Chapter Text
Autumn, 2022
The phone call came in the middle of movie lunch, and both Shuri and Riri immediately knew who it was, since the only person who didn’t care about the sanctity of the occasion was coincidentally also the only person they knew that still actively dialed people like he was stuck in the late nineties. As Riri paused the movie, Shuri moved towards the kitchen, phone in hand.
“I was watching a movie, Namor, so this better be good.”
“So, about the workshop’s Instagram account,” he started, and Shuri braced for the rest of the sentence, already suspecting the worse.
“…Yes, go on…”, she prodded.
“I may have locked myself out of it. Again.”
“What? How is that possible?”
“It’s not that strange, it could happen to anyone—”
“The account is less than a week old, and you’ve been locked out of it twice already, so I think it might just be you,” Shuri interrupted, shutting the cabinet doors that Riri had left open, as usual. “I even wrote the new password down on that file I left in your computer, so how the hell did this even happen?”
“Yes. So, uh, about my computer...” Namor once again sounded unsure of himself, and Shuri grabbed the edge of the counter to avoid tearing out her hair.
“Please tell me you didn’t lock yourself out of that laptop, Namor, or I swear…”
When the reply didn’t come, Shuri broke the silence with a prolonged sigh.
“Don’t sigh at me,” he said, offended. “I have a million things going on in my head, how the hell am I supposed to keep track of all these passwords?”
“I don’t think I have an answer for that, or for anything else ever again for all that matter,” Shuri mumbled. She walked back to the living room, where Riri was looking at her, expectantly.
“Shuri, I am very, very sorry. I am fucking terrible at this and I just… can you please help me?”
“Help you? Does that entail having me go over there?”
“Yes.”
“Like I said, I’m in the middle of watching a movie, Namor, so…” Riri began waving her arms around and mouthing words like “crazy” and “you have to go”. Shuri waved her off and walked back into the kitchen.
“Look, I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he continued. “That hot chocolate you like so much? You can have all of it, okay?”
“All of it?” she sputtered, knowing how much he hated sharing his sweets. “Even the one with the little marshmallows?” She heard his painful intake of breath.
“All yours.”
Wow, she thought, he must really be desperate. She bit her lower lip and tapped her fingers on the counter.
“Alright. I’ll be there in an hour.”
Riri’s breath was on the back of her neck as soon as she hung up.
“Woman, give me some space here!”
“Did you say yes? Are you going? Is it finally happening?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Shuri said, sidestepping her roommate and heading back to the living room.
“What am I talking about? Are you insane?!” Riri gaped at her, outraged, and began following her around the room. “Nuh-uh, nuh-uh. You don’t get to play dumb with me, Shuri, we’ve talked about this a million times. Are you going to this man’s house or not?”
“I am.”
“Okay. Are you gonna do it? You gonna finally tell him how you feel?”
“Absolutely not. Now get out of my way, I have to get ready.”
“No way. You’re ditching our movie lunch, which happens to be sacred, by the way, to go to Namor’s place, a guy for whom you’ve been pining for years now, and you’re not gonna do anything about it?” She put her hands on her hips and glared. “I am so disappointed in you right now.”
“Well, what would you have me do? We just recently reconnected, Riri, it’s not that easy.”
“Sure it’s easy. You wear your nicest little dress, put on your finest make up, you make sure you smell good, show a little cleavage and when you get there you say ‘oh, I walked miles and miles to come all the way here, I am so, so tired, may I please sit on your face?’” Riri said dramatically, putting the back of her hand to her forehead.
“Nice. I’m sure that’s worked for you plenty of times.” Shuri crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow at her.
“You’d be surprised.” At this, Shuri raised an eyebrow. Riri sighed. “Alright, alright. Sorry for rooting for you, I guess…”
“I appreciate it, but all I’m going to do is help a man with zero digital literacy recover his accounts and figure out a way to stop this from happening ever again,” she reached into her closet and pulled out the simplest outfit she could find, much to Riri’s chagrin, “I’m not going over there with seduction on my mind, or whatever it is you’re thinking.”
“I can see that,” she muttered under her breath, eyeing the simple black top and jeans. “Anyway, let me know if you’re coming back tonight…”
Shuri rolled her eyes. “Riri…”
“What? I still have hope. At least tell me if everything’s alright. If he misbehaves, just hit me up and I’ll punch him in the dick so hard he’ll see film credits rolling behind his eyes for the next two hours.”
“Thank you for looking out for me,” Shuri said giving her friend’s arm a short squeeze.
“What are besties for?” Riri’s smile was wide.
*-*-*
Winter, 2002
In truth, Riri’s words were a massive understatement. Whereas most people would’ve assumed that “pining for years” meant a reasonable period of time, say, maybe two, three years at the most, Shuri knew better: Namor had been wedged in her heart since the first day T’Challa brought him home after school, when she was still a little girl.
The boy had initially been quiet. Recently orphaned and placed in his cousins’ house, his silent, homesick demeanor didn’t earn him a lot of popularity points with his classmates; however, that didn’t stop T’Challa, curious and compassionate as always, from immediately taking him under his wing. Not long after his first visit to the Udaku household, Ramonda declared that the boy was to be cared for as if he was one of their own. And so, after plenty of dinners, outings, and football games, Namor slowly began to open up, revealing a thoughtful and kind personality that Shuri was drawn to right away.
He had the attention span of a fly, she noticed, but he was bright and prone to obsessions, much like herself. He worked hard on improving his English, while doing anything he could to stay close to his roots, muttering to himself in Yucatec Mayan when he thought no one was listening. Numbers were not his forte, but his artistic skills were unlike anything she had ever seen, and although he spent most matches faceplanting on the football field, he never backed down from a challenge, and was usually up in seconds as if nothing had happened.
For the most part, and long before understanding what was happening to her, Shuri enjoyed watching him from afar. After all, it was T’Challa who had chosen the boy to be his friend, and as his eight-year-old sister, she was aware of the unspoken rule that indicated she was supposed to stay as far from his social activities as humanly possible, which became easier said than done when winter came, and the children were now confined to playing inside the house. And so, after weeks of intense staring that she was sure he was already sick of, she finally spoke directly to him:
“Is Namor your real name?” she asked, perched on her bed with a book on her lap.
