Page 83 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
Tears roll down my cheeks. “You really didn’t get a chance to talk to Ellery again?”
“No.”
“Fuck,” I whisper.
“It’s all in the past,” she says so simply. Then her jaw hardens. “I’m more concerned about the present.”
“What do you mean?”
“Izzy,” she sighs. “I’m talking about you. I know who you are. And I love you just the way you are, but I hate that you’re in this situation, this place that doesn’t allow you to be fully yourself.”
My face burns hot. Instinctively, I want to hide from her, butwho am I kidding? There’s nothing that can be hidden from Nainai. “How did you find out?”
She shrugs. “Call it a gaydar, call it an instinct. Whatever you want. It doesn’t matter. It is a big regret of mine that despite everything I managed to do for mental health, I was never able to shift the way this country views LGBTQ rights. Pretty ridiculous, really, that even now we’d still be fighting for those basic rights. But this country will come round at some point, I’m sure.” She cups my cheek. “In the meantime, it hurts me physically to see you having to hide your beautiful self because of bigotry. But I want to tell you right now, Izzy, that I’m so proud of you. I see so much of myself in you, and even better than that, I see so much of Iris in you. If your grandmother were around, she would squish you and tell you that everybody else can go fuck themselves and that you need to do you.”
I laugh through my tears. After everything she’s told me about Iris, yeah, that sounds about right. “I love that Grandma and you are both such bad bitches.”
“The baddest,” Nainai agrees. “And if I was to be honest, you gave me the courage to truly be me.”
“I did?”
“Well, I thought to myself:I could sit Izzy down and lecture her about being honest with herself. Or I could show her by example.”She grins at me. “So after I finished grieving Yeye, I traveled around the world and I started dating women. That was how I met Sawyer. Oh, we have had some very fun adventures.”
“Oh god, please don’t go there, Nainai. I am begging you.”
“Prude.” Her face grows somber. “I want to pave the way for you. I don’t care what people will say about me. Let them saywhatever they want. I am untouchable. But you, you have your whole life ahead of you. Do not let anyone put you in a box.”
I say in a choked whisper, “I’m scared, Nainai.”
“I know, baby girl. And it’s not safe for you here. I know that. But in just a few short years, you’ll be off to college. Go someplace where you can be yourself. I’ve put aside some money for you. A lot of money, actually. Use it wisely. Use it to buy your freedom.”
I can only manage to nod through my tears. Nainai wraps her arms around me and strokes my head as though I’m a child, and I lean into her embrace and cry. I cry for both of us and for my grandmother and Ellery and even for Yeye. But most of all, I cry for myself, because I am finally, irrevocably, utterly seen.
Epilogue
IZZY
Four years later
I’m in the middle of my essay when my door opens. I don’t look up from the computer screen until arms wrap around my shoulders and a kiss is placed softly on the top of my head. I lean back and see Kate standing over me. She stoops over and kisses my nose.
“One day, it’ll be an axe murderer walking in here because you never lock your door,” she says.
“I’ve got nothing to steal.”
“Uh, I beg to differ.” She gestures around the room at all of my electronic gadgets.
“Damn it. Okay, point taken. But if I lock my door, you won’t be able to pop in and out and annoy me all the time.”
“Hmm, true.” Kate plops down on my bed and grins at me. “Okay, forget what I said. You can continue to risk your life and keep your door unlocked so I can come in and bug you whenever I want.”
I save my document and get up, stretch my arms over my head. For a moment, I’m distracted by the view before me. My dorm room is on the twelfth floor, and from my window, I can see the entirety of the UC Berkeley campus. It is so beautiful that even now, well into my second semester here, the sight of it sometimes still catches my breath. And today, of all days, I’m more sentimental than ever. When I look out onto campus, I imagine I can see Nainai strolling down the rolling hills, books in the crook of her arm, her thoughts on Ellery.
“You ready to go?” Kate says. Her voice is gentle.
I tear my eyes away from the window and smile at her. “Yeah.” I pick up the urn that contains Nainai’s ashes and place it carefully in my backpack. “Let’s go.”
Kate and I hold hands and leave my room. It’s so easy to hold her hand. So natural. Our fingers fit perfectly, as though our hands were designed with each other’s in mind. We talk about our classes as we walk down the hallway to the elevators. Kate is premed. I’m still undecided, but I love hearing all about her classes, and for whatever reason, she finds my random classes fascinating. We take her car to the beach, and I laugh when Kate drives with her knees during a quiet stretch.My god, I think.Nainai, if you could see this now.She would crack the hell up, then she’d tell us to stop being idiots and to drive safe.
