by Love Belvin
“I heard they’re both cheating on each other,” Teefah whispered.
“No!” Lyricah stated firmly. “He doesn’t cheat. I’ve never heard about him ever cheating on her, not even with NormaJean. Trust me, I’ve been paying attention. Cheating is synonymous with being a jock!”
“Who is she cheating wi—”
“Shhhhh!” Samantha shushed, then cleared her throat. “There they go!”
“Where?” Lyricah asked before I could locate them.
“Oh!” Teefah gasped low key in the busy cafeteria. “I forgot it’s her birthday!”
The high balloons gave their location away. They were at a large table near the wall, all in their “Last Supper” positions with Ashton and Aivery being the middle and the center of attention. As we approached the door, which was ironically in the path of the cool kids’ table, I saw Aivery’s narrow shoulders, working to cut into a birthday cake—her birthday cake?
My stomach flipped at the realization of it being her birthday and Ashton sitting, stretched out, next to her observing. She sat on her leg, giggling merrily. There were gift bags all around the table, I guessed from her crew. And she looked cute. Hair straight and wavy down her shoulders, a cream turtleneck shirt clinging to her small, curvy frame, making her appear angelic. Again, they belonged together, looked good together. I’d never experienced this before in my life. But even being able to admit that, I hated the view.
I woke up in his bed naked this morning. Butt-ass naked with his sheet wrapped around me. Ashton wasn’t there. Dedicated to his craft, he went for our usual run without me. He sent me a BBM while I was asleep. Once again, he had a breakfast feast waiting for me. I washed and dressed there with the clothes he had me pack two nights ago—when I began staying in his apartment. Three nights in a row, I’d slept in his bed. Yet, here he was the next day, celebrating his girlfriend.
“Tori!” ShawnNicole’s raspy voice caught my attention. She waved at me with the biggest smile, causing me to stop. The science girls did, too. “Your hair didn’t hold up, I see!” She winked. His heavy gaze found me. For a second, I was able to stomach looking at him. Only for a second. My regard went back to ShawnNicole. “I see he fucked it up!” She winked.
“Who?” Karmen’s nosy ass shrilled.
“Her boyfriend!” ShawnNicole was glad to report.
“Gross!” Aivery loudly coughed into her hand.
Al and the other girls laughed.
ShawnNicole’s smile faded. She was upset. I didn’t want her upset, thinking she had to defend me against her friends. “He took her out last night after y’all took her to that nasty strip club.” She rolled her eyes.
Automatically, my attention went to Aivery, whose attention was below on her cake while her jaw flexed. She hated me. Point blank hated me. Aivery possibly hated me as much as Paul’s daughters, Tangi and Raquel, from back at home. This was fucked up.
“Where’d ya go, Tori?” Karmen asked, twirling a lock of her hair around her index finger.
I shook my head. “None of your business.”
“Knock it off, Karm,” ShawnNicole warned her. “Did he like your look?”
While doing my hair, ShawnNicole asked me about my birthday outfit. It was an easy answer, considering Ashton Spencer had picked it out for me. So, I told her. She asked questions, but didn’t probe like Karmen.
I managed to nod and shrug at the same time, answering ShawnNicole and trying to ignore how Ashton stared at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes low. He was tired, had to be. We fell out at around three this morning. He’d gotten up for a six o’clock run. I understood how tiring that could be. I’d pay my price this evening in training.
“Maybe he liked it too much,” ShawnNicole cheered, doing a dance in her seat.
I don’t know about all that, ShawnNicole. But my hair got messed up when the guy squirted his cum in my face before I caught it in my hands while I gave him a hand job. That’s because he doesn’t like for me to give him blowjobs, the only thing I’m good at. Oh, and by the way, that guy? Well, he’s celebrating his girlfriend at your table right now. Yeah, him. I basically threw my virginity at him, all for him to turn me down on my birthday. But today he’s celebrating his girlfriend’s…
Of course, I didn’t say all of that. I tried for a smile, waved goodbye, and was followed out by the science crew. I moved fast, not breathing until we were outside.
