#13 seconds

Thirteen seconds…Nia Howard could do a lot in 13 seconds.  For almost 10 minutes, she had been timing herself to see exactly what types of tasks she could perform in that amount of time.  

In 13 seconds Nia could lace her brand new blue and white checked Chuck Taylor Converse tennis shoe.  She was careful to lace the shoe so the strings were only threaded on the outside of the eye-loops, creating one thick solid line across the bridge, hiding the string feeding into the next eye-loop inside the shoe, just like she liked them. This was a trick she learned in Mrs. Hamilton’s 7th grade Math class, and she had been lacing her shoes that way ever since. 

13 seconds was all it took for her to guzzle 10 ounces of the Dasani water bottle sitting on her desk. She probably could have slammed more of the water down her throat, but she wasn’t that thirsty to begin with. Had she been parched, or had it been something that she wanted to drink, she was sure she could have gotten more than 10 ounces down in that amount of time. 

Nia also discovered that she could refill the liquid nicotine and change the filter in her vape, as long as everything was laid out in front of her, in 13 seconds. She was also able to screw the tank back together, but not put the tank back on the battery base before the timer went off.  That part still took her an additional 3 seconds.  Hmm. 

In 13 seconds, she was able to remove the back of the picture frame, take out the photo, and run her thumb over the glossy paper.  It took less than that amount of time for all of the emotions of the day to come flooding back to her as she stared at their first family photo. 

It had snowed at least a foot that day.  But there they were, outside sitting in all of that powder, freezing. Nia, her boyfriend, Alex, and their then 8-week-old Siberian husky, Vlad.  He thought it would be artistic.  She thought it would be cold.  Vlad thought it was fun, running around in snow deeper than he was tall.  But they were still smiling; they were happy.  They were in love.  

Alex was wearing his favorite navy blue The North Face snowsuit, that he had zipped up to his chin. You could only see the side of his pale face, with his cold red cheek, plump pink lips, and those dark lashes covering his incredible blue eyes.  The rest of him was so bundled up, he looked like the abominable snowman.  He loved the cold and the snow.  Growing up here, these snowy days in Denmark were nothing to him.  Nia, however, wasn’t quite as used to it.  It snowed on the East Coast of the US, but not like it did in Denmark.  Her pink and white snowsuit was more for fashion than warmth.  Sitting in the snow in between Alex’s legs, she was freezing and couldn’t wait for them to finish taking pictures.  

However, his arms were warm around her, and though his lips were cold against the side of her face, she could feel his warm breath tickle her ear as he laughed and told her how much he loved her.  She had leaned against his chest and noted how well her pink and white outfit matched his blue one.  Only her dark brown skin made a contrast against the snow and Alex’s complexion, but she still looked as if she belonged.  

She sat with her feet flat on the ground, knees drawn toward her chest bringing their brown and white puppy, the perfect mix between their two tones, closer to the two of them.  While her head leaned into Alex’s kiss, her eyes concentrated on little Vlad in her lap. She had him turned so the camera could capture his one blue eye and one brown eye, while she gently caressed their fur baby, drawing him in for a kiss on his soft, furry head.  

Could they be any cuter?  They were the perfect family.  They were a good looking couple with a good looking dog.  

Thinking about the day that photo was taken quickly made her mind drift back to the first time Alex told her he loved her. She could vividly remember how he grabbed her face and leaned in for that kiss.  The way he pressed his lips to hers, and how it set off every nerve in her body.  She remembered the way her heart fluttered and how she thought she was going to float right out of her skin. But when he pulled away and looked at her with those blue eyes, he grounded her and brought her right back to the spot where he was. When his eyes shifted between hers, desperately searching for some hint that she felt the same, she knew from that moment that he was the one for her.  That entire encounter, the weightlessness, grounding, feeling his eyes look through her and hearing his heart speak her name, couldn’t have taken more than 13 seconds. She was sure it happened all at the same time.

