bold letters United States of America vs. Davina Chris. All I could think was, How the fuck the whole US government versus me? I got convicted. Sat in court while the judge called me a 'master manipulator.'"