“Tori, you work out with Ashton in the mornings, right?” Lyricah asked.
I shook my head. “We only run.”
“Oh, okay,” she chirped. “You think I can tag along sometimes? This belly is getting out of control.”
I couldn’t help how tight my face was when I finally looked her way. “Sure?”
How did I find myself in this awkward place? Lyricah running with Ashton and me in the mornings? That would never work. It would mess up…everything. She could learn…how weird of humans we are together now. That couldn’t happen. No way!
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear the girls saying goodbye. To who? I didn’t know and didn’t care. All I could think of was my life and how strange it had become here at BSU. This had to stop.
I was not Dorothy McNabb. I swear I wasn’t.
“Hey, Dad! Yeah. Just getting back from an early dinner,” Aivery’s call had just been passed from her mother to father. Before then, as we left the restaurant, it was her sister, Sherell. It was the “birthday call from home” event. “Just an American cuisine, nothing fancy,” she answered him. “It’s been a great day, Daddy. Thanks for asking…”
As she rambled on about her “perfect” day, I drove quietly with a wrestled mind. Last night—or this morning—I fell asleep blissfully with a tomboy in my arms, but was awakened just before five by Brick. At first, it was a dream replay of us being on my mother’s roof in Newark after outrunning her security. Word for word, that exchange about me marrying Aivery unfurled in the dream.
“The way you hauled ass up here is how you should with that girl.”
I shook my head internally as he exhaled the hemp. “Fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Your Hillman chick. I’m surprised she ain’t come home with you—oh, that’s right!” He clowned, snapping his fingers as though suddenly remembering. “Aunt Wanda ain’t with that roping you shit!”
“Where Tricey at, Deshawn? That’s right! At home with all the Michael Kors bags and watches, and Ugg boots you bought her for Christmas to make her temporarily forget that you ain’t wifin’ her like she wanna be.”
“That’s because,” he continued in a playful falsetto. “she ain’t NormaJean’s fine ass. She don’t give head on her head and eat ass with class,” he rhymed.
“Fuck outta here!” I cried laughing.
“Word up, yo!” He took another pull of the dro. “If it was me, there wouldn’t be no college chick if I had NormaJean bustin’ it wide open for me like she do for you.”
“You play the game you understand,” I murmured.
“What you mean, ock?”
“I mean, you fuck with chicks who move a way you understand and can almost predict. I’m more drawn to females who are independent thinkers and go-getters. NormaJean ain’t a renowned, bimbo porn star. She’s a millionaire entrepreneur with investment deals and resources out the ass.”
He shook his head, blowing out smoke. “What college ass words can you pull out your ass for your bougie Texas chic?”
I turned to him. “Now what do you mean?”
“What I mean, nigga, is you ain’t fucked up out here with these chicks like me. You smart, Ash. Word up! You could bag a dime without trying. A good bitch that’ll be loyal to you and have your babies. Fuck you right, and stay home and out the streets. Shit, with yo bread, she ain’t gone want for nothing.” He laughed. “That’s what you got in Miss Pageant girl. But that ain’t ya speed. You half street, half intellect. You’s a hybrid nigga that need a woman that’s gonna give your complicated ass more than pois
e and posture. Ya lady gotta give you fuckin…” He snapped his fingers successively, really trying to search for the word this time. “What’s that word… Passion! That’s it, it’s passion. You need a chick that make you work for the pussy through her mind, not her pedigree.” His head bounced with confidence as he took another pull.
I scratched my head. “That’s what you think?”
“My nigga…” He exhaled the smoke. “It’s what I know. You ain’t a predictable cat, so the shortie that’s really for you ain’t gone be what Aunt Wanda or your grams think is best for you. Don’t get so wrapped up in this chick because they scared yo ass when they found out about NormaJean. Fuck that, my nigga. Do you.”
I wanted to laugh at his attempt at a poetic conversation about love. “What if Aivery is that one for me?”
He rolled his eyes, hand slapping his head. “Yeah. Ya stubborn ass gone make me suit up just to prove to ya moms and grams you what they think you is. You’s gonna cave, but it’s all good. I’mma be right there to marry you off and then right there again to catch you when that shit don’t work out. I’mma stay down.”