Both boys looked up from the board game they were currently engrossed in, and T’Challa frowned at her, clearly unhappy with her presence in the room.
“Why are you here, Shuri? No one invited you.”
“This is my room, too, loser. You can go if you want, I’m not leaving.”
Namor quickly interjected, looking nervous at the possibility of a fight between the siblings: “It’s not, it’s just a nickname.”
At this, Shuri scrunched up her nose. “Why do you use a nickname instead of your real name?”
“It’s easier for other people to pronounce.”
“Huh.”
“Yep.”
“Gotcha.”
Thinking the conversation was over and done with, the boys returned to their game. Shuri flipped through the pages of her book and then narrowed her eyes.
“What’s your real name, then?”
T’Challa rolled his eyes and groaned. “Shuri, go away!”
“Make me!”
“You won’t be able to say it,” Namor replied. “Most people can’t.”
“I can try.”
“No, you can’t,” T’Challa said, annoyed, and turned to Namor. “She can’t even say a tongue twister in English; she even mucks up my name sometimes because she’s such a baby.”
“I’m not a baby! And I can say a tongue twister, I can do it in any language!” Shuri stood up from the bed, and let her book hit the floor.
“Oh, yeah?” T’Challa grinned. “Hey, Namor, why don’t you show her that tongue twister you said the other day in class? The one about the iguana?”
“Uh…”
Shuri flopped in front of him and stared hard. She was not the kind of girl to say no to a challenge, much less if it meant teaching T’Challa a lesson.
“Go on. I will get it right, and then you will tell me your real name.”
Namor looked back a T’Challa, clearly not used to this level of scrutiny and attention. After getting a terse nod from his friend, he turned back to Shuri and began:
Juntúul juuj ku jóok’sik u pool
ti’ junp’éel jool, juntuul juuj ku jóok’ol,
ku jóok’ol ti’al u jaik’intk u jáaynak’.
Shuri was stunned into place. The sounds coming from his mouth did not remind her of any language she had heard of, not even Xhosa, which her parents tried hard to get her to learn every day. Much like any tongue twister, the speed at which he said it made it impossible to detect where to even start learning it. She heard T’Challa scoff next to her.
“See? I knew you wouldn’t be able to say it.”
“Oh, and you can?”
T’Challa gave her a shrug and said the tongue twister, grinning the whole time. Shuri grinned back.
“You’re saying it wrong.”
“No, I didn’t, I said it just like Namor said.”
“The tone is wrong, and the ‘k’ sound didn’t change. That’s not the sound he made.” She turned back to look at Namor, who had the biggest smile she had seen on him thus far. She felt something funny spread inside her chest.
Oh.
“You’re right. There are two sounds to the ‘k’. You’ve got a good ear.”
As an extremely precocious child, Shuri was no stranger to praise, but for some reason this felt different, and she wanted more of it. She made up her mind and asked him to say the tongue twister five more times before abruptly standing up and leaving the room. Downstairs, she quickly penned the sounds she heard in her own made-up system and practiced furiously until she lost track of time. She only stopped when she heard the front door open, and her father letting Namor know his aunt was here to pick him up.
Shuri caught him halfway down the stairs.
“Wait! I got it.”
“What?” Namor looked confused.
“The tongue twister. Here I go!”
She wasn’t sure if she got it perfectly, but something about the way he was practically beaming at her confirmed that she hadn’t done half as bad as she thought. Namor adjusted his backpack and tugged on her sleeve.
“You’re pretty smart.”
“For an eight-almost-nine-year-old?” she added.
“No, just very smart. Good ear, too.”
“Um, thanks,” she replied, not really knowing what else to say, watching him descend the rest of the steps. He stopped and turned back to face her.
“It’s Ch’ah Toh, by the way. My name.”
“Ch’ah Toh. Ch’ah Toh. Ch’ah Toh,” she repeated, trying to get that first consonant to sound perfectly. “Ch’ah Toh. My name is Shuri.”
He barked out a short laugh before going out the door. “Yeah, I know. Bye, Shuri.”
Some of her friends had boasted about having crushes on boys, but she always laughed them off: boys were not that interesting, everything else the world had to offer was way more exciting. Besides, her mother had rightfully pointed out that she was still too young to think about anyone that way, after all, and she agreed.
However, by the time the front door had closed, the funny feeling inside her chest had burst into a thousand butterflies.
Ch’ah Toh. She now wanted to know more about him. Where did he come from? What was his favorite color? Did he know how to swim, and if so, could he teach her? When would he come back to visit? Was she supposed to still call him Namor?
*-*-*
Autumn, 2022
Looking back, Shuri could now see that she had been doomed from the very start. The longer Namor stuck around, the more she glimpsed of his personality and the more she liked him… and it only got worse with time. She had witnessed several of the crushes of her friends come and go, but the feelings she held for quiet boy from her childhood had remained a constant in the ever-changing landscape of her life.
And here she was. Twenty-five years old, and somehow reconnecting with this man from her past as if no time had passed. But then, again, it had always been like that between them: no matter the time or the distance, they always seemed to slip into a familiar, effortless rhythm when speaking, as if they had never truly been apart. At times, it seemed that Namor understood her better than most people, and the way he went through life did not feel foreign to her at all, either. And somehow, he almost always knew how to make her feel better when he noticed her mood swinging towards darkness.
She held her right wrist in her left hand for a few seconds, and then allowed her memories overtake her as she began getting dressed.
Autumn, 2005
In few words, she majorly screwed up. Last night, Mama felt nostalgic and dipped into their old family albums. Shuri had crawled near her and gasped at the treasure trove of memories of Ramonda’s youth. She knew her mother to be a beautiful woman, but in some pictures, she looked like an actual movie star. In one particular picture she was shining, draped in soft silks and expensive looking jewelry. Shuri told her so.