With everything she timed, 13 seconds seemed like it passed in the blink of an eye.  It was manageable if she had a task to complete, but by no means was it a significant amount of time.  So why did it feel like an eternity, each time she watched that damn video clip?  The more she watched it, the longer it became.  That damn 13-second video clip brought out of her a new set of emotions each time she viewed it.

At first, it was shocking.  She couldn’t register anything she saw because she was too surprised at what she saw. The only thing she could process was the feeling of, Huh? 

So, she watched it again, and this time she did so with a goofy smirk on her face. The smirk was the smirk of embarrassment. Embarrassment for her, for him, for them... for not knowing how to feel.  

She had to sit with it for a few minutes before she could watch it a third time. Instead of just jumping right into again, she decided to go back to the original email and reread the message.  She had been so put off by the video that she forgot what it was that she was being asked to do about it.

When she clicked back on the email from her office and skimmed the contents she could only shake her head. Did they actually expect her to handle this?   Really?  She was a publicist.  His publicist, but come on.  This was asking a bit much, no?  There were 14 other people in that damn firm that could have handled this, even if Alex was her client.  He was still a client of the fucking firm. What was she supposed to do?

Without thinking, she put her thumb to her mouth and started biting the cuticle around her new French manicure.  She had been doing so well with that, too. She only bit or picked at the cuticles on her nails when she was nervous or angry – that’s why she made sure to keep her nail appointments every two weeks. She didn’t want to have ugly cuticles on freshly designed nails.  Now she just wasted 264 DKK.

By the third time she watched the video, she went numb.  She couldn’t tell what she felt, all she knew was her mind wouldn’t let her feel anything.  A million different thoughts and emotions swirled around her, but none of them actually hit her, yet. The best way she could explain it was akin to having an out of body experience.  It felt like the glass desk she sitting at was getting further away from her while her laptop screen continued to get smaller.  She started to see the room she sat in as a person watching this scenario from somewhere else, and as long as she wasn’t directly connected to it, she could continue to disassociate with it. Instead, she could only sit there, with her mouth open, staring blankly at this distant laptop screen, unable to process what the fuck she just saw.  

There were no words. No thoughts.  There was nothing.  Only the feeling of adrenaline coursing through her veins and the sound of her heart breaking in a million pieces, as 13 seconds altered the course of her world.  

Ten minutes had to have passed before Nia clicked the replay button on the YouTube video to watch the clip for the fourth time.  She was in a better place now.  She had gotten up, got a drink of water. Practiced a bunch of things she could do in 13 seconds.  She had refocused.  She could watch it now and deal with it with a clear head. She wasn’t sure how many times she had watched it before – it hadn’t registered. She was still in shock from that initial viewing. But, she needed to watch it again because she had to dissect it.  

Placing her chin in her hand, she didn’t give a fuck if she was transferring her Mahogany Shape Tape foundation and Cocoa Bean Black Radiance pressed powder on her palm.  Fuck the papers that were going to be stained from the makeup transfer.  That was a gripe for another day - black women that wore makeup always had issues with the transfer.  It was the plight of the beauty revolution.  She’d fight that battle another day.  Right now, there more important things to deal with. 

Where the hell were her earphones?  She needed to have the audio go directly into her ears.  There was no time to have the sound filter throughout the loft’s office and possibly get distorted. She needed every word to go directly from the computer, in her ear, and into her brain for immediate translation. Maybe she missed something. Maybe she misinterpreted it. Yea…that was it.  This was on her. It had to be, right?

Plugging in her Beats headphones, she placed them on her ears and turned up the volume on her laptop.  She took in a deep shaky breath and hit the replay button for the fourth time. 

Nope, she hadn’t imagined it.  It was still the same.  He was still having fun, hanging out with those same stupid fucking people.  He was still talking in that same drunken tone.  He still thought everything was so fucking funny and laughed at every fucking thing.  

Why did he do that laugh?  It was laugh he used when he was really tickled.  The one that he accompanied by clapping his hands because he was genuinely amused. It was that laugh that she loved the most.  It was that laugh that made her laugh too, usually.  It was that laugh that brought tears to her eyes.  

