Akwaeke Emezi is a staple in my classroom and personal library. When my student, a lover of Romance novels borrowed You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, I was careful. “It starts off very spicy,” I warned her.

“Miss, I read mad romance, trust me,” she said. And I did because one, she’s 18, and I knew she had the tools and mind to engage safely. Two, I was given Forever by Judy Blume to read fresh into the seventh grade and I turned out ok (lol). Three, reading is reading is reading.

Emezi’s romance is complicated as hell. Feyi, the protagonist, is an artist in New York and a young widow, who is dealing with her grief by having a good amount of adult fun. When she meets Nasir through one of the guys she hooked up with, Feyi sees some potential in him, and responsibly lets him know she’ll need to take things slow. The first red flag is Nasir books her and her best friend a flight to an island where she will work on an artist residency. The second is he doesn’t tell her they will be staying with his dad, Alim, who is a renowned and famous chef. Upon arrival, our Feyi is swooning over the place she is to inhabit for the summer, and most pressing—Nasir’s dad, Alim. It’s not just that he’s famous, that Nasir is funding Feyi with his money, or that he’s very attractive, it’s that Feyi and Alim share an important wound—they both lost the loves of their life. And so the beef begins…

The surface beef around You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is the discourse that sprung upon its release. BookTok was a mess. Team Nasir vs Team Alim. The question of dad or son rang like good fun to me. I personally was on vacation of a tropical island while reading, so I wasn’t thinking too deeply past the sexual tension and romance plot. But on Reddit I came across threads were folks felt Nasir was villainized or claiming he wasn’t given grace—the cost of Feyi’s character not being held accountable for how she handled the situation. While I could understand how the story rushed past Nasir’s devastation, I couldn’t see a book where the story slowed down to hold space for him because I never believed the story was geared to be about him at all.

Years later, and days before my student’s high school graduation, she barges into my room already hot, flailing the book in her hand. “I disagree with book!”

“Girl, it sounds like—“ she didn’t even let me finish.

“Nasir was a good guy, and they invalidated his feelings!”

“So you’re with Nasir’s actions then?” I asked, truly curious.

“No, he was wrong for the way he acted,” my student said, agreeing that his actions were violent. “But they invalidated his feelings, like c’mon, that’s his dad.”

As I listened to my student, her claim pulled me back to the Reddit threads. Like my students, other readers felt Nasir was a decent man. One Reddit user wrote that by the end Nasir becomes, “…shitty, slut-shamey, almost violent asshole…so Feyi gets to be the victim rather than the one who did something shitty!” I hear and can hold that, and I’m also very aware of how quick people flip the script in real life when someone they want behaves in ways that do not meet their expectations. Furthermore, I walked away from the book feeling like Nasir had a human reaction to the-girl-that-got-away by choosing his father, and both Feyi and Alim, who were set on exploring their connection, handled the situation humanly, too.

“Feyi should’ve ended up with Nassir though!” My student said, hyped up about the messy romance.

I laughed, sipping on my water.

“Like he flew her out to the island!” My student pushed.

I swallowed the bite I’d taken from my chopped cheese, low-key forcing myself not to lecture her. But hearing her bracket Nasir’s behavior to defend his feelings was telling of how we’re still trained to downplay violence while judging others (Feyi, in this instance) for their desires. This year in particular when my student came to me for conversations around dating and getting to know someone romantically, I was shook by how ingrained toxic dating culture is in fresh young adults. Maybe it’s aging and that I don’t want them to be in dangerous or harmful situations, but I couldn’t let my student’s read go unchecked.

“That was his dad’s money though!” I cackled, low-key nervously trying to pass off my concern with a little trolling.

“It don’t matter though, Nassir did it for her!” She insisted.

To me, this is the real beef You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty brings up for readers to grapple with. The idea that because someone offers you things, they are privy to access you. Feyi accepted a flight to an Island with her best friend from Nasir to complete an artist residency he’d signed her up for, all after she’d been clear about wanting to take things slow. Clearly she is not a perfect character, but does that mean she HAD to give Nasir what he wanted while negating her own desires? The possession rule contemporary dating has been pushing has stuck to many of us. My student’s words scared me. For her, f

or me, for all of us. Date rape thrives on this rule. Theres been plenty discourse around this, most poignant—the 200 dollar date. A good meal and a nice time means someone has to go home with you? No, we can pass. But it’s frightening that intelligent, young women are internalizing the rule…even if only through a book.

One of the reasons I love fiction is precisely because it forces us to consider ourselves and our worlds. The love triangle in You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, and her reasoning about why Feyi should’ve ended up with Nasir, led my student and me to a deeper conversation. Past the fact that you can revoke access to yourself from anyone, at any time, we spoke of the freedom and right to change our minds—even if you’re considered a messy person and will break some hearts. I believe it’s important for young women and girl to witness someone like Feyi changing her mind and saying no, unapologetically—despite their complications and mess. Is it uncomfortable? For sure, but that’s not more important than our right to say I’m good on that—and to have it be respected.

While some readers, like my students were disappointed by this romance, I enjoyed it and stand by the chaos. “Para el gusto los colores.” A range of colors for a range of taste. If this kinda mess isn’t your bag, that’s ok. But for a hot girl read, I was into it.

Bored and nine one summer, I placed bits of dry noodles on the corner of my lower eyelids. When I cried, pasta bits streamed out. My grandmother entertained my miracle for two seconds, then she shooed me away, telling me to stop playing for attention. None of us knew I needed the attention.

