Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Fiction | Anthology/Varied Collection | YA | Published in 2019

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“Stop Playing” by Liara TamaniChapter Summaries & Analyses

“Stop Playing” Summary

Keri is a high school sophomore attending a summer beach retreat with her church. Her boyfriend, Lucas, recently broke up with her, and she arrives at the retreat ready to convince him to get back with her.

At the opening ceremony, however, she makes eye contact with Brandon during the closing prayer. She notes how cute he is and the two make eye contact several times.

On the beach, Lucas and his friend Derrick come up to Keri and her friend Tish. Even though Keri has dressed in clothes that Lucas likes and has done her hair, he is still committed to being broken up with her, leaving Keri in tears.

Keri and Brandon speak for the first time at dinner, and Keri can feel the “sparks” from their interaction. As the attendees are shown a film, the two sit together and watch videos on his phone.

The following day, everyone goes to an amusement park on the pier, as Keri, Tish, and Brandon hang out together, with Keri and Brandon regularly holding hands. At one ride, Lucas comes up behind them and they introduce him to Brandon, with Keri feeling the urge to make him jealous and kissing Brandon on the ride. However, as they exit the ride, her feelings are replaced by guilt over making Lucas angry and jealous.

That night, Lucas texts her. They text back and forth until Lucas asks her for a nude picture of herself. When she does not answer, he texts her multiple times, making her feel guilty for kissing Brandon in front of him. She considers how guilty she feels, placing all of the blame on herself and ignoring the fact that Lucas had broken up with her and regularly criticized her even when they were together. Eventually, she goes into the bathroom and takes off her clothes, feeling “indebted” to Lucas and as though she owed him a picture. After several attempts to take a picture she thinks looks good, she gives up, and texts Lucas that she’ll show him tomorrow instead.

The next day, everyone is looking at their phones, and as Keri attempts to talk to Lucas, he quickly walks away. She goes into the bathroom and tries to text and call him, but he does not answer. She decides she needs to send him her nude picture—convinced that that is why he is angry at her.

However, Dara, who Keri dislikes mostly because of how attractive she is, stops her from sending the photo, revealing that Lucas and Derrick were trying to get her to send a nude photo as well. The two compare the nude photos they had taken, laughing about how dumb they feel for taking so many photos of themselves trying to find a good one.

Dara also reveals that she had convinced Lucas and Derrick to take nude photos as well. They had complied, and Derrick sent out their nudes to several people in the church group. Keri and Dara hear a fight break out between Lucas and Derrick in the hall, but instead they stay in the restroom and watch videos together.

“Stop Playing” Analysis

The text presents the relationship that Keri has with her ex-boyfriend, Lucas, as one that is toxic and damaging to Keri’s self-image. As she attempts to form a relationship with Brandon, who she is attracted to physically and emotionally, her efforts are repeatedly stopped by thoughts of how that relationship would impact Lucas. She ignores the fact that Lucas broke up with her and the way that he makes her feel—constantly critiquing her looks, clothing, friends, and more. It is only once she begins a relationship with Brandon and Lucas sees that Lucas becomes interested in her again, using her guilt as a form of control over her. As Lucas texts her and she refuses to send him nude pictures, he comments on how it would never work “especially after what [she] did today” (199)—referring to her kissing Brandon. This sort of toxic relationship is dangerous both to Keri’s self-esteem, as well as her self-confidence, as she allows herself to be controlled by Lucas and does not pursue a potential healthy relationship with Brandon.

Despite how Lucas controls her and what he does to her, Keri discovers the Importance of Support Systems. Throughout the text, she is uninterested in being friends with Dara, too concerned about how Dara looks more attractive than her and has larger breasts. The two boys in their lives—Lucas and Derrick—create toxic environments for the two of them, where girls compete for their attention and looks become the most important quality, sowing jealousy and competition between the girls instead of support and friendship. However, as Keri realizes that she was not the only one from whom Lucas tried to get nudes and that Derrick was involved, she bonds with Dara for the first time.

When they look at the nudes they had taken and laugh about the different poses they used, it marks a significant turning point in the text where Keri no longer sees herself through Lucas’s eyes—and therefore as always inadequate and unattractive—but instead through her own eyes. She realizes that “[t]hey were both beautiful. Too beautiful for those boys we were with. Too beautiful for the eyes of the internet” (204). This realization allows Keri to finally step out of her toxic relationship with Lucas through the support that Dara provides her. As a fight breaks out between Derrick and Lucas, the two ignore it and bond together instead, marking the fact that Keri is no longer tied to Lucas and the control he has tried to keep over her.