“My love,” Ramonda had said, “what truly makes me shine is having you, your brother, and your Baba in my life. All those things I wore are nothing but adornments. But if you like them so much, you can have them, someday when you’re older.”
Shuri considered herself to be a patient person. She could hold off on sweets when she knew it would soon be time for dinner. She could wait for her Baba to fix the one swing they had in the back yard. She could even wait for her turn on the family computer when T’Challa was taking forever. But she didn’t think she had enough patience to age and see if she could shine like her mother.
Her parents were still at work when she got home from school that day, so stealth would not be required. She went into their room and opened mama’s jewelry box, took a long string of white pearls, and wrapped it around her neck. She then found a pair of heels and slipped them on, holding on to the nearest surface for balance. She never got to see the image of herself, however, since she tripped on her way to the mirror, the long necklace catching on to the bedpost as she fell, spraying the room with dozens of pearls. Ramonda found her on the floor on her knees, weeping and trying to collect the remains of the necklace with no success. Which is how, after being severely reprimanded, Shuri found herself sitting on the front porch, still sniffling, and so consumed by guilt and shame, that she didn’t even notice Namor approach.
“Why are you moping?”
Shuri looked up at him. He had recently turned fourteen, and she could feel the distance between them growing larger day by day. She was, after all, still eleven years old, and boys his age did not enjoy hanging out with little girls. The baby fat was long gone from his face, his features fighting against each other in that classic awkward phase of early teenagehood, with the uncontrollable limbs and the cracking voice.
No, soon hanging out with her would no longer be cool, and she would have to resort to looking at him from a distance while he joined her brother and cousin on exciting adventures meant only for older kids. She didn’t even have the equipment she believed boys his age liked: her chest didn’t look like it was about to develop anytime soon, and judging from her relatives, it didn’t seem like she was going to have a whole lot to offer in that area in the future anyway.
She knew she would come off as an idiot, but she took a deep breath and told him what had happened anyway. Once she was done, he sat next to her and stared at her for a while before speaking.
“That was… brave of you. But also kinda stupid”, he said, and Shuri frowned at him.
“Don’t call me stupid.”
“I’m not calling you stupid, I’m saying what you did was stupid. You know if you had just asked your mom she would’ve said yes.”
Shuri considered his words for a moment and sighed, knowing them to be true. “I guess I just didn’t want to wait. I wanted to see if I could look as nice as she does, but…”
“And did you?”
She didn’t want to seem anymore of a loser than she already felt, but she didn’t feel like lying to him either. “I don’t know, I didn’t even get to the mirror before my butt was on the ground.”
Namor answered with a soft hum, and began bouncing his leg up and down, like he always did when he was deep in thought. “That necklace was too big for you anyway; I think you’re supposed to start small. My cousin Namora just got her ears pierced and she wears tiny studs, but she says she wants to stretch out her earlobes with tapers when she’s older.”
“Whoa,” Shuri gasped, “you can do that?”
“Yup. I might do it too, someday, right here”, he pointed at his septum and laughed at her horrified expression. “I’m just kidding. Mostly,” Shuri huffed out a laugh and looked away, but Namor softly tugged on her sleeve to make her look at him. “I’m sorry your mom got mad at you. And I’m sorry you fell before you got to see yourself.”
“It’s fine. You were right anyway; it was a stupid thing to do. I shouldn’t have touched her stuff.”
They remained quiet for a few minutes, and Shuri relished in the feeling of being alone with him if only for a little while. T’Challa and N’Jadaka would be home soon, and she would go back to being the uncool little sister with stupid ideas and no boobs. She was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard him mumbling to himself in Yucatec Mayan. That was a sound she always enjoyed, even if she had never felt brave enough to ask him to speak it out loud to her like she wanted him to, outside of their games. Maybe she would have to go to the library and see if she could start teaching herself a few words… maybe that would even impress him.
“What is it?”
“I have an idea”, he said, and, quickly, he grabbed his discarded school bag and began rummaging in it, erasers, notebooks, paper balls and even a few candy bars, spilling all over the place. He pulled out a box, and Shuri saw it contained brightly colored sharpies. Namor shook the box in front of her face and grinned. “Birthday present from Namora. Gimme your hand.”
For the next few minutes Shuri stared as Namor decorated her right wrist with the shimmering colors, creating a beautiful bracelet from nothing. Her hand rested on his knee as he worked in the three rows of white shiny dots, alternating them with smaller golden spots, the long threads interrupted only in the middle by four large green squares in which he drew even smaller details that she couldn’t really decipher at the moment. Once he was done, he blew on her wrist and shook it around, drawing out a giggle from her.
“There. Do you like it?”
“I do! How long will it last?” She held her wrist in front of her face, eyeing the details.
“I’m guessing not long… but it doesn’t matter, I’ll draw it for you again whenever you want.”
Shuri felt her cheeks grow warm.
“You really mean that?”
Namor nodded. “Sure. It looks nice on you.”
It looks nice on me; he said it looks nice on me!
Without answering, Shuri stood and began helping him collect his discarded stuff. “Thank you, Ch’ah Toh,” she muttered, barely audible. She smiled when she felt him playfully bump his shoulder into hers, knocking her off balance.
*-*-*
Autumn, 2022
Wrapping her scarf tight around her neck and shoulders, she gave herself one last look in the mirror: her Baba had promised her as a child that someday she would bloom into a beautiful woman, and although she was still more angular than curvaceous, most people would agree that his prediction had come true. That hadn’t washed away most of her insecurities, unfortunately.
She fiddled with her keys.
When it seemed the crush would go nowhere (not that she was willing to do much about it in the first place), Shuri became an expert in compartmentalizing. Her social life had changed since her brother and Namor had moved on to high school. The idea of dating no longer felt weird, and she willed herself to open her heart to other possibilities, especially since she knew that Namor had had a few flings himself. So, when her (very cute) lab partner Eden asked her to go with him to a school dance, she quickly agreed. Her mother, both excited and emotional at the prospect of her little girl growing up, helped her pick out a sleeveless, high-neck dress that complemented her figure; pulled up her braids into two small buns, and taught her the basics of applying make-up.
