by Love Belvin
“What’s your schedule looking like for the summer? Are you doing Working Toward the Stars again?” he asked, still not looking at me.
“Nope,” I used the popping sound for humor. “I’ll be finishing up with this summer course and relaxing before the fall semester begins and I get swamped.” I stretched my arms above my head.
“Are you excited about the coming semester?”
That was an odd question.
“Yeah. It’s another step closer to finishing.” I gave a wry smile.
Stent nodded his head as he went back to eating. We didn’t talk much after that. When we were done, Stenton cleared the dishes and I went to the bedroom to start packing. Our flight was early and I didn’t want to forget anything. Stenton spoiled me over the past week. He took me shopping, creating the need for another suitcase.
“Are you marinating that chicken in the fridge?” Stenton’s head top with little curls peeked in the door of the bedroom. I turned to him. “It’s the last thing in there. I can prepare the marinade the way you showed me and soak it.”
His inquisitive gaze soothed my gut feeling of their being an issue between us. I’d hoped he was coming out of whatever was bugging him earlier and we could enjoy the last few hours in paradise with our usual chemistry.
“Yeah, knock yourself out. I trust your measurements.” I quickly turned my back to him to be sure he saw my crossed fingers behind me. I heard his laughter as he left for the kitchen.
I went for a swim and bummed around by the pool. I was so happy to experience the view, and sad to be leaving the next day. Stenton was around, but still not back to himself. He practically cooked alone and didn’t speak much at all during dinner. We found ourselves turning down for bed together and when I closed my eyes to doze off, I called myself a wimp for wanting to cry. I didn’t though; I drifted off with a head full of questions.
Sometime later, I was being pulled while asleep. I felt my pajama slip shifting underneath me. I opened my eyes to the lucent nightlights pushing through the thin curtains covering the bed. I also felt and smelled him. I could feel the force of his breath hitting me. Then I felt his warm lips touching mine, not kissing me; just hovering over, parted. My body immediately responded, wanting to taste him.
As he lifted my gown, he whispered, “I’m not ready.”
I didn’t know what he meant and was still fighting sleep against abrupt arousal, so I couldn’t ask for clarity. However, I was reminded of his parting words to me in Philly. Stenton pulled my slip over my head, leaving me completely naked. Then his lips pressed into mine and he swallowed my face whole. That brought me to full consciousness. My hands grabbed the sheet on either side of me. I guess I wasn’t used to this functionality of them; more often than not, when we made love in bed, I was restrained. His tongue moved vehemently through my mouth, not really needing my participation.
He pulled away from my face and from the rays of the pool lights outside the suite, I could see his eyes opening. “I’m not ready to leave. I want to stay here…alone with you. Forever,” he murmured while reaching his long arm over to the nightstand. I heard the rustling of the aluminum condom package then I felt his hands below, between us. “Why can’t this euphoria last forever?”
I felt him inside me.
“Touch me, Zo,” he drug lazily in my ear.
My hands flew to his head and I combed my fingers through the fine curls of hair. My hips pushed into his pelvis, giving him all I had, hoping it would end his sullenness from earlier. He’d retreated for nearly twenty-four hours and I missed him terribly. I could deal with a little quietness, but not rejection from Stenton. I didn’t fully encompass his communication, but each thrust was delivered with force, each kiss landed with reverence, and each word he uttered in my ear was carried with passion. We made love until I tapped out and Stenton came not too far behind me. Almost immediately after, he carried me to the bathroom to shower.
The next day, as we were on the plane and just had taken off, Stenton was brooding again. He had been from the time he awakened. I didn’t get it. I thought we’d gotten past this. I’d started to wonder if this was how sex partners behaved. I had no experience. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel good at all. Where was my friend? We’d just shared an incredible week in paradise and it ended sourly.
Our plush leather seats faced each other. From across the small table, I observed Stenton’s fixation out the window. My heart ripped each time I stole a glance in his direction. Rob and Barry sat in a set of seats behind us, busy with their own affairs.
I had to do something to occupy my frustration, so I picked up a Sister2Sister magazine and thumbed through the featured articles. The distraction must have helped because I was shocked when I felt Stenton’s hand reach for mine from across the table. I lowered the magazine and found his gaze.
His expression was pained and apologetic at the same time. It further confused me. He slowly licked those full, heart-shaped lips before speaking.
“Zo,” he pushed out hoarsely. “I enjoyed being with you this week.”
I felt myself grimace. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“No!” He shook his head. “But that’s what I was getting at.”
All I could do was stare blankly at him, awaiting something of substance.
“Where do you see this thing going between us?”
“The more you speak, the more you sound like you’re ending things.” I placed the magazine on the table, giving him my full attention.
He scoffed. “Why the hell do you keep bringing that up?”
“Okay.” I jerked my chin. “Speak.”
He inclined in his seat, keeping his voice low. “I don’t know how to label us. I don’t want to fuck this thing up. We started off as great friends and then we…fucked and now…we fuck. I don’t know how to label this thing, and I want us to both be aware and comfortable with who we are.”
I didn’t understand what Stenton was trying to say, but I caught on to his earnest attempt at trying to come to a peaceable agreement about us. I thought.
