"Silhouette of a perfect frame
Shadows of your smile will always remain
Beginner's luck soon fades away, oh, baby
We go on, I will always stay

Long as I live (Long as I live, you will be my first love)
My first love (Girl, oh...)
Long as I live (You will by my first love)
My first love (And I'll choose you again)"

Rene & Angela- "My First Love"

"I don't think you've thought this through, Erik, so I refuse to accept what you're saying."

Erik sat on the couch in Disa's living room and watched Chloe toss back her hair over her shoulder as she glared at him with wine-laced eyes. The words 'We should break up' had fallen on deaf ears. Chloe was not having it.

Disa had been away from Cambridge for over a month and Erik had enjoyed the freedom of living in her home… alone… until Chloe insisted on coming over to spend time with him. He had chickened out with breaking up with her after his birthday celebration. Disa flew out of town and her presence away from him was like being weaned off of a narcotic. He went to class, TA'd, practiced capoeira in Disa's backyard, and cooked heavy meals for himself in her kitchen. He put off breaking up and indulged Chloe's company longer. Without Disa being around, Erik's life was normal. In fact, Chloe shone brighter in his eyes and he thought he'd made a mistake about breaking up so soon. They went to the movies; he cooked her meals at the house and they had long slow sex in his new bed inside Disa's guest bedroom. The sex had him sated and making travel plans with Chloe. They would have to fly to Italy soon to take part in a wedding party for their classmate. He was living the life.

But out of the blue, Disa hit him up on a face chat to ask about an unexpected package that was due to arrive and she wanted to make sure someone was there to sign for it. The moment Erik saw her face, it was like being hooked on a drug again. Her beautiful face, full lips, and plush body had him pining for her even though he was dicking down a baddie on the regular.

"The house must be treating you well," Disa said.

Her eyes twinkled, and the cleavage on her pink sweater was low and seductive to his eyes. The tops of her breasts were difficult to ignore and Erik hated how base he was in just turning into a horn dog looking at her. He couldn't help himself. She was the ultimate aphrodisiac. After their brief chat, Erik steeled himself to dump Chloe. But she had other plans.

"Chloe, I'm telling you point-blank. I don't want us to be a couple anymore—"

"Why? Give me valid reasons besides some vague, 'it's not working out for me'."

"I have a lot going on right now with school."

"So do I. But I make time for us."

"I just feel this pressure from you."

"What kind of pressure? Get to the point, Erik."

"You want a serious commitment. I'm thinking of us as more of a casual connection."

Her eyes welled up then. She tilted her head and glared at him.

"Casual? We've been together in a monogamous relationship for a few months. I don't think of us as casual. We don't act casual. Are you cheating on me?"

"What? No."

"Don't lie, Erik."

"I'm not cheating—"

"Are you thinking of cheating? Have you met some potential sneaky link?"

"Nah, I'm just… not feeling it no more."

"What changed?"

"Chloe—"

"Tell me! What changed? Because you don't act like something's wrong. You keep stuffing your dick in me. You call me and chat about where to go to eat or what we're doing on the weekend. If we were having problems, I would've noticed something!"

Her voice rose, and he held her hand. The waterworks started, and he felt horrible. He did like her. He had fun with her. The sex was bomb. He hugged her, and she begged him to tell her what she did wrong to make him dislike her and he fucked up by telling her he didn't dislike her and that she was good people. Then, like a simp, he made her dinner and allowed her to walk him back into being a couple still. He drove her back to her dorm to meet up with some female friends for a girl's night out, and she blessed him with dick-sucking in his car. Chloe's head bobbed in his lap and he fell back into a relationship that he didn't want. Her fellatio was top-notch, and his legs shook when he came in her mouth. Perhaps he was being hasty in trying to drop her. Maybe the intense feelings he had for Disa were just late-stage adolescent crushing. Disa sure as hell treated it as such.

His heart broke a little when he checked her social media and saw pictures of her hugged up with Hollis. Apparently, the man had flown down to see Disa in Los Angeles. There were photos of them visiting the California African American Museum and sexy shots of Disa in a bikini over on Venice Beach. They had to be fucking each other because Hollis was hugged up on her like they were still intimate. It burned him to see her IG posts of dinner dates with her ex. He was jealous.

A tough week doing his TA duties made him spend an entire weekend alone cooking comfort foods and reading books in Disa's home library. He was drawn toward political tomes she held dear, even cracked open some poetry books. One book, in particular, drew his eye, a manifesto of revolutionary movements in the diaspora by an obscure professor who died in the early nineties. He became intrigued by a stack of papers written by Disa during her time working on her Masters. Her Master's thesis was a hefty one hundred and thirty pages and he spent a quiet afternoon reading it. The gist of the paper was Disa's framing of the racism embedded in architecture. She analyzed the history of white supremacy in the built environment and also in architectural education. There were examples of how the postwar housing boom after World War I and II constructed race in America with enforced redlining. Somehow, she made connections between that and spaces of enslavement in West Africa during what his grandfather called the Maafa.

Erik sat with Disa's words on the practice of open anti-Blackness in the built environment. Brick and mortar racism. Her brain made him think deeper and reminded him of his purpose. Encouraged by her words and thoughts, Erik went into his borrowed bedroom and opened the first of his father's journals. He hadn't touched them physically since the first time they arrived, and he had placed them in order. There were over twenty, and Uncle Bakari had shipped another box once he knew Erik had a safe place to keep them thanks to Disa. He poured himself a glass of top-shelf whiskey he bought for himself and sat on the new living room rug that was plush, soft, and deep in front of the couch. One deep sip later, he pulled open a brown leather-bound journal.

His father's neat script with fancy flourishes dazzled his eyes first. He couldn't register the words just yet because the handwriting took him in. Once he began reading, he couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. It was all about his first encounter with Uncle Bakari. His father painted a picture of a wiry nerd-ball with thick coke-bottle glasses and spastic energy. So pro-Black. Erik found it amusing to read words from his father when he was in his twenties going to grad school, too. His father was so naïve, so full of his Wakandan self.

Women.

Jesus Christ, his Baba had women galore. He rated them on intelligence, physical qualities, and…

"Damn, Pops… tell me what you really think!" he shouted with laughter.

N'Jobu did not hold back on his sexuality and how the women pleased him. Certain words were written in Wakandan, and Erik assumed those were more graphic in nature. His heart skipped, however, when he came across an entry where he and Bakari had moved in together. His uncle had badgered his father into attending a school meeting.

"I finally went to one of Bakari's BSU meetings a few days ago. I admit that it actually turned out to be a productive use of my time. I met some interesting people. However, I embarrassed myself in front of a woman who is a good friend of Bakari. Her name is Califia Stevens. Bakari has known this woman since he was ten. They grew up together. She is a dancer for the group he drums for. He says she's one of the best in the city.

I meet different women all the time, and I am usually very good at knowing where I stand with them, but Holy Bast, this woman, I feel like I'm wearing roller skates and trying to cross a road filled with marbles when I speak to her. I knew I was in trouble when I made the mistake of questioning why her father did not feed her while she was on a visit with him. She said he was in prison, and I swear to Sekmet, my face turned to stone. She noticed my kimoyo beads and then Andrea, the woman I am seeing now, rescued me from the quicksand of my ignorance.

I don't know why it bothers me so much, but I feel like I made a horrible first impression and I need to redeem myself to her. She is so different. Very direct with people. Fierce. She came into the meeting towards the end, and the moment she walked in the door, I felt like the energy in the room shifted. She is very striking to look at. Her skin is so brown, like the deep dark red-brown clay near Warrior Falls back home. And she has these dark freckles all over her nose and cheeks. I have never met a Black woman with hair the natural color of cinnamon. She reminds me so much of someone from back home, and I just can't remember who. She is both familiar and strange to me. Normally I would feel uneasy with people who keep me on edge, but there is something about her that intrigues me. She was fairly dismissive of me. The only time she took an interest was when she saw my beads.

I must make a note that she touched my hand to get a look at my beads, and she gave me a static electricity shock with her touch. I shall take that as a warning sign from Bast that Califia should be given a wide berth from me in the future. If I ever see her again. She and Bakari seem close, but he has never brought her around to the apartment like his other friends. She is very opinionated, and I must take a look at this book she came to the meeting to talk about. I have seen this writer Aarav on television. He seems pretty benign, but Califia was very heated about his message. I hear the term "anti-Black" being thrown around a lot. Aarav comes from immigrants and is Indian American, and I'm sure as a person of color himself, he must be aware of the problems Black Americans encounter at times. Califia called him a piece of shit. I don't know if this is a fair assessment of someone she doesn't know personally, but the BSU crowd didn't challenge her assertion. Andrea has a copy of the book and will loan it to me. I will read it this weekend.

Erik had to stop reading.

He put his father's journal on the couch and walked to his bedroom. Inside a small drawer wrapped inside a tiny satin black bag, he pulled out the chain that held the ring of his father. Erik slipped it around his neck and moved back into the living room. He poured another sip of whiskey and opened the journal back up again. Caressing the letters of his mother's name, he tried to imagine his father being flustered around his mother after questioning her about Dante. Erik's heart skipped in his chest. His poor grandfather had been in prison for trying to protect Black women and girls. He was free now and living a good life with Erik looking after him. Califia had fought the same fight and gone to prison for it and died. Disa wrote about how Black bodies were positioned to have things built on top of them and around them to suppress them and remind them of their oppression. Three different generations of Black people trying to save the world for their people to be free. Safe. Flourish.

Fate brought his father to his mother. It had to mean something. Fate had him sitting and holding his father's words. He touched the ring that hung from his neck. He was supposed to be there. He was created to take on the challenge that was set forth by his parents. Why else would they cross paths from two diametrically opposed worlds and fall in love? He touched his mother's name again and read more.

"I am curious to know why Califia's father is in prison. I know she has a full dance scholarship to SFSU, and Bakari told me her home life is a little sketchy. It must be difficult to live with a parent you love incarcerated for a long time. Bakari said her father has been in prison since she was thirteen. It's part of why she and Bakari are so close. He wouldn't divulge anything more out of respect for Califia's privacy. Their relationship appears completely platonic. Califia talks to him like a younger sibling. But the other day he was talking about her, something trivial about a drumming rehearsal and how Califia never wants to listen to the drum cues and moves when she wants to, and I have to say, the gleam in his eye tells me he probably wishes they were something more. I could be reading more into it than there really is. He definitely admires her.

More soon.

N.U."

He read more for another hour and began to get a feel for his father's confusion at being in America. Califia irritated N'Jobu and fascinated him. His father continued seeing other women, but his mother lived rent-free in his head.

Cooking another heavy meal of smothered shrimp and grits, Erik ate and listened to music before going back to the words of his father. The descriptions of his mother tickled him and he could actually hear out loud in the room the befuddled arrogance of N'Jobu as his mother challenged every stereotype he held about Black Americans. To be from all-knowing people who knew so little about the real world of the diaspora was fascinating. Reading N'Jobu's words was like meeting a stranger. It didn't sound like his Baba. Califia turned his head on a dime.

"Mom, you didn't take no shit from that nigga," Erik said out loud as if she were in the room with him.

It would've been something he'd say to her if she were still alive. Erik lifted another journal from the large box on the couch. Flipping through it, he saw more entries detailing his father's personal life in pursuit of his mother and his observations on Americans. He noticed that different textured journals toward the bottom referenced his father's ambivalence toward his country and talked more about the inner workings of Wakanda. He sauntered back into his bedroom and dipped into the second box of journals. They were written after Erik was born. He randomly flipped through one and it was written in Wakandan. But one name popped out that was underlined twice.

Ulysses Klaue.

Erik dropped the journal back onto the pile inside the box.

He'd have to figure out a way to translate the Wakandan. His grasp on the language was shaky. He still remembered the alphabet, but he would have to find a native speaker in the states. M.I.T. surely had a way for him to decipher what was clearly coded text that N'Jobi didn't want read by his mother or him openly. Erik had his summer plans cut out for him. Read and study his father's words.

Sitting back in the living room, he plunged back into the first journal and fell in love with his parents all over again as he did so. It was an epic courtship that read like a high-stakes romance book. His father could not get a clue that his Mom was not with the shits when it came to his Wakandan conceit and superiority. How that man transformed into the person that became his father was something Erik relished digging into from the man's own words. Cuz ain't no way his Mom dropped it low and spread it wide for the man going off on her in the pages.

A sketch of his Mom by his father threw Erik for a loop. The big wild hair, the serious eyes, and the pout in her mouth were so vivid and accurate. Like a besotted teenager, N'Jobu had written her name over and over around the sketch. He even drew little hearts for the dot above the "i" in her name.

"Mom," he said softly.

His index finger traced the fluffy curls that filled up half a page in his father's hand. A shudder ripped through his chest, and he cradled the journal against his chest.

Erik heard a key jiggle in the lock of the front door down below.

"Anyone home?"

Disa's voice rang out as her footsteps bounded up the stairs that led to the living room. She dragged a giant roller bag behind her. Out of breath and filled with travel-bound energy, she held out a yellow plastic bag to him.

"Got this for you at Venice Beach. A little thank you for looking after my house. I'm only here for two days and then I'm out, so if you and Chloe have plans, I will be gone soon, I promise!"

Her perky voice died in her throat when she saw his face.

"Erik?"

His hands shook as he held the journal like a shield against his chest. His tears fell like spring raindrops.

"Can I tell you about my Mom? What happened to her?"

Disa dropped to her knees and hugged him.

"You can tell me anything and everything, Erik."

He cried into her chest. Her arms and her voice made him feel safe enough to tell her, and only her, about the last days of his mother on earth.