Shuri was giddy with excitement. It was the first time she felt objectively pretty, and she couldn’t wait to show herself to the rest of the world. Which is why it was so crushing when she noticed the minutes stretch into an hour, with no sign of her date. When her phone calls went unanswered, she put her shoes away, and took a seat at the kitchen table.
Spring, 2008
“When I see that lil’ bitch, I swear, he’s dead meat!” N’Jadaka growled as he crushed an empty beer can with one hand.
“Not if I get to him first,” T’Challa said, leaning on the kitchen counter, his tone eerie. Shuri rolled her eyes.
“I already said I’m fine, I don’t need any of you to defend my honor.”
Namora burst in through the kitchen door. “Where the hell is he? I will crush his balls with my bare hands!”
“I, too, shall crush his balls. But not with my bare hands, because that’s disgusting,” Attuma declared, tailing after his sister. Shuri bristled under the excessive attention and turned to her T’Challa.
“Brother, just how many people did you tell?!”
“Calm down, I only told these guys. And Nakia.”
“Nakia? You might as well have posted it in the front page of every newspaper! You know how she gets when she’s angry, she’ll round up the whole neighborhood!”
“That’s fine by me,” N’Jadaka said, “the more the merrier. It’ll be easier to beat that loser into burger patties that way.” The rest of the group nodded in agreement, with Attuma muttering a barely audible “god I fucking love burgers”.
“Okay, hold on, no one is turning anybody into anything. I already told you, I’m not hurt, nor humiliated. Heck, if I hadn’t been so busy with finals, I would’ve seen this coming from a mile away. It’s on me, so please, please, just let this go!” Shuri begged.
“Shuri,” Namora said curtly. “He stood you up. It’s a school dance. You don’t stand up your date for a school dance. Ever.”
“I appreciate the candor, but I doubt Eden expected me to accept in the first place. It was all just a prank, and like I said, it’s on me. I’ll give him a good dressing down when I see him and that will be the end of it.”
“No way. The guy was your lab partner for almost a year, Shuri, and you at least considered him a friend. He needs to know he isn’t allowed to mess with you,” T’Challa said.
“Trust me, I’ll make sure he knows, alright? Now, please go away, you’re missing your own party, and I really want to get out of this damn dress.”
Attuma looked around and crossed his arms. “Where is Namor?”
“Beats me,” N’Jadaka replied, “he was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
“You know how he is, he probably got lost on his way here,” Namora audibly snorted.
“He’s been coming to this house for the last seven years, Namora.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time he got lost. Or the second. Or even the third.”
Just then, almost as if he had been summoned, Namor came through the door. He looked frazzled and out of breath, as if he had come back from a long run. “Sorry, I know I’m late—” he trailed off when his eyes landed on Shuri, but he quickly got back on track. “You okay?”
Shuri sent a pointed glare to T’Challa before replying. “I’m good. Now that you’re all here, it’s time for you to go. Party hard, folks! Don’t drink and drive! Bye-bye now!” She said, as she herded them towards the door.
“What do you mean?” Namor said, turning back to her, “you’re coming with us.”
“…I am?”
“She is?” T’Challa sputtered.
“Well,” Namor shrugged, a small smile pulling on the corners of his mouth as his eyes briefly landed on her exposed collarbones, “You’re dressed for it.”
*-*-*
She was decidedly not dressed for it, since the party Namor and the group dragged her to was outdoors, with a bonfire and everything. Thankfully, she had switched her heels for a pair of sneakers and had covered herself with one of her brother’s jackets. She decided to forgo the drinking so as to not kill him of a heart attack, and she stood near the bonfire, nursing a cup of bottled lemonade that someone had brought over for some unknown reason. She grimaced as the liquid hit the back of her throat.
“Shuri”, a familiar voice said while she stared at the fire, “if you tell me where he lives, I will tear him to pieces, limb by limb.”
“Thank you, Okoye, but there will be no need for that”, she replied, wanting to toss her cup at her brother’s head. She was just the latest of a long line of people offering to exert violence in her name, and at this point she wasn’t sure if she should feel angry or happy about the amount of people willing to commit bodily harm on her behalf. After being reassured for the third time, Okoye gave her a short hug and walked towards her friends Ayo and Aneka, who had also offered their assassination services a few minutes ago.
So much for licking my wounds in private.
Shuri sipped at her lemonade and looked around. She saw N’Jadaka and Attuma trying to get the stereo to work, while Namora barked instructions at them, obviously dissatisfied with their progress. T’Challa and Nakia had already found their own little secluded space and were oblivious to the world around them, as usual.
Her eyes slid over to where Namor was, cigarette dangling between his lips as he watched the fire in front of him, deep in thought as usual. Shuri felt herself tense up as his eyes met hers over the flames. Despite being able to consider dating other people, her crush on him had, sadly, never gone away as she had hoped as a child. If only, it had gotten worse with the added complication of hormones and knowing him more over the years. She often feared it would mutate into a nightmarish state of limerence with time, but she was terrified of openly facing those feelings, of ever letting him know, especially as they moved into different stages of life: she was taking advanced college courses, but she still had to graduate high school, while he had already applied to colleges both in and out of the country.
Still, she lowered her guard and let herself smile when he walked towards her. By then, Namora had already managed to get the stereo to work, much to the admiration of N’Jadaka, and the speakers now pumped out a mellow afrobeats song as people slowly gathered to begin dancing.
“You know that’s terrible for you, right?” she pointed at his cigarette, and he laughed.
“Your mom has said that to me only about three hundred times this week, so I think I’m good.”
“Gotcha, then I’ll stay off your case until next Monday,” she huffed out a breath. “Thanks for bringing me here, by the way, you really didn’t have to.”
“You think I’d just let you fester alone all night after what that douchebag did to you? No fuckin’ way.” He crushed his cigarette under his shoe and turned to her. “I know you said you’re alright and that you don’t care and whatever, but I like to think I know you better than that.”
