You Still Need To Lead — Day 11

Iris left me inside to clean myself up and told Wes and Deacon to go get breakfast for us. She kept knocking on the door to ask if I needed anything. I kept telling her no, but she kept asking, so I turned on the shower to drown her out.

“You still need to lead,” I told my reflection.

The heat from the shower fogged the mirror and then I wrote it – you still need to lead. So many books. So many stories of adventure and love and heartache and leadership and kingdoms brought down and lifted back up from rubble, but I couldn’t remember reading one about a woman losing her virginity a few hours before stepping forward to spreadhead a potentially groundbreaking endeavor.

I stepped into the hot shower and let the water rinse the blood and tears away. My chin wanted to quiver and the more I told it to stop, the more it did. Before long, I was crying so hard I couldn’t tell which was shower water and which were tears.

I searched my mind for a novel about the sadness of losing one’s virginity. Such an unexpected sense of loss. Like missing something you never realized was there. I’d assumed my hymen had been torn inadvertently by a tampon or gynecological exam. Or maybe I’d never had one. But then, the same morning I realized it was intact, it had also gone.

“You still need to lead,” I whispered into the heat. “You still need to lead.”

This felt like a foreshadowing of what it was the be a woman. A pushing through sadness and pain and unexplainable misery. Tailored suits and red stilettos masking varying facets of female pain since pain was not allowed for us.

I shook my head and tried to decide on a plan of action. How could I handle this? Simply ignoring it would create a lore. Whereas owning such things eliminate them as topics of interest. I knew I needed to address it head on or Deacon would rear his ugly head and spread it around school.

This was no different than a water bug back home. The ones that fly and terrorize adults and children and everyone. On the farm, our water bugs cosplay as bats. Their wingspan stretching kitchen cabinet to cabinet. The tic- tick-tick sound when they walk across the hardwoods haunts southern dreams. The cowards among us run away, allowing them to take their kitchens from them. But the brave stare them down quietly, lift the hard bottom shoe and squash them into creamy smears of victory.

“Face it,” I said through the water. “Squash it.”

“Okay in there?” Iris asked again.

“Coming out in a minute,” I said, hoping it’d calm her.

I turned the water off and wrapped myself in a long towel. I went into my room to find a sanitary pad and black sweat suit to pull on. I had no idea how long I’d bleed from this. Then, I retwisted my now-wet hair and wrapped a black scarf around it. With one last quick look in the mirror on the back of my door, I joined Iris.

“No,” she said taking one look at me. “You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“Maybe I am,” I said solemnly.

“No,” she repeated. “You look defeated by a popped cherry. You know what? Do you have red?”

I thought about my wardrobe too long apparently because she continued. “I do.”

She rummaged through her top drawer and pulled out an A-line red dress. “You’ll do this. It’s power, not defeat. Got it?”

I wanted to cry again and couldn’t understand this. It was not me at all. “I can’t remember the last time I cried this much.”

“Well,” she said unwrapping the black scarf from my head and untwisting my hair to let it fly free. “When I lost mine, I was a blubbering mess. I think it’s a thing.”

“If it’s a thing,” I said. “Why does no one talk about it?”

“Woman’s work,” she said simply. “I hear it’s better in Germany but not entirely so. Can I change the subject and try to tie it back to this?”

I nodded.

“You’re stepping up to lead this thing. You thought of it – the App I mean – and you aren’t submitted to allow a bro to head it. That’s why I stayed up all night to help build it. If this is successful, which I believe it will be, you conceptualized it. You delegated it. And you fucking built it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what the world needs to know. A brilliant Black woman did this. That’s where the world begins to shift. This burst hymen is a symbol of your power. You leaving the farm girl in Alabama and becoming a powerful woman in a male dominated world.”

She opened her makeup drawer and pulled out the reddest lip I’ve ever seen. I wanted to protest but she gave me a look like the one my mother gave when she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She traced the line of my lips and filled them in. Then, she turned me around and I gasped. My afro let free. The red dress and lip. I nodded to myself.

“You will lead,” I told my reflection.

“Damn right.”

When the boys reentered, they held croissants and coffee. At first, they were cautiously peeking at me like I was a live grenade ready to blow them all up.

“Before you tiptoe around and ask if I’m alright,” I said. “What happened with Wesley, and me is our business,” I forced my chin up and a sly grin. “And I’m hoping it’ll happen again tonight and the night after that, too. So can we move on this App launch before we get it snatched?” Deacon patted Wesley on the back, and Iris winked at me approvingly. “First thing’s first,” I started. “Which platforms will be start with? IoS is a nonnegotiable, any other suggestions?”

And in earnest, we got to work.

***