Free Being Lara by Lola Jaye

current context they seemed rather surreal. It was as if she and Henry existed within the pages of her favorite novel, which was slowly building to an exciting conclusion.
    They stood outside the gates to her home. Bats flew noisily above as Yomi and Henry hugged each other so tight their breaths mingled. And then he kissed her. But first on her forehead and then the protruding bit above her lip, the bit she’d always disliked—and just as she parted her lips, her eyes closed in expectant bliss … nothing. She found Henry smiling back at her as she opened her eyes slowly.
    â€œOh…” she said, full of fresh embarrassment. Her head nodded downward, but he gently placed his finger under her chin, easing it upward and then she felt that delicious pressure of his lips on hers, probing and wanting, eager, yet welcome. Yomi had tasted a man before, when she was seventeen—the next-door neighbor’s son, Tokumbo, who always followed ice cold kisses with a frantic squeezing of her breast, like he was milking a droopy-bosomed cow. But Henry’s kisses felt different, tasting like that first bite of the sweetest, softest mango. She never wanted the moment to end. She wished Henry would marry her that night and they could begin their life together immediately. She wanted no one but him. She wanted to be his. Forever. He had consumed her very being without even knowing it, and at that moment, Yomi knew she would never want to kiss anybody but him for the rest of her life.
    â€œI hope I was not too forward,” he said, apologetically.
    â€œNo,” she replied, fearing he would see the beating of her heart, like a pulsating third breast, right through her outfit.
    â€œMay I drop by tomorrow?” he asked.
    â€œPlease, yes,” she said, not wanting to sound too eager yet wanting him to know just how much she couldn’t wait to see him again.
    â€œBye, bye, my Yomi,” he said, touching her cheek, gently. And then he opened the gate and was gone.
    That night Yomi happily relinquished any sleeping rights as she rested her head on her pillow, dictionary beneath it, unable to stop thinking about how much her body had tingled when she’d heard those words: my Yomi.

Chapter 4
    Pat
    England
    1969
    I t was perhaps inevitable that at eighteen, Pat Smith found it hard to be visible, let alone heard, above the strains of everyday life in a consistently busy and lively South London household. The bickering among three older brothers, her sister’s constant state of moodiness, and a mother who sometimes cried herself to sleep often made Pat feel like the only sane person in the house. The one who by default should be different from the others. The one armed with a collection of dreams, attainable and unattainable, hidden beneath a cream-colored floral pillow.
    Pat feared that underneath she was actually just a carbon copy of the others. Perhaps she was destined for a life that was ordinary, not dissimilar to those who surrounded her—from neighbors to family members—all armed with a set belief that trying to achieve something even a little different could be seen as a threat.
    A threat to what? She wasn’t sure and would perhaps never know because no one had ever tried to leap further than the limit they had set for themselves. And for now, the slight shade of auburn, which swam through thin strands of her hair, was her only distinction within a family of mousy blondes.
    Living in a house without a father, the family had very little money coming in. The boys seemed comfortable saying and doing the first thing to pop into their heads (which wasn’t always positive or clever), and her mother at times took out her irritability about having to do everything—from cleaning jobs to bingo, just to keep the bailiffs away—on her growing girls. The purchase of the family’s first ever color telly, thanks to a payment plan, did manage to replace the rows, with days and