What the fuck was he thinking? When was he going to learn? There were so many of these kinds of questions she wanted to ask, but did it matter? Did he ever really have to answer them?  It was always going to be different for him for so many reasons. The question was, did she want to stick it out and deal with it?  

This wasn’t the first time he had done something so irresponsible, so insensitive. She knew it wouldn’t be his last.  The problem was, he never seemed to understand why it was a problem.  Quite frankly, she tired of trying to be his teacher.

Just as she sat the headphones back on the desk, she heard the key in the front door lock.  She didn’t want to deal with him right now. She needed more time to digest everything before she talked to him, otherwise, this wasn’t going to be a productive conversation. 

Nia was not the type of person that liked to argue, let alone, have a conversation when she was angry.  Her words were always carefully weighed, and she very rarely said anything out of anger. Hurting someone’s feelings, being misunderstood, and saying something that she would later regret were things that she tried to avoid.  It wasn’t that she was non-confrontational, she was just reserved, that way.  She didn’t grow up in a house where people yelled or used words to hurt each other.  She didn’t believe in doing that, and she wasn’t going to bring that into her relationship, no matter how passionate Alex could get about a situation.  But the way she was feeling right now, all bets were off.  

“Hallo, Vlad.  Have you been a good boy?” She heard his voice from the hallway rise an entire octave as he addressed their 10-month-old Siberian husky.  She could tell by the way Vlad whined and his paws scratched against the hardwood floors that he was jumping on up Alex.  All of that money they were spending on dog training and Alex was still letting Vlad jump on him. Nia shook her head in irritation.  “I missed you, too, boy.  Where’s Mama, huh?” 

Nia remained frozen to the spot.  She did manage to reach for her vape, on her desk, and noticed how the muscles in her neck and shoulders shook with tension.  Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to unclench her jaw.  She just needed a few more minutes to herself.  If he could just go upstairs, or in another room and leave her alone, she would be able to talk to him about this later. But, knowing him, that wouldn’t happen. 

He would keep pushing and pushing until he found out what was wrong with her and before she knew it they would be in a fight.  A fight that she would be actively participating in.  

“Babe?” He called out, making his way across their loft.  His voice getting closer to her office door. “Hey, babe,” he awkwardly raised his hand in greeting, to accompany his words, followed by his thousand-watt smile. “I got us cheesecake from a new bakery.  Casper speaks highly of them.”

Nia looked at her boyfriend and she could feel the hot sting of tears forming at the back of her eyes. Immediately, she dropped her gaze, not wanting to address him or the situation at the moment.  She managed to nod slowly as she continued to work her now jagged cuticle.

To the rest of the world, Alex Høgh Andersen was the model, actor, and photographer that walked on water, ate bullets, and shit ice cream.  He was the sexy heartthrob that had over a million Instagram followers.  The guy that couldn’t post a picture of taking out the trash without it being sent over 5 continents and 35 countries in a matter of minutes.  He had over 2,000 fan sites, and countless fan fictions written about him…fans adored him the world over and he was only 25. He was fucking perfect.  

To Nia, he was just her Alex.  Her clumsy, silly boyfriend, who never put his clothes in the hamper and always left the toilet seat up.  He was the guy that loved to cook but never cleaned the dishes.  He was the one that was always singing or beat-boxing or banging on something trying to make music.  He was always tried to make people laugh.  He was loud, goofy, and drank too much. He smelled awful after a workout and had the messiest bed head when he let his hair grow.  He sometimes smacked when he chewed and always talked with his mouth full.  He was a clown, but he meant well.  He was sweet, and thoughtful and always treated her like she was the most important woman in the world.  

Nia never had one reason not to trust him...until now.

“Baby,” he took in the expression on her face and rounded the glass desk to where she was sitting.  Kneeling in front of her seat, he turned her swivel chair to face him and took her hands in his, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

She raised her eyes wide and looked at a place on the bookshelf, right over his left ear. Refusing to look into those beautiful blue eyes of his and lose her train of thought.  She felt the sweat start at her top lip, something that always happened right before she was about to cry, but she fought the urge.  