Shuri frowned and looked away for a few seconds before replying. In truth, she was feeling annoyed over getting stood up, not just because she cared for Eden and might have entertained the idea of dating him just a little bit, but because the situation confirmed what she had suspected about herself for the longest time: that maybe she just wasn’t all that appealing to the opposite sex after all. People seemed to care for her in a sisterly way, and this constant infantilization was starting to eat away at her. She rarely thought about love anyway, her projects always took up most of her time after all and the satisfaction they brought to her was unmeasurable, however she was beginning to wonder. At this rate, once she actually decided to go pursue a relationship, no one would look at her, not Eden, not even…
She took a breath. “Fine. I am annoyed. But it’s not that bad, I wasn’t really that invested in him anyway.”
He didn’t say anything for a while, and Shuri let herself imagine for a moment that his silence meant he was secretly relieved. “It would have killed me, had it been you instead”, she could see herself saying, and immediately felt her face heat up at the audacity of her fantasies. What purpose would it serve to do something so stupid? It would only make things awkward. He had become, after all, a permanent fixture of her family life. Ruining that over a dumb crush would be completely idiotic and out of character of her.
“Good,” she heard him say, with some finality. “You look pretty, by the way.”
For a moment Shuri thought she might still be in fantasy land, but those words had certainly come from his mouth. Had he really just complimented her physical appearance? Only her mama did that these days, and that was meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
Damn. What would a confident woman say? “You don’t look so bad yourself”, or “You clean up nice, baby”, right? Fuck it, she’d give it a try.
“Um. Thanks. So do you.” She said, and immediately made a mental note to punch herself in the face as soon as she was alone. He gave her a short laugh and grinned, entertained.
“Glad to know my two-year-old shitty cargo pants had the desired effect.”
“Pfft. Shut up. I’d much rather be wearing those anyway. Cargo pants. Not yours, specifically, just any other pair of pants.” How long would it take for her to die if she tossed herself into the fire? Namor, as usual, remained unaffected when faced with her weird outburst.
“I meant it, though. About you looking pretty, cargo pants or no cargo pants.”
“You’re just saying that because you are best friends with my brother,” she huffed, letting his words set in.
“Actually, I probably shouldn’t say that because I’m best friends with your brother.”
It took everything in her power not to gape at him. Was he implying that finding her pretty was inappropriate? Why would it be inappropriate? Was he fighting against it? But why would he? Could it be that—
The first few chords of a fast-paced vallenato blasted into the night, making both of them wince at the loud volume.
“Turn that down, dumbass, you’ll get us in trouble!” Namora shrieked at N’Jadaka who immediately grabbed her in his arms and began spinning her around, shouting out the lyrics in broken Spanish.
“He will never be over that trip to Colombia, huh?” Namor said, amused, the moment ruined and gone.
“Nope. It’s just Carlos Vives, now, all day, every day.” Shuri replied, staring as more people joined in. “Why were you late, by the way? I thought you—” she trailed off when she saw him holding out his outstretched hand to her. He shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Hesitating, she took his hand and let him lead her to into the small crowd. He was, unexpectedly, an excellent dancer. Just another fact to add to her ever-expanding list of things to like about him. And while she only had the short duration of the song to commit to memory the feeling of his hands on her waist and how she could feel his warmth under the hands that she placed on his shoulders, it was more than enough to fuel her fantasies, if only for a few more months.
Maybe, she thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I made something of this. If there was a chance, small as it was, wouldn’t she be betraying herself in the worst way by not trying at all? She had never been untruthful to him. If the roles were reversed, wouldn’t she like to know?
She pushed her ruminating thoughts away, deciding to enjoy the moment as it was and let him hold her close.
He really was an excellent dancer.
The next time she saw Eden, she barely got two words out before he began apologizing profusely, desperation evident in his tone of voice. Before she could ask which of her friends had gotten to him first, he begged her to let the “dude with the mean brows and the accent” know that he would never, ever bother her again.
*-*-*
Summer, 2008
Today. Today I’ll do it. I will not chicken out. Today is the day.
She had already lost count of the number of times she’d repeated the words back at herself. At some point during the afternoon, she had decided that enough was enough, and that she would finally tell him how she felt, even if it meant destroying everything, even if it killed her. Whatever it was that had gripped her heart all those years ago, when that quiet little boy had appeared on their front lawn, it had now grown to such levels it was all she could think about. Her schoolwork was not suffering as of yet, but she could feel herself slipping, and if she wanted to become a biomedical engineer someday, she had to be at her very best, no distractions allowed.
Unfortunately, the glass was overflowing, the vase had been tipped over, the end was nigh… in short, she was fucked, and she was over it. Self-preservation be damned, she needed to be rid of this if she was going to move on. She would unload it on him and let him deal with it. It would be awkward, he might even laugh at her, but it would be out in the open and years later, when they had both grown into functional adults, him handsome and twelve-packed and her tall and with massive boobs, they would throw their heads back and laugh like the dearest of pals, swirling their glasses of red wine: “Remember when you told me you had a crush on me?”, he would say. “How could I forget, I was such an idiot back then, ha ha”, she would elegantly reply, tossing her beautiful long hair over her shoulder.
Yes. That’s exactly how it would go. The gears would shift from limerence to anecdote, from crush to a punchline, from fried nerves to blissful relief. All she had to do was confess. She could do this. He always said she was brave, after all.
She could see there was plenty of activity inside the house, which was odd. Dinner was only served once Baba was back from work, and that was still a few hours away… however, his car was parked in the driveway, and the undeniable aroma of chicken curry and nsima wafting from the kitchen meant that a celebration was soon to be underway. Shuri pushed the door open, and was greeted by T’Challa, her Baba and Namor helping set the table. He smiled sheepishly at her, and she felt her determination grow.
Good. He’s here. All I have to do is find a way to get him alone and I’ll--
“Shuri!” Ramonda greeted her, handing T’Chaka a stack of large plates. “Little girl, you are late as usual.”