Then, I woke up. My eyes roved across the room to motionless furniture. That was until they landed at the door. There he was with a black wife beater on, sagging fitted jeans, and a pair of Timbs. His hair was freshly cut, and Brick had an unsmoked Newport tucked behind his ear. His skinny ass was in the doorjamb, laughing while pumping his fist for me. Brick was cheering me on, and was sure to keep quiet so he wouldn’t awaken Tori. He pounded his chest a few times before kissing his fist and raising it in the air. And then he left, bopping down the hallway.
I was too fucking shook to get up and follow him. It felt too real, and if it were real, he’d come back. I’d have another opportunity to tell him what his death meant to me, and to ask him what led to his passing. My whole fucking body trembled so bad, Tori, still lost in slumber, shifted out of my hold. That was the last thing I needed. Shit. If she wasn’t there when he came, I may have lost my shit. After taking a deep breath, trying to calm myself, I scooted closer to her. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to sleep after that. So I eventually got up and went for my normal run.
Aivery’s high-pitched laughter snapped me out of my reverie. She was still chatting it up with her folks on the cell. We’d just come from in town where I’d taken her out for her birthday. The problem was, it was supposed to be when I finally ended the charade Aivery had been insisting we put on for the campus. I couldn’t do it any longer. But when we arrived at the restaurant, I felt bad for doing it in public and decided to wait until the ride back to campus. Well, that was until the Coopers called wishing her a happy birthday, something that could easily take an hour or more.
Having her speak with them only prolonged the tightness in my damn belly. I was doing this shit today. Tomorrow was my birthday—and how fucked up that fact was seeing yesterday’s was Tori’s—and I couldn’t let the shit linger into that. My knuckles flexed over the steering wheel from the angst of it all. Shit was getting dangerous. Aivery had still been seen around campus in places or during odd times with Pettiford. I still hadn’t whispered a word of me knowing to her. That, though, wasn’t due to any maturity on my part. It was because deep down inside, I still believed she hadn’t been fucking him. If I had, things would be way different.
“I don’t know if we’re going to his place or my dorm,” she was sure to wonder out loud. Then she gasped before looking over to me. “Dad says this better be a drop-off and not a turn-in for the night,” Aivery giggled, pitch similar to a child’s.
I didn’t mirror her reaction to her father’s subtle threat. There was nothing funny about it other than Dan Cooper being helpless to me having been fucking his baby girl for about two years now. The moment my empty regard left a cheery Aivery and returned to the dark road ahead, my disconsolate thoughts resumed.
Another reason I hadn’t confronted Aivery about Pettiford was because of my inexplicable feelings for Tori. Shit. The things I wanted to do to her—I would do to her—couldn’t be stopped if I wanted them to. It was like a storming impulsion I didn’t want to get rid of. The shit was about to explode, and having this “relationship” matter settled with Aivery would lessen the damage. But how would this turn out? On her birthday. I was about to do the unthinkable on her birthday.
When I pulled into the Winnie dorm parking lot, Aivery was finally closing the call. I was able to find a park and grabbed her leftover food while she got out of the car. As we stalked into her dormitory, countless people in passing wished her a happy birthday. Aivery absorbed all the cheer, eating it up. We rode up to her floor on the elevator in silence, my fucking stomach toiling. I was going through with it. The cheering Brick did for me solidified it.
I trailed behind to her suite. In this building were miniature apartments referred to as suites. Their common areas, living room and kitchen, were the size of a common hotel suite. More efficiency space rather than an apartment like my dormitory. With Aivery being a senior, she got seniority and was assigned a suite.
She smiled at me while pushing the door open. “I have to pee so bad.”
She shimmied her way inside. There were flowers everywhere. Colorful bouquets on the table and floor. I closed the door behind me as she took lunges toward the bathroom.
“Shit, Karm!” Aivery slapped the door. “I’ve gotta pee!”
“I’m coming!” Karm yelled through the door.
