Free Every Time a Rainbow Dies by Rita Williams-Garcia Page B

grabbed his hand and pulled him in, shoving him to the corner of a two-seater. She took the outside seat, stood her case against the side, and unstrapped her backpack.
    He didn’t know what to say.
    â€œI need this seat,” she said, “so my portfolio will fit here on the side.”
    The doors closed, and the train pulled off. He couldn’t tell if he was still pissed with her or if he was feeling good, sitting next to her. It all melted into one warm stream that ran from his heart to his ass. A sweet burn. What his body knew as simply being with Ysa.
    â€œWhere are your books?” she asked.
    He took out a spiral notebook from the waistband of his pants.
    â€œAnd?” she demanded.
    He shrugged.
    â€œThat’s it? You don’t read? You don’t study?” She rolled her eyes to show her disgust or to show off her lashes.
    He shrugged and tried to make himself comfortable in the corner seat, but there was nowhere for his knees to fit. He would have to lean one knee against hers.
    She took out a book from her backpack and said, “If you don’t mind…,” and began to read.
    It was just as well. He hadn’t thought of anything to say. He only wanted to see her. Be with her. Take in her smell, which consisted of coconut oil from her hair, flowers and citrus at her neck and ears, and powder from inside her jacket. Although he was happy to have her knees and arms brush up against him as the train rumbled and shook, he didn’t want Ysa to disappear into her book, thinking him a late-coming, going-nowhere lagga head. He wanted her to know he had responsibilities.
    â€œI forgot to do something,” he told her. “That’s why I’m late.”
    She looked up from her textbook.
    â€œI have birds that I let out every morning,” he told her. “See, I was so exci—well, I forgot to let them out. I went back, but then I knew I’d miss you—”
    â€œYou have birds, in a cage?”
    â€œNot in a cage,” he said, defending himself. “In a home I built them when my mother—when I was thirteen.”
    â€œAnd you have to let them out? Every morning?”
    He nodded.
    â€œSo they’re locked up. Caged?”
    He shook his head. She didn’t understand. “Every evening they return to their home, on the roof.”
    â€œThe roof?”
    She looked at him with anger. He was sorry he mentioned the roof. Sorry that he looked too deeply into her eyes, eyes that refused to blink. Sorry he did not know the right thing to say. Still, he tried again.
    â€œThey’re pigeons. Mostly white,” he said. “They’re beautiful. Well, the hens are beautiful.” Tai-Chi might not mind being called beautiful, but Bruno wouldn’t stand for it.
    â€œHens?”
    â€œFemale birds,” he said. “The males are bigger, have thick necks. They’re called cocks.” It was too late to take that back, cock . He kept talking. “I started with three white hens—Yoli, Dija, and Esme. I found them on my roof and took care of them when they were tiny. Left by their mother.”
    â€œHow do you know she left them?” This was almost an attack. A man reading his Dow Jones gave her a sharp look.
    â€œShe never came back,” Thulani answered. “I waited.”
    â€œMaybe it’s because you touch them and the mother smell you on her babies,” she said, still on the attack. “You’re not supposed to touch them.”
    He felt steam. He only wanted to let her see that he cared for something, even if they were birds. Likeeverything else he tried, this backfired. She was appalled or disgusted. There was nothing he could say to change what she thought.
    The train creaked to a complete stop and sat outside the next station. The conductor blamed the delay on a sick passenger up ahead and promised that the trains would be moving shortly. Ysa turned back to her textbook, Thulani to the