“Alex,” she tried to keep her voice steady, but she was pumped full of adrenaline and emotion so it shook involuntarily, “what the fuck?” She pulled her hand from him and turned her laptop toward him.  Hitting the play button on the YouTube video again, she played the 13-second clip for him.  

Alex watched himself, drunk as hell, outside of a night club in Ireland with friends.  He asked his friend to do part of a skit from one of his favorite comedians.  He knew exactly what was on this clip.  He’d seen it, and still thought it was funny. “What’s wrong?”

Nia didn’t say anything, she just let the clip play.  Alex’s friend, Danny, this clout chasing, promoter fuck stood in the shot with him.  Out of Alex’s mouth came the line from Kevin Hart’s Seriously Funny Comedy routine, “Go night, night, nigga?”

He had said it low as if he was talking to Danny, asking him to perform the line from the stand-up.  So what does the little hanger on do?  Danny, who is black, does a really bad, really loud Kevin Hart impression for Alex and the camera, “Go night, night, Nigga!”  

Alex then comes back in the scene and repeats it and they all laugh because it’s so damn funny.  Alex disappears from the screen because he’s laughing so hard, but Danny is still there, shit-talking about having a big dick.  When Alex returns, the two of them end the video with a rousing chorus of “Alright, alright, alright…”  

She didn’t say anything to him, she just looked.  She searched his face for some sort of understanding, some kind of recognition. Something.  But when he turned back to face her and all she saw was confusion she felt her shoulders drop and the first fat tear roll down her face. “Wow.”

“Honey,” he lifted a brow, not quite sure what his crime was.  He knew she didn’t like Danny, but he hadn’t even seen him since he was in Ireland last.  It had to have been a few months. “This was months ago,” he reassured her, with his Danish accent punctuating his English words, “I know you think I drink too much and you don’t like to see me drunk.  It’s no good when it goes viral.  But, we were just fooling around.  It’s nothing to cry about.”  He cupped her cheek in his hand, hand brushed away her tear with his thumb.  His blue eyes moved swiftly between her brown orbs.  “Where did you even find this?”

“Your fucking manager sent it to me, Alex.  They want me to fix this shit.  I’m supposed to make all of this go away.  Me...your fucking black girlfriend - I have to make this racist bullshit you pulled go away.”  She should smack him.  She should.  It would be justified, right? “How in the fuck am I supposed to do that when you think being drunk was the fucking problem with this video?”    

“I’m not a racist,” he said with genuine shock, “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. You never do.” She got up from her chair, suddenly needing to distance herself from him.  “Why do I always have to be the one to educate you?  You are a grown man.  I shouldn’t have to explain this shit!  You DON’T get to say that word, Alex.  EVER.” She pointed a well-manicured finger in his direction, “It’s hurtful.  It’s hateful.  It’s ignorant.  And coming from YOU, it’s fucking devastating.” 

He was confused. What was she so upset about?  What exactly had he done wrong?  Turning around in his place, he slowly stood up and leaned against the desk.  Legs outstretched, arms folded across his chest in a defensive position he could tell that his girlfriend of three years was upset. Not just the regular run of the mill upset, either.  Something he had done had really bothered her.  

“Nia,” he breathed her name with a smirk on his face, “I think you’re making way bigger a deal of this than it is.  Danny was there, he didn’t care.  If I had said something bad, he would have told me.”  He pleaded with his face for her to trust him on this, it was all a misunderstanding.  “We were just joking. Besides, I didn’t say the bad word – the one with the other ending.  I changed it. We were just doing the part from the Kevin Hart comedy.” 

“Alex,” she straightened her posture and spoke very clearly so that he could understand her.  There was something in the way that he was dismissing what she had said to him that was really rubbing her the wrong fucking way, “You are not Kevin Hart.”  She did not crack a smile when he did.  She kept her face stoic and refused to drop his gaze.  “You are not black.  YOU don’t get to use that word, or any variation, thereof.”

