Excerpt from You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Feyi groaned. This was going to suck. "Okay, so what had happened was…"

"Uh-huh."

"We kinda sorta… didn't use a condom."

Joy choked on her cigarette smoke. "You what?"

Feyi gave a weak smile. "Heat of the moment?"

Her best friend clenched her jaw. "Tell me he pulled out. Please, Feyi, tell me he pulled out, at least."

Well, fuck. "I have an IUD in, remember? It's not that big of a deal."

"Not that big of a— Bitch, have you lost your mind? You let him hit it raw and you let him nut in you?"

Feyi looked down and scuffed at the concrete with her toe. "I know, I know."

"Clearly you don't."

"Hey, it was my first time since, you know. Cut me some fucking slack."

She recognized the look on Joy's face—her best friend was fighting between being sympathetic and cursing her all the way out.

"You know what?" Joy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I am going to pop by the bodega because you are killing me with this shit. Stay right here, and if you see a white Hyundai, make him wait."

"Aw, it's like that? You're just gonna dead it?"

"Oh, I'm not deading a goddamn thing. You and I are going to have a long conversation after we get home, once I stop feeling the urge to push you down some stairs, bitch." Joy reached in her purse, hunting for some cash as she grumbled under her breath. "How you gon' fuck up a perfectly good night by letting a nigga you just fucking met hit it raw?"

Feyi shrugged. "I take it you're not buying my 'heat of the moment' defense?"

Joy cut her a look, and Feyi hid a smile. It was hard to play contrite when she really felt magnificent, when just thinking back to the bathroom was sending little aftershocks through her. Feyi sat on the stoop as Joy started walking away, then called out after her. "Hey, babe, can you get me some gum while you're in there?"

Joy held up a middle finger without looking back. "Nope!"

The streetlights reflected violet off the sequins of her dress until Joy ducked into the store, and suddenly, Feyi was alone, except for the faint music from the house and the soreness of her inner thighs.

It didn't feel that bad, to be on the other side of it. She took a deep breath and stared up at the sky, leaning back to rest her elbows on the steps. There were no stars, just a blurred moon hanging over the brownstones. Feyi could feel her pulse between her legs, a rhythmic reminder of the stranger with diamonds in his ears and bergamot on his neck. For a treacherous second, she wanted to tell Jonah about it, to hear his smooth laugh again. He'd ask her if she'd had fun. Feyi pressed her elbows against the brownstone steps to drive the thought away, hard enough to hurt. It was the start of summer, she was alive, and she was so fucking close to becoming what she wanted—someone who had moved on, someone who had a life that wasn't dressed in black, someone who Milan had held like he was dissolving into her, like she was real flesh under his hungry hands, under a raging red light bulb. Someone who trapped pleasure in a small bathroom and pulled it out of herself, a roiling sweaty mess of alive on a bathroom counter. If she could do tonight, she could do anything—the rest of a life, for example.

"You got this," Feyi whispered to herself, her voice catching, her cigarette dying and gray between her fingers. "You can do this."

The music filtered down from the party, and there was no one to say anything back to her. Feyi stubbed the cigarette out and waited for their car to get there.

Excerpted from You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. Copyright © 2023 by Akwaeke Emezi. Excerpted by permission of Washington Square Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.