Once Jordan made eye contact with Adrienne, she wouldn’t let her turn away. Her face was serious as she stared into the eyes of the person who’d challenged her most, in so many ways. Adrienne was a mess, and as she, too, stood with a serious look on her face, Jordan saw a single tear fall from her eye. Her own eyes were beginning to water, but she clenched her jaw tight to keep her tears from falling.
They remained silent for a moment; a faucet dripped into a clogged sink, and their heavy breathing generated more tension. The animosity was unmistakable.
Jordan didn’t say a word before stepping into Adrienne’s personal space. They were inches apart in seconds, and despite her attempt to disguise her flinch, Adrienne jumped when Jordan got too close for comfort. The majority of their exchange was done with several feet separating them.
“You missed a spot,” Jordan whispered as she took her index finger and swiped a dollop of icing from Adrienne’s cheek. She pulled back and made sure to look her enemy in the eye as she sucked the sugary frosting off, then smacked her lips and wrinkled her nose in critique.
“Mmmm. A little too sweet, isn’t it?”
Her voice was low and taunting as she flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned to leave. She held her breath and waited for Adrienne to try to sneak up on her from behind, but she didn’t. The heavy door shut behind her and the sunlight was blinding when she reentered the hall. Squinting, she dashed recklessly toward the school entrance.
She almost slipped and fell when she rounded the corner. She worked hard to preserve her balance but still collided with someone. She looked up, hoping to see Warren. Instead, it was Mrs. Lee, one of the meanest hall monitors in the whole school.
“No running in the halls, Ms. Wright,” she scolded.
“Sorry.”
“Shouldn’t you be out of here already? Class ended nearly ten minutes ago. I hope you’re not in here getting into trouble.” Mrs. Lee looked Jordan over with skeptical eyes. Pranks and vandalism were frequent on the last day of school.
“Yeah…I, uh…had to finish cleaning a few things out of my locker,” she replied nervously.
“Go on ahead and get out of here. Enjoy your summer.”
Mrs. Lee’s gruff voice had given way to a kind, gentle tone, and she didn’t know what to make of her comment or the friendly wink that had accompanied it. It was only when she saw Mrs. Lee head toward the bathroom where she’d just left Adrienne that she had the strength to sprint again.
Jordan ran through the empty halls, her footsteps echoing off the metal lockers, and she felt lighter on her feet. It seemed that she couldn’t run fast enough to finally escape school, even if it was only for a couple of months.
Once she reached the double doors of the main entrance, Jordan paused to catch her breath. She peeked out the small, dirty windows in hopes of finding Warren parked in his car, waiting to take her home. “Hey!”
Jordan spun around and smiled wide.
“You have perfect timing.”
“You’re lucky I stayed after and waited on you. Where you been? I been looking for you,” he joked.
“I’m sorry, I, um…” Jordan glanced around her, in search of an excuse.
“Jordan? What’d you do?” he questioned, his eyebrows raised with concern.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that ‘nothing.’ I can tell you did something.”
“Nope. We talked, and that’s it.”
“Ya’ll talked?”
“We talked.”
“Please, tell me y’all finally deaded that old-ass shit.”
“Let’s just say Adrienne’s got other problems she needs to worry about now besides me and you dating. I think she may have finally gotten the message, but then again, you never know. I can only hope, ’cause I know I will not put up with anything like that again next year.”
“Why? You think you’re gonna be a beast because you’re going to be a senior?”
“Wow. Isn’t it weird to think about that? Next year we’re going to be seniors.”
“And then we’ll be done.”
“Oh, I know!” She was undeniably excited over thoughts of graduation and her future away from home and at college.
“Calm down. Don’t rush it. It’ll be here before we know it.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
She and Warren were constantly sending silent flirtatious signals to each other throughout their chat, when Warren came to an abrