The Blackbirds by Eric Jerome Dickey

making up excuses to not meet them. I don’t want to keep lying.”
    â€œEvery lie takes you away from truth. You’re digging a deep hole.”
    â€œI know. I have callused hands from digging. It’s stressful, keeping the lie. Now I will have to call a group meeting and tell him and his best friend and his buddy’s girl about . . . you know.”
    â€œWhat’s his name? We need names to make sure we never bump heads or get played.”
    â€œHakeem Mitchell. Graduated from Crenshaw High and went to Cal State Northridge.”
    â€œHakeem? Is he Muslim?”
    â€œNah. Nondenominational.”
    Ericka groaned. “Oh, boy. And which church does Hakeem attend?”
    â€œHe’s not at your ex-husband’s church. He goes to Agape by the Fox Hills Mall. He asked me to go with him, but I can’t. I take the helmet off and someone might recognize me.”
    Ericka nodded. “That’s your fear. Public humiliation, in front of him and his family.”
    â€œI can imagine people coming over to me calling Destiny, or asking if I am ‘
that monster
.’”
    Ericka agreed. “That would be a scary moment. Pretending to be Kismet, then outted as being her synonym, in the house of the Lord.”
    Destiny said, “Would be hard to lie on sacred grounds.”
    â€œWasn’t for my ex-husband. Wasn’t for his flock of mistresses either.”
    Destiny hummed. “Would hate to turn my back for a second, then for someone to walk up and tell Hakeem my name and past, before I told him myself. Then everyone would start throwing holy water on me and hope I’d burn like the wicked witch in
The Wizard of Oz
.”
    â€œShe melted.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    â€œBut they would want you to burn.”
    They laughed, all except Indigo.
    Ericka said, “Glad you have a bit of sense of humor about it.”
    Indigo said, “You shouldn’t have to hide the parts of you that you feel are broken because you think someone is incapable of loving you as is. No one is perfect. No one.”
    â€œI don’t need a lecture right now, okay? People have made me feel unwanted, sad, depressed, and guilty. I’m in university. I’m late getting started, but I’m there, taking a full load. My dad is ill. I’m working hard day and night to pay my bills. And now I have found a moment of happiness. I need this right now. Don’t ask me to be like you, Indigo. My life has never been like yours and it never will be. Let me be me.
This is me right now.
This is as strong as I am right now. Just be happy for me.”
    Indigo said, “Why didn’t you just tell the man your real name? People are either going to accept you or not. End of damn story.”
    Destiny shook her head. “What I went through, it’s not something that’s easy to bring up. With most of these guys, you get more respect or empathy points if you say you had cancer.”
    Ericka shook her head. “Not always. People tend to think you’re the walking dead.”
    â€œOops, sorry. I didn’t mean to trivialize what you went through. My dad has cancer now, and I just spoke too fast, without thinking, like I do most of the time.”
    Kwanzaa asked Destiny, “How is your dad doing?”
    â€œHe said that some nights it feels like he’s in a house filled with fire and smoke and there are no windows, no doors. I can’t imagine being that miserable, a prisoner inside of my body.”
    Ericka said, “Your body turns on itself. There is a civil war going on inside of you. You’re trapped on the battlefield between disease and medicine, and there is no escape.”
    Kwanzaa said, “That sounds horrible. My grandparents died from cancer. My dad went through a lot.”
    Ericka said, “When you love someone, you go through what they go through. Having cancer showed me what my marriage was made of. Showed me even though