Rolling his eyes, Alex relaxed his posture and lifted his face toward the ceiling. Is this what he came home for?  He could have still been hanging out with his friends for all this.  At least they wanted to have fun tonight.  It was a Friday for crying out loud, was this how they were going to start their weekend?  It was the first one in months that neither of them had to work.  They had been planning this weekend for forever, it seemed. They were supposed to be Netflix & chilling, drinking wine, having breakfast in bed…nowhere in their itinerary were they supposed to be fighting over a stupid joke.  

Alex’s hand covered most of his face, as he rubbed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts. He didn’t want to argue.  He wanted to change out of his hoodie and jeans, and get into some comfortable sweats.  He wanted to feed Vlad and cook dinner with her.  He wanted to eat in front of the TV while they caught up on this season of How to Get Away with Murder, which they promised each other not to watch until they were together.  “Jesus, Nia, why do you always blow things out of proportion?”

“Why do I.. I’m sorry?  Do I always blow things out of proportion?  Really?” She looked around the room as if he were talking to someone else, “Are you fucking shitting me, right now? Blowing shit out of proportion?  Why do you always have to be such an insensitive prick?”  She watched as he threw up his hands and walked out of the room mumbling under his breath.  “Yeah, say that shit in English, Alex, since you have such a grasp of the fucking language.” 

God, she was doing it.  She was doing everything that she never wanted to do when she argued.  She was speaking out of anger.  She losing the point.  She didn’t have one anymore, she was just mad. “Really…I don’t know who the fuck you think you playing with, but I am not the one.”  

Taking off his jacket and throwing it on the couch, Alex turned around to face his girlfriend.  He paid particular attention to the way her chest rose and fell when she was heated like this. He had always thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, but now her anger didn’t match her beauty. “I don’t know what your problem is, Nia, or what you think I did, but I told you, it was a joke.  All of this, it’s not fair to take it out on me.  You owe me an apology for starting on me for no reason when I just walked in the house.”  

He flopped down on the couch and leaned back, pinching the bridge of his nose.  He could feel a headache beginning right between his eyes and he knew it was from tension. 

“What part of this don’t you understand?  You offended me. You offended black and brown people all over the fucking world, thanks to YouTube.  I don’t have to apologize for shit.  You and your little fucking troll friend need to be apologizing!” She started walking around in a circle, she felt just that crazy at the moment. 

Nia looked over at the corner to Vlad.  His blue eye and brown eye lowered to the floor in sadness, as his parent argued. Her heart broke for their baby, but it couldn’t be helped. “Obviously your manager thinks this is a big fucking deal if they sent this shit to be fixed.  Alex, you can’t go around offending people.  You are in the public eye, whether you want to be or not. You have fans that are from every walk of life - do you know how many of them you just insulted? You need to be more responsible for your actions and the shit that comes out of your mouth.”  

“Nia, I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.  I hear that word a hundred times a day. It’s not a problem.  It’s in every song. It’s on American TV…Danny and your brother-in-law call me that all the time.  I’m not a racist.  I’m in love with a black woman.”  He found himself raising his voice because no matter what he was saying, she didn’t seem like she was understanding, “One time,” he held his finger up to emphasize his point, “I do a part from a comedy that I like, with my black friend, and you lose your damn mind.”  

“What the fuck, yo?” Was she going crazy? She tried to inhale clean air, and exhale the poison before she spoke, however, it wasn’t helping.  All she could do was rub her temples. “Danish, American...it doesn’t fucking matter does it?”

“What doesn’t?”   

“Your privilege?” She rubbed her temples slowly and tried to crack her neck. “I’m gonna say this real slow so you can translate it into whatever the fuck language you need to understand it.  I don’t care how much trap music you listen to. You don’t get to say that word. I don’t care if you know the words to every Kendrick Lamar song.  You don’t get to say that word.  I don’t care how many black friends you have. You don’t say that word.  I don’t care what my brother-in-law calls you, or me, or the man in the moon.  You don’t say that word.”  

She got closer to the couch and bend down so that he could hear her.  Barely opening her teeth to speak, she made her point crystal clear, “And I certainly don’t care if you are fucking me or a 100 other black girls, it doesn’t make you black.  You still don’t get to say that word!”