Seconds later, the door opened and Aivery shot past Karmen, damn near pushing her into the small corridor. Karm’s face was tight until her regard landed on me. She froze at first, eyes popping wide then suddenly relaxing. She looked at me from head to toe before her mouth twisted and her humor faded.
She gestured the bag of gifts Aivery had collected before we left for off campus as well as her leftovers from the restaurant. “You wanna go put those in her room?”
I shook my head. Then I thought to place them on the kitchen chair nearest me. Karmen took her time gazing at me before taking off to her room down the hall. The toil in my stomach returned when I was alone. This was the time. I had to get this over with.
A few minutes later, the latch to the bathroom door sounded, and my head popped up the moment Aivery stepped out. Wiping her hands with a paper towel, her eyes scanned the flowers in the small common area.
Swallowing involuntarily, I opened my dry mouth to begin. “Aivery, wa—we,” I stuttered. “We need to talk.”
Her regard roved up to me. “Sure. Have a seat?” She pointed to the small living room, fitting no more than a sofa for three, a single coffee table and television stand.
I shook my head, regard falling to my busy, wrestling fingers.
“So, you’re gonna stand to do it?” she murmured, eyes rolling.
“To do what?”
“What you’ve been trying to do since the start of the semester.” One hand was on her hip as she swung the other arm in the air. Aivery still wore her off-white motorcycle jacket and high heeled Valentino Garavani booties. “You want to break up, for real.”
“We have been broken up, for real.”
“Not homecoming night!” she shouted then quickly caught her temper.
Aivery pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly frustrated. Did she really think us fucking that night meant we were back together? She couldn’t have: even she admitted to that being a mistake when I flew back from Brick’s funeral.
“We’re seniors. This school year shouldn’t be so damn stressful—”
“Then don’t let it be—”
“From lying!” I finished my statement. “It didn’t work!” I spoke of our relationship. “So fuckin’ what? You think we’re the only couple to come to that conclusion in their senior year.”
“We’re different, Ashton! We have—had—plans for this spring, and the summer. We were solid.”
“We were never solid!” I shouted. “We started out with fucking lies. It was so unnecessary, but you made it that way. You!�
�
“I made one mistake and it’s costing me my future? Ashton, that’s bullshit!” Tears welled in her eyes.
I shook my head. “We’re beyond the one mistake now. It’s not about that. It’s about the details surrounding that mistake.”
Pettiford still rode my ass about fucking my future fiancée before I did. That’s what his every harassment was about, not about the fact that when he damn near killed me during hazing, he lost his role as Dean of Pledges, but the BSU chapter almost got expelled. Wanda wanted the head of every Alpha Omega Psi on the planet, which put pressure on the school. It took me crying crocodile tears to her, the AOPsi grand chapter and its board, and BSU at a hearing for them to not suspend the chapter, not cut that year’s line, and for me to finish with my line. The shit was stressful as hell, causing me to have to repeat two classes that summer to be back on track the following fall.
Deciding to be an AOPsi did not happen when I showed up on Blakewood’s campus. I’d been planning it since seventh grade. I’d worked damn hard to make it to bid day. I would have never gotten my letters if we’d gotten expelled—anywhere or at any later date. I would’ve been marked. That could have ended the dreams of everyone on my damn line. Wanda Lee was a raving bitch when offended. She wanted blood.
All of this, Aivery knew, because she was my confidant when pledging made us all tender. While I couldn’t share most of the shit we went through, I did articulate what I felt about it. And all the while I was sharing—crying on her shoulder while she preferred we wait for sex—she was fulfilling a childhood fantasy with Benjamin Pettiford. They’d known each other forever and had finally linked up at BSU. Pettiford’s father was the CFO of Aivery’s father’s peanut farm. He’d had access to her all those years, but oddly waited until she arrived on his campus and was dating little ol’ me. It was all fucked up. When I allowed myself to recount those painful months, the shit still burned my fucking soul.
But here she stood, wanting to cry about one mistake she made. Not the consequential domino effect it had on my life and others. She was right, though. I did plan to start our “forever” in a few months. But that image had been fading since last spring when I learned of the one mistake.