“I was at the library, Mama. What’s going on?”
“We are having a celebratory dinner. Namor’s cousins should be arriving soon, so please help the boys out with the table, alright?”
“A celebration? I didn’t forget anyone’s birthday, did I?”
“It’s not a birthday celebration, dummy,” T’Challa said, handing her a bunch of forks. “Namor just got accepted into college.”
“What? That’s amazing!” She turned to Namor, beaming. “Was it the one you hoped for?” she asked, remembering he had applied to a specific school not far from home.
“Even better,” her Baba interjected, “he earned a scholarship to the best art school in Mexico. Can you believe it? Full ride!”
Shuri felt as though she had fallen into freezing water. Mexico. That meant he was leaving. For how long? When would she see him again? Why was everyone so unbothered? And why the hell was she surprised? She had long known about his passion for muralism; he had showed her books on Mexican muralists from the 30’s and 50’s dozens of times, he had spoken of wanting to reconnect with his roots, with his mother’s people, she knew how much it all meant to him… of course he would apply there, where else would he want to be?
Where else, if not far away from here?
Namor cast his gaze downwards, conflict evident in the hard set of his jaw. “I’ll do my best to visit. I promise.”
Shuri shook her head, and, willing away the stinging in her eyes, offered him a wide smile. “Congratulations,” she said, and threw her arms around him. The next words, she whispered into his neck: “I’m so proud of you, Ch’ah Toh”, and felt his sharp intake of breath at the sound of his birth name, the one he had cast aside because he knew it was hard for people to pronounce. But it rolled off her tongue so easily, she feared for a second that it would be too evident that she had muttered it to herself millions of times, just to make sure she wouldn’t ever forget the sound. When he pulled back, she could’ve sworn she saw tears in his eyes.
“Shuri. Thank you.”
After the arrival of Namora and Attuma, the conversations quickly delved into the endless possibilities that this opportunity would bring to Namor. T’Challa, while openly admitting that he was bummed about his friend moving away, was already planning out multiple trips to see him once he had settled in.
Shuri, however, made no such plans, and could feel herself consciously withdrawing from him little by little. She was not a believer in any higher power, preferring to live under the tenets of logic, but, like Baba would sometimes say, perhaps this was the universe speaking to her, telling her to finally let go. Not having him around all the time would make it easier, and if this was the chance life was giving her, she would take it.
Maybe time would do what it was supposed to do, and when she next saw him, years from now, he would be like the brother everyone thought he should be.
He didn’t ever have to know.
*-*-*
Autumn, 2022
If his social media panic had gripped him as badly as she imagined, she had a feeling that Namor wouldn’t have anything to eat at the workshop. Thankfully there was a fantastic bakery that she knew for a fact would be open, and she began walking towards it, even though it would take her about 15 minutes longer to arrive at his place.
She picked some dark chocolate covered cookies she hoped he still liked. She remembered him being feral over them back in the day and wondered if his now defunct smoking habit had managed to curve his sweet tooth a little. The time they had spent apart had been long, after all, and it was only natural that his tastes might’ve changed. She added a few rolls of warm bread just in case and walked back onto the street.
As a child, Shuri used to scoff at the idea of time passing more quickly the older you got, but then the years after he left for Mexico flew by, and she couldn’t really argue against it. She didn’t know if she was supposed to be weeping or celebrating this fact, but as the months turned into years and her life changed accordingly, she had managed to tuck most of her feelings for Namor away; not that he made it difficult for her.
It turns out saving money for a plane ticket or having time to travel was harder than it looked when you were a student on your way to become a starving artist, and as Namor went through apprenticeship after apprenticeship, the possibility of ever seeing him again face to face became less likely. She would sometimes catch a glimpse of him on the random video calls to he would make to her parents or to T’Challa. Her brother had even gone to visit him a few times, once even with her parents in tow, but she had refused to go every time, citing her studies as an excuse.
He became the soft background music of her life, brought only to the forefront whenever her eyes landed on the odd picture of them together, or when she caught him walking around in her dreams. When this happened, she would quickly find something else to entertain herself with, refusing to ruminate over the dull pain in her heart, doing all she could to keep him buried in the past.
That was naïve of me, she thought as she tucked her free hand in her pocket and nuzzled the scarf she had wrapped around her mouth and neck on her way to his workshop. I only wish the next time we saw each other had occurred under better circumstances.
*-*-*
Spring, 2012
She was 21 years old when a heart attack took Baba away, one Thursday morning in early June. In the months that followed, Shuri would often find herself obsessing over the cruelty of having hugged him earlier that day before class, and then coming home to the news that he was gone, as if he had never been there in the first place. The man who had loved her more than anything was suddenly carved out her life, leaving her to deal with an emptiness unknown, as the rest of the world continued to move on. T’Chaka had been but a blip in the lives of those who had passed him on the street, of those who had interacted with him at work or at the store, but his sudden absence had locked her existence in a prolonged state of stillness, time slowing to a complete stop.
She needed to do something about that. And so she did.
Seeing the state her mother was in, Shuri took over the preparation of the wake, funeral, and burial while she waited for T’Challa to return from the other side of the country, where he and Nakia were currently living together. The hours after Baba’s death passed in a blur of paperwork and organizing at an insane scale.
She didn’t mind. Baba being gone wouldn’t hurt as long as she kept busy. Mama’s tears wouldn’t pull at her soul as long as she kept moving. She was good at this, at being needed, at being efficient.
At times like these she felt like she ceased to be human, almost as if she had turned into a machine overnight. She often entered this state when she was engrossed by an unsolvable problem back in the prosthetics lab at school. Usually, once she snapped out of it, she would notice the days unslept, the food she had barely picked at, and would mentally scold herself for doing it yet again.