“Oh my God, Nia! It’s a fucking word.”

Was she talking to herself?  Was he that clueless?  Where there no words in Danish that meant anything like it?  They had racism all over the world, surely there was a word in his language that used to oppress another culture to the effect that that word had been used to tear down black people, but black Americans especially.  Nia didn’t know what it meant to other black people, she could only tell him what it meant to her.  

“Do you know what’s like to have no identity, Alex?  Do you know what it’s like to still be referred to as the term they used when they listed you in catalogs to be bought and sold like an animal?  It was no different than saying the word ‘cow’ – it was a word to describe cattle. That’s what an entire country thought of people that look like me.  For no other reason than the color of my skin.”  She couldn’t stop the tears from pooling in her eyes.  She was so beyond mad that her voice was eerily quiet.  “Those people didn’t do anything to deserve it.  They were just born next to the equator.” She shrugged her shoulders in defeat.

“That word stripped men of their role in the family and made some impotent and others were turned into bucks that were only good for breeding…it broke them. It made women broodmares, whose job was to have babies to keep plantations going.  Families were sold apart no different than how Vlad was taken from his mother because he’s a dog.” She pointed to their puppy hoping that he would understand, “They thought it was okay to do that to my ancestors because of that word. Alex, I don’t care how much you hear that word. When you say it, that’s what it feels like to me. That I don’t exist.  That Nia doesn’t exist. That I’m no different than Vlad. But, here’s the rub - in all the time we’ve had him I have never once heard you refer to him as a dog.  But now you used the word nigga, and you think it’s funny.  So, I have to wonder now, how do you describe me?”

He was dumbstruck. 

He didn’t mean any of that when he said it.  It was a joke.  It was an homage to Kevin Hart.  It was fucking funny.  He understood that she was hurt, but he didn’t quite get why she was hurting. “I see that this hurt you. I’m sorry about that.  It was not my intention.”  He reached out to touch her and retrieved his hand when she pulled away, “If it was wrong, why didn’t Danny correct me?”

“That little fucker?” God, she hated him.  “Because he set your ass up and you’re too fucking stupid to know it.”  She didn’t mean that.  She didn’t want to hurt him just because he had hurt her.  But she was tired of telling him the same thing over and over again. 

“How many times do I have to tell you that little bastard is not your friend?  Do you remember how we met?  The drunken video he posted of you doing the Haka dance that ended up all over the internet? Do you remember how I had to spin that shit to save your career?”  She rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch. “Whenever you pop a bottle, that little clout chaser is always right there with a fucking camera.”  

“He’s not like that, he’s my friend.”

“He set your ass up! It’s a game, Alex!  Black guys play it all the time.  See if you can make your white friend say the word. Only, I’m surprised he didn’t punch you in the mouth afterward.  Cause that’s what they’d’ve done in the States.  But maybe things worked differently in Ireland.”  

“Whatever,” Letting out a frustrated sigh, Alex resigned.  

“Right. Whatever.” Walking back into her office, she slammed the lid closed on her laptop before throwing it and a few files into her work bag. “Un-fuckin-believable.”  She left out of the office and sat her bag on the floor by the door before she walked across the hardwood floors towards the stairs. “Move, Vlad,” she said lovingly rubbing her big four-legged baby on the head.  

Vlad made no intention of moving as if he was purposely trying to stop her from ascending the stairs.  Instead, the dog looked at her, then back at Alex, before turning his gaze back at her. “Vladimir, honey, I need you to move.” She watched as her 50-pound defiant child laid on the bottom step and put his brown and white head on his paws. “Fine,” she said, skipping a step to climb over him and made her way up the rest of the stairs, rolling her eyes when the dog followed behind her.

Alex followed behind them and stood in the doorway of their bedroom watching as grabbed a handful of items; a t-shirt, toothbrush, and hair scarf. This entire argument had been blown way out of proportion. Now she was leaving?  “Baby, where you going?”

“Away from you.”