“Are you afraid that I’ll be asking you to be my boyfriend, Stenton?” I questioned with a leveling glare that was meant to humor him—or insult.
He chuckled half-heartedly, but fought to get back on track. “Zo, my schedule is crazy. I just finished up the season exactly a week ago and already I’m headed out of the country to do promos. Then I turn around and head straight to L.A. to shoot a commercial for McDonald’s. My fucking life isn’t mine, and you’re not the type to put your life on hold and wait until I get off yet another plane from my latest business obligation. I don’t want to give you some half ass shit.”
It was my turn to sit up in my seat. “Stenton, if you want to continue to be…friends, that’s fine with me. I won’t demand anything but your friendship. Everything else is…great, but that’s what I want more than anything.”
After staring at me long and hard, deciphering I didn’t know what, he sat back in his chair, going back to window watching. The man was maddening. I’d hoped I calmed any troubles he was experiencing about my expectations of this thing. I lied about only wanting his friendship; I wanted all of Stenton, but I didn’t know if that was too large an order for the both of us at that point.
Covered in his hood, Stenton walked me to the door of my dorm building. He appeared very much dejected. When I turned to him, I tried supplying a smile to buffer his anxiousness. I lifted my left hand to caress the side of his face. The prickles from his fine stubble hairs against the pads of my fingers gave some degree of soothing for me. I wished it brought him the same comfort. I studied his troubled eyes.
“Stent—” I attempted.
“Don’t go falling in love with anybody, Niña.” His strained voice pulled at something deep within. “Don’t give your heart away to another man.”
I swallowed hard, fighting back my tears. Feeling pain from the size of the cry burning the back of my throat. The smarting sensation tumbling down to the p
it of my belly, all because I fought to keep the tears within. Stenton didn’t deserve to see how much he affected me. He was breaking away from me. Disconnecting.
“I can’t give away something that was stolen long before I recognized it was gone, or how valuable it was.” My gaze directly into his weary eyes was sharp.
“I’m sorry, Zoey,” he whispered painfully before giving me a lingering peck on my lips. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Stenton turned and walked off. His shoulders, though high and wide were weighed down with something that he didn’t want to share. And no matter how self-assured a person I was at the tender age of twenty-one, no amount of hopefulness would fool me into misinterpreting what he’d just done. Stenton had just said goodbye to whatever we made in the Cayman Islands. It was over. I watched him walk away with my heart in tow.
Chapter 10
Zoey
When my door burst open, I jumped from my bed and into the wall that it sat against, holding my chest. An earplug flew out and my mouth went dry.
“What in the world is your deal, girl?”
“Momma has been calling you for five minutes now!” Ruth managed with all the b-girl attitude she could spew my way. “Could your depressing ass come out of this hellish bat cave to dwell amongst the living for once?”
I ripped the remaining bud from my ear and leaped off the bed, pushing my way into my little sister’s face.
“Who on God’s earth do you think you’re taking that language with, little girl?” I issued the most threatening glare I could. I was prepared to toss Ruth around the second floor of our parents’ home.
“Well, now that someone has your attention, I’m talking to you. You’ve been in this room since we got back from South Carolina a week ago, Zo!”
“You have two-point three seconds to get out of here or you’re going to have to have be lifted out,” I hissed directly into her face.
I’d never been a violent person. At the most, as children, Ruth and I would shove each other around, but nothing more than that. Until this day. Today, I would make Ruth regret even being born.
“Hey! What is all this commotion going on up in here?” My mother came stomping through the halls. She arrived between the two of us. “I know you two know better than to be fighting! Elizabeth, what is going on with you?”
I’d had it. I jerked back, went into my tiny closet, pulled out the overnight bag that was last used for the Cayman Islands. The one I’d refused to unpack before I could understand what had happened. I tossed a few things in there, packing it to capacity.
“Nothing,” I answered my mother. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be at Karen’s helping with the baby. Then I’m off to school.” I made my way to the door, noting Ruth had disappeared.
“Now, hold on just for one second, young lady!” My mother hooked my arm before I could breeze past her in the small doorway. “You’ve been pouting in this room for days now. This wouldn’t have anything to do with that ball player that you been gushin’ over, would it?”
Now panting, I realized lying to my mother was pretty much futile. I had been home since returning from the Cayman Islands, because it was a far more comfortable environment that didn’t remind me so much of Stenton. I hadn’t made love to him here. I’d fallen into a dark pit, a place where I could feel every hollow place, yet had no understanding of how to survive there. I’d never known this chasm of despair.
I leveled my eyes with hers. “Momma, right now is not a good time. I haven’t been doing too well with having too much time on my hands from taking just one class this summer. I think sitting with Karen for a few days to help her out will help me.”
For minutes long, she just stared at me. I knew she could see right through me, but I made sure not to give her the ammunition she needed to pull the mask clear from my face.
“You be sure to call me when you’re ready to talk. I’m your momma and ain’t nothing I don’t feel from or for you. Do you understand me, young girl?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I returned, barely covering the cry that I refused to release.
On my way over to Karen’s, driving old Bessie, my mind churned. It was my first day out of the house since Stenton dropped me off. The day my world turned black. It had been the longest period of my life that I held my breath. I thought the wait to hear back from my early application submission to Princeton was the longest period. Nope. It was waiting out this era of pain. Because it would leave eventually, right? I mean time healed everything, right?
Little did I know, I’d be holding that breath for years to come.
I spent the first few days praying for the relief. And when I say praying, I mean tarrying. I tarried for days, chanting one word: Please. Please, God remove this pain. Never in my life did I feel so bleak. I saw sunlight nowhere. I prayed harder than I ever had in life to remove the weights of my heart and to fill the pit of my belly that echoed its emptiness. I had absolutely no idea what to do with the pain I felt. I had no reference other than Angela who still wasn’t speaking to me. Certainly she felt this when she learned of Timmy’s infidelity. How she handled it wasn’t something I was up for, but at least she had an idea of what it felt like to have her heart ripped from her chest.
I wanted to talk with my mom. In a perfect world I could, but then I’d have to admit to falling into something that I perceived to be more with Stenton. I knew that wasn’t the truth. I knew that man loved me. I knew he felt every bit of the love we made each time we did. I knew each time he prepared to enter me when we made love, he held an unvaried admiration for me. I knew the fierce grip he held me in his arms with each time he embraced me after we were done exploding on and into one another was because he wanted to be stapled in that place with me and only me. I knew the way he’d simply speak my name when he called me, that he loved the core of me. He knew me, the real Elizabeth, and not the mask I wore for everyone else. I knew him, the real Stenton Rogers that everyone regarded as a statue and not a living man.
I pulled up to the garden apartment complex, grateful to find parking. When Karen opened the door the first thing she uttered was, “My god, Zo! You look like you met Satan head on.”
Her mouth remained suspended and I stood there, for once, not having a comeback. Karen had beautiful brown skin. She was shorter than Angela and me with a nice set of boobs and a round apple of a booty. You’d never be able to tell she’d just had a baby a few months ago. I hadn’t seen her much outside of church. It felt good looking down at her short stature again. I gave a small but genuine half a smile. She stepped aside, inviting me to come in.
“You just missed Angela,” she offered from behind me. My heartbeat sped up at that. I hadn’t heard from Angela in months. “She left when I told her I’d be expecting you at this hour.”
I exhaled long and harshly as I grabbed the bridge of my nose.
“So, BJ is in training for his new job?” I asked, trying to change the conversation.
“Yup, Wal-Mart is promoting him to shift manager.” Karen didn’t sound so thrilled. “Hang on. I need to check on the baby. Have a seat and make yourself at home.”
When Karen returned, she sat on the love seat next to me and went right to it. “My mom thinks you’re having some type of delayed emotional reaction to Angela and me getting pregnant and married. She said that you’re feeling abandoned and possibly even going through some identity crisis. Is that what’s going on with you, Zo?”
I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. “What are you talking about? Why is Aunt Jenny diagnosing me?”
“You know they talk: my mom, your mom and Auntie Bridget.”
Auntie Bridget was Angela’s mother. I guess she had a point. Word did get around our family like lightning.
“Is it, Zo? I really wanted you over to get into that thick skull of yours. You’ve been a little distant since my wedding. I don’t know if my mom is right, but I do know you’ve changed. I just hope I had nothing to do with it. I really miss hanging out with you.” Karen�
�s voice was almost as pained as my heart was at the time.
“It’s not you…or Angela.” I licked my lips, trying to garner the nerve to finally open up and share my misery. Next to Angela, Karen had been my closest confidante. “KK, I…ummm…sort of got involved with a guy.”
Her eyes enlarged. “Is that why you’ve been MIA? I mean, that’s a good thing, right?”
I shrugged, feeling that cry at the back of my throat again. “No.” I swallowed hard. “Not when you fall in love with him and he up and leaves you without warning or reason.”
There were several expressions that washed over Karen’s oval shaped face: concern, confusion, relief, and then amusement.
“Well, Zo, I know you’ve never been the type to fall head-over-heels over a guy, but it’s not like it was so serious that you have to call it heartbreak, right?”
“You do when you make love to the first man that causes you to question your values and to want to change everything you called yourself planning for your life,” I whispered, unable to look at her.
But I heard her gasp. “Zo!” I glanced up to meet her eyes. “You lost your virginity?”
I nodded while biting the inside of my cheeks.
“Holy mother of Joseph!” she breathed. It was a phrase we all used.
“Well, there goes Bernard’s dreams out the window,” she murmured mostly to herself. “Does Angela know the guy? I know how tight you two…were.”
My eyes slammed shut and my face wrinkled as though in pain. I nodded my head.
Karen gasped. “An ex of hers? Oh, Zo! I know you’re not that type of girl.” She’d begun to panic and at the same time, mollify me.
“Worse,” I whispered, still unable to open my eyes.
“How much worse can it get besides Timmy?”
I did open my eyes to that one. Timmy was Angela’s fiancé. I caught Karen’s drift. It could only be as bad as Angela’s current. But that wasn’t true.
