Page 78 of August Lane
Jojo:
Young people call everything trauma these days.
Emma:
Okay, fair. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Jojo:
All I know is there was only one decent boy in the King family, and Silas still ended up in jail.
Emma:
That’s a common risk for Black men in—
Jojo:
Okay, yes. Put your little sociology degree away. I know all about that. We watched our men taken when no one cared enough to put it on social media. Do you know how many funerals I’ve been to? All young bodies.
Emma:
I’m sorry if I came across as disrespectful. It wasn’t my intention.
Jojo:
No, it’s fine. What I’m saying is we treated it like a joke. Cops are coming for another King. We made it into a song. Theo cornered me a dozen times before I agreed to go out with him, saying I was already his. He was seventeen. Almost a man. I was a little thing. But instead of thinking this near-man is blocking the door, or he’s so big and tall no one can see it’s me he’s talking to, I thought, this is hot. This is sexy, like in the movies. He showed me who he was, and I made him into something else. But later, when he held me down? When he proved what he said was true, that I didn’t belong to myself, that’s when I believed what he’d already showed me. That he was a wolf.