Now, however, she reveled in this feeling of near manic dissociation, the way her every action sped up time like it was magic: Get a glass of water and sleeping pills for mama, call relatives and tell them T’Chaka Udaku no longer lives, cover up the pictures and the mirrors hanging in the walls of the house, microwave some rice porridge to give to mama, stare at own plate for a minute too long, pick at the food, leave it alone, give mama a hug, check on the ladies who are helping dress up Baba for the vigil, beg the neighbors for a giant thermos for the tea to be served at the wake, check on mama, run to the store and get the ingredients for the soup to prepared for the wake, go to the funeral parlor to pick up a coffin for Baba, call mama to ask about the flowers, get a ride from Okoye and start chopping vegetables for the food for the guests, curate a playlist for Baba’s vigil, get another sleeping pill for mama, sneak in a shower, choose some clothes…
T’Challa and Nakia arrived in the middle of the night, after most of the heavy lifting that been done, and, after hugging them tight, she took the opportunity to sneak in a few hours of sleep. In the end she only managed to close her eyes for one hour. N’Jadaka, Namora and Attuma and many other friends of the family slowly began to gather at the house to pay their respects, and she hugged and thanked each and every one of them for their unwavering presence in their lives.
Sometime after dawn, Shuri found herself sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of tea and going back on her mental checklist for the rest of the day. With T’Challa and Nakia here, her tasks had now been halved, but she still felt the need to keep moving. That was the moment she realized, horrified, that she had not yet cried. She frowned.
What the fuck is wrong with me? This can’t be normal. Have I finally done it? Have I finally broken my brain?
Tomorrow, after the funeral, they would bury Baba, and then they would mourn for a week. After that? She was unable to picture anything else: like a cruel form of mindfulness, the image of the future in her head seemed vast and dark and empty. How were they ever supposed to move on from this?
Not wanting to dwell on it any longer, she emptied her teacup in the sink and heated some food for Ramonda.
While she waited, she looked out the window and noticed a car parked in the driveway that was unfamiliar to her. Before she could go to the living room see who it was, she felt a warm presence, and froze in place.
Willing herself to turn around, she let her eyes meet his across the empty kitchen and held her breath.
It had been almost five years since she had last seen Namor in person. Long gone was the boy that had given her that short, awkward hug when they said goodbye at the airport when he first left. The man in front of her was so handsome, it pained her. His hair had grown past his ears and curled at the ends, his skin tanned a deeper gold than she remembered, his face unshaven, his body lean and strong… He looked exhausted, his red-rimmed eyes never leaving hers, and she felt a vague emotion grip her heart tightly.
The smile he gave her was hesitant.
She crossed the room and was pulled into his arms in seconds.
She wasn’t sure if it was the warmth of him, his smell of smoke and sea and home, but whatever it was, it had torn something out of her so violently that from then on she could only hear herself wailing into his shirt as he held her tight, her cries interspersed by his voice endlessly repeating “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, Shuri, I’m here, I’ve got you.”
*-*-*
He hadn’t come alone, it turned out. T’Chaka’s death had surprised him in the midst of meeting his new girlfriend’s parents, and, as proof of the seriousness of their relationship, she had also come along.
T’Challa and Nakia had already met her and communicated their full approval to Namor months ago. Yalitza was beautiful, and kind, and helpful and Shuri couldn’t stand to be around her. She knew this to be irrational, and the feelings of guilt and self-loathing this dredged up in her only added to the pain that was already brutally weighing her down.
She was embarrassed that in the midst of the death of a parent, his mere touch had unearthed feelings she had thought to be long gone. They had come back with a vengeance, now soured with the darkness of a jealousy she had never felt before. She had caught glimpses of affection between Namor and Yalitza that she had once dreamed for herself: a chaste kiss to her temple, him casually pushing her hair behind her ear, a quick yet intimate press of his mouth to hers so as to briefly encase them into a world of their own.
Shuri felt disgusted with herself.
And she didn’t fucking need this right now.
And so, in plain sight of those she loved, she switched back into automaton mode, hoping that time would pass quickly, and she’d finally be free to find some way to start healing in her own terms. In the meantime, she did everything in her power to avoid being alone with Namor in the same room. She doubted he hadn’t noticed, but she also knew he was far too polite to bring it up to her, so she kept at it relentlessly.
T'Chaka’s funeral and burial went without a hitch. The guests had dressed in variations of red and white. Joyful songs were sung in commemoration of a life well lived; dozens of stories were told of her father’s kindness, of his legendary devotion to his wife and children, and how beloved he was in his community. Shuri held Ramonda close as he was lowered into the ground. T’Challa and Nakia approached, and pulled them into a long hug, while Namor and his girlfriend watched from a respectful distance.
As the mourning period began, so did the fussing. T’Challa was the first one to notice Shuri’s uneven sleeping habits, since he had heard her pacing around the house late into the night. His comments about it went unheard and, deeming it a lost cause, he went back to caring for his mother. Nakia was the next person who noticed her untouched food and was met only with silence when she confronted Shuri about it. Not wanting to make things awkward, she decided to leave the subject alone and continued helping around the house during the mourning period. N’Jadaka was the third person to try, but Shuri had never taken kindly to his interventions, and after being on the receiving end of her meanest glare, he never brought it up again.
If Namor noticed, she would have never known, if not for the fact that on the fourth day of mourning, she found him in the kitchen straining some pasta. He turned to look at her.
“Oh, good. I was about to go out searching for you,” he said, motioning for her to sit down.
“How come you’re still here?”
“I didn’t think I was unwelcome”, he raised an eyebrow and began plating the food, pulling out the oils and spices from the cupboards so naturally it was as if he had never left at all.
“You’re not. I just thought maybe your girlfriend might be tired of…all this.”
“She’s fine. If she was uncomfortable, she would have told me already.”
“Of course,” Shuri muttered darkly under her breath. Namor paused for a second and eyed her before setting the plate of pasta in front of her and sitting in the chair opposite of her.
“Here. Eat this.”
Shuri stared at the food suspiciously: it honestly didn’t look very appetizing. “You cook?”
“Sometimes. When I have to.”
She pushed the plate back. “I already ate.”
“Poking your food around and cutting into a single bean does not count as eating.”