Something strange happened in a haunted house at PS 95, later that year in New York. A handful of students were brought into the principal’s office to give our testimonies. My words, like those of the others, were not put down on paper because it did not match the story they were telling. I was sent back to class believing the weird thing was my fault, and that I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

When I cut school to meet up with a boyfriend years later, an elder caught me and called me a prostitute. I told my stepdad about it, and he confronted the person, only for them to claim I was making the story bigger than it was.

All of these small moments are woven into one of the voices in my head. When I speak, when I write, when I dream, especially about the things that hurt, the voice plays at haunting me sometimes. Telling me I’m a jabladora, peddling half truths to be more interesting, for the sake of being seen and felt. But I don’t believe it. I’m grown now, I know better.

Dominican folks love to say “El que no grita, no mama.” At best a cry will get you the safety you need. At worst, things will stay the same. Many times, we don’t listen to our own advice. But me? I have used that phrase to see myself out of situations that try to force me into silence over and over again.

“I got a sad story too! I just dont make it my personality or use it as an excuse.”

I ran across this shit on my feed, and it triggered me. That’s the truth. The reason to my reaction is that fresh into the world, I learned how to hold secrets even though they never sat well with me. They ate at me. They made me meaner, sadder, a liar, a thief, until I was a full-fledged bully—mirroring all the characteristics of people I disliked and feared. And so when I was taken to a mental health clinic at eleven years old, I started to speak. I put my suffering into sentences for a Boricua therapist, and there was relief. And lo and behold, life didn’t sink into total chaos like I thought it would, all got better. But because life is a series of up’s and down’s, things got past bleak again. I retracted back to hoarding hurt. When I dared to privately share my woes with those closest to me, my then boyfriend told me, “Why you got a big mouth? Always telling everyone everything.” I only screamed when my skin was bruised by his fists.

I don’t share any of that to make an outfit or a crutch of my sadness. I say it because it’s my property to do what I want with.

Writing stories, speaking my truth has been a bitter medicine. I am not close to holding and sharing it to perfection. I’ve been fortunate to witness how it alleviates me and others, and yet, there’s always the bad taste of having dared, of having to deal with the judgement of others, because whether I like it or not, a part of me has internalized the supposed benefits of not saying too much.

Silence is an inheritance that promises valor, and that entices me all the time. There’s something sexy about being unfazed by the actions of others. A millennial, I am pulled to have “an icebox where my heart used to be.” But I don’t want to be a monster or a person whose health has chipped away because I didn’t let my vocal cords do what they were placed in my throat to do. I am loyal to the practice of annihilating silence from my being. The people I have looked up to all my life have been the ones who narrate everything—fuck who it rubs the wrong way. More than being valiant, I want to be brave like them, to convince others to join these muddy waters. Because to speak up about what haunts us might be the most accessible way to cleanse us of the habit of staying quiet to avoid causing a mess.

Zora Neale Hurston famously said, “if you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” If nothing else, those of us who speak up, die knowing our distaste for injustice and violence was documented.

The post is gross, distasteful, especially because survivors, activists, journalists, truth and story tellers, people on the fucking grounds who touch grass, have done so much for us by sharing their truth. All of us—even the ones who criticize the telling—benefit. In the workforce? People have told their sad stories to get you your rights to benefits and your unions. Done wrong? People have sobbed to get you your rights to fair trial. A regular, degular human being? People have DIED to defend your birthrights and freedoms. None of these efforts have been perfect, and we know too well they haven’t been fully met for everyone, but someone’s story carved out a beginning.

Because everyone has a sad story. But everyone doesn’t have the same stomach, or the same lineage, or the same journey. As an adult, I know it’s weak for folks to shit on those of us who have made meaning of our truth. I’m not writing this for them—they’re set in their shape. I’m writing for the ones still forming, who might hear “keep your sob story to yourself” and believe it is best practice to swallow silence. It is dangerous for us to continue pushing silence into one another, to teach younger folks to perform unbothered and demure when they’re burning. Making meaning out of our experiences, good or bad, is what life, art, and death is about. And the trio requires mirrors and ears. Turning hardship into something by leaning on one another is a part of our DNA we don’t use enough.

Many go entire lives not making a sound about what’s happened to or for them. A gift they hold for themselves to ward off evil eye, to secure their benefits because deficit thinking has convinced them there’s not enough to go around. A trespassing they keep to themselves clutching their pearls, waving their flag of respectability. We know these folks. They surround us. They birth us and mold us. What they keep so tucked in their throats only have one way to make themselves known. A life of solitude. A disease. A hungry madness. A liver that cannot hold another ounce of alcohol. A hit that won’t take them back to delirium. Who does their silence serve? Not their kin. Not themselves or their neighbor. Only the dark side of withholding information that can validate someone else’s experiences or push a bloodline past a cycle of hurt. Only the foundation of hushed violence. One calcified within so many of our cultures.

Everyone has a sob story. You just don’t use it as an identity marker or an excuse. Cool story. I don’t blame you. It is easier to perform, to make a habit out of masks, to take on the vice of silence than it is to raise your story in a room full of elephants. However, I invite you to marry your silence. To shut up about how grandiose you believe you are compared to those of us who belong to the school of the brave, who use the tool of our voice to survive.

I’ve told, and I’ll die reminding the youth, and younger versions of me, that it is our right to tell when it hurts and when it’s all good.

I am not a tree in an unreachable forest, that when it falls no one hears it land. I am a person in a city molded by noise. There will be a sound. My truth can only shape it better.