Page 1 of Isn't She Lucky
Prologue
Fourteen Years Ago
“Kase, throw theball,” Giada says across the football field, her familiar voice reverberating across the yard, straight to my eardrums. It’s soothing. Loud, but soothing nonetheless.
I’m standing here with the football in the strong grip of my right hand, looking at her. I’m in a trance. Completely infatuated. Giada Gardner is not only my best friend. She’s my everything. I completely adore her – have since we were eight. The age where boys and girls pretend to loathe each other while their bodies prepare for puberty, only we didn’t have those issues. I like her. She likes me. We’ve never spoken these words ofliketo each other. It was heavily understood, and what’s understood doesn’t need to be said. It just needs to…be.
We’re teenagers now, fourteen to be exact, and I know this fact to be true: I don’t know what love is, but I know what it feels like.
It feels likeher.
Her laugh.
Her voice.
Her innocence.
Her optimism.
“Kase!”
Herimpatience.
“Hold on, girl. You ain’t ready for this.”
With Giada, I’m my happiest.
With her, I feel joy in my heart.
With her, I’m king of the world – this world of privilege I was born into, where money is no object, but it could never do for me what she could. It has no blood running through it. No life. Nothing about it makes my heart leap in my chest. I don’t adore it. Don’t value it.
Don’t love it.
“Kase, throw the ball, already! It’s about to rain. Hurry up! What are you doing? Are you like, malfunctioning or something? Jeez.”
“You ain’t gon’ catch it anyway.”
“I guess we’renevergoing to find out,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest that I’ve secretly watched grow over the years. She’s blossoming right before my eyes into this beautiful butterfly, and she probably doesn’t realize it. I’m not close enough to see her facial expressions, but I know her sweet little lips are pouty. It always makes me smile when she’s wound up. When she does that neck-snapping thing. I know all of her mannerisms. I’ve made it a point to. We don’t go to the same school. We don’t even live in the same city, so every minute we spend together, I use it to my advantage to learn everything there is to know about her.
“Kasim!”
“Okay, okay.” I cock the ball back and launch it like I’m Cam Newton circa 2015 when people used to call him Superman and he was ‘dabbing’ all across the field, pissing people off with his newfound confidence. Giada is good at judging which directionshe’d have to run and how far, so she takes off, dives for the ball, and catches it right before she hits the ground.
“Ouch,” I say quietly, but a slow smile forms on my face. I love that in her. The pure grit to chase down a football and toss her whole body at it. Her tomboyish ways haven’t diminished now that we’re teens, yet she still has a sweet, softer side that I’m privy to. She wears cocoa butter lotion and shimmering body sprays. Her lips stay glossy and she even paints her nails on occasion. Ain’t nothing like a girl who’s pretty and can run a forty effortlessly without complaining about sweat.
She’s the girl who stole my heart. The friend I thought I’d never have because none of the kids at my school thought I was cool enough to hang out with me. Yeah, I was the quarterback of the football team, but I wasn’t what you would callsocialor a team player. I was good at faking. I was better at isolation. It was so bad, my parents tried to put me in therapy. Then Giada came along.
My therapy.
She’s the girl I know will grow into the woman I will marry the first chance I get. The first chanceweget. I feel that strongly about her.
And she has no idea.
But thelikeis there. It’s mutual. It’s omnipresent, and it has staying power.
“Man, that was a rocket, Kase. If you play like that next year, it’s gon’ be a wrap!”
She throws the ball back to me – a perfect spiral. I’m always impressed by how far she can throw. She’s good. Too good.