“Didn’t know you were paying such close attention to me.”
Namor crossed his arms and frowned at her, his body language indicating he was gearing up for conflict. “It doesn’t matter if I was, you need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve been doing this for almost four days, Shuri, and it’s not helping you at all.”
She could feel the anger in her rise, little by little. “Are you seriously going to keep pushing this?”
“Does it look like I have anything better to do?”
“We both know you could be doing something better with your time,” she pointed her chin in the direction of the living room where they both knew Yalitza was taking a nap. Namor was now openly glaring at her.
“Is this how it’s gonna be? You barely speak to me for years; you avoid me for days and now that you’re feeling testy you get to take it out on me?”
“I don’t know if you noticed, Namor, but my father just died, so, yeah, maybe I get to be a little testy today.”
“Fine. Push me away if it makes you happy, say whatever the hell you want, you still need to eat.”
Something inside her snapped and took all her remaining patience away with it. When the hell was everybody gonna get off her back?
“Why are you still here, Namor? Did you really travel all this way just to babysit me?” The venom in her voice surprised her.
“I actually came all this way because the man I considered to be like a father to me is dead. Making sure his daughter doesn’t starve herself to death out of pure stubbornness is just an added bonus.”
She grinned, very aware that along with the dark circles under her eyes she must look insane. “Like a father to you, was he?”, She leaned back on her seat, her stomach burning all the way up to her chest. “What does that make me then, your sister?”
The shift in the air was so violent, it nearly knocked the wind out of her.
Funny how grief worked, she would later reflect; how it made people ruthless about toeing lines deemed previously unapproachable. Perhaps had she been less tired, less anguished, less hungry, and less jealous she would’ve had the decency to never even hint at the tension that seemed to always surround them, despite the time and the distance. Yet here she was, and there was no going back.
His voice was now dangerously low. “Shuri,” he warned, his gaze nearly burning her, “don’t”.
There it is, she thought, briefly relishing the triumph, and letting out a bitter chuckle.
“It’s funny, you know? My father being like your father. My family being like your family. How did that happen, anyway?”
He leaned closer and pushed the plate back towards her. “Eat. Your. Food.”
“One day you weren’t there, and then the next one, you were. And everyone considers you a brother to my brother, a son to my mother, just part of the clan…” she took a breath. “But I don’t. I never did.”
Namor looked at her as though she had slapped him.
“You don’t mean that,” it came out close to a whisper.
“Don’t I?” She challenged.
An uneasy silence settled around them. Namor leaned back into his chair and rubbed his eyes with one hand. A muscle in his jaw jumped, and he lowered his hand towards his mouth, locking his gaze onto hers. He looked at her, tired and almost pleading, and she felt her chest constrict at how defeated he seemed.
“What do you want from me, Shuri?”
It would take many weeks for her to pinpoint what it was about his words that bothered her so much. Maybe it was the sadness in his voice, the knowledge that she had hurt him and that she still could not come up with a truthful answer to his question, and therefore it had all been worthless: she had hit him where she knew it would hurt him the most and it had brought her no actual satisfaction in the end. She felt like a monster, and she couldn’t bear to be around him anymore.
She stood from her seat so quickly, it clattered to the floor. The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself:
“I want you to stop treating me like a child!” she shouted. “You think you can come in here after almost five years and hound me and feed me like I’m eight again? You are not my brother, Namor, I don’t want that from you, I never did! So, if that is how it’s going to be, if that is what you want, then what I want is for you to just go away and leave me the hell alone!”
She stormed out of the kitchen before he had a chance to say anything, and almost crashed into Yalitza on her way to the stairs. She had clearly been loud enough to wake the young woman up, who, sensing the danger, went straight into the kitchen to check on her boyfriend, but not before giving her a strange look.
Shuri locked herself in her room, leaned on the door, and began pounding herself in the chest to chase her tears away. This changes nothing, she thought.
Things are still the same.
A few hours passed. Namor didn’t go after her, in the end. Sometime later, from her window on the second floor, Shuri saw him loading up his car. T’Challa joined him in the driveway, and they talked for a few minutes. Her brother looked conflicted, but Namor stopped him with a hand on his arm when it seemed he was going to storm back into the house, most likely to demand an explanation from her. Yalitza joined Namor soon after and got into the car, while T’Challa hugged him goodbye.
Shuri stood behind the curtain, knowing he wouldn’t be able to see her. She saw him give her window a long, thoughtful gaze. He took a few steps towards the house, but then stopped and ran his hand through his hair, still staring at her window. For a brief moment, she wanted to give in, to run downstairs and apologize to him, but she felt as if her feet were stuck to the floor. She leaned her head against the wall next to the windowpane and closed her eyes.
Eventually, he turned around, and walked back to the car.
Shuri sat back down on her bed as she heard him take off and began poking small holes into the fabric of her white dress with a needle she kept on her dresser. She let her mind go blank.
Half an hour later, she returned to the kitchen, where the plate was still waiting. She stared at it and then began to slowly fork the cold pasta into her mouth, doing her best to ignore the tears that rolled down her cheeks. It tasted just as terrible as it looked, but she must have been hungrier than she thought, because she wiped the plate clean.
She found Ramonda sitting motionless on one of the couches in the living room. She put her arms around her and held her for the rest of the afternoon.
*-*-*
Autumn, 2022
Shuri’s hand lingered on the door, but she didn’t dare touch it. It had suddenly occurred to her that this would be the first time in many years that she would be alone with Namor in an enclosed space, and she wasn’t sure how to act. She had never grown into that big breasted, confident woman of her fantasies, and she sure as hell didn’t have the personality to do the kind of seduction Riri envisioned, so that kind of romancing was out of the question.
She didn’t even know what she wanted, at this point. So what if she still had feelings for him? That didn’t mean she had to do anything about it, despite Riri constantly trying to convince her otherwise. The urgency she had felt as a teenager to resolve this dilemma was long gone; she knew she could just let things be. She could just be herself and enjoy his company.
She could just be Shuri.
She took a breath and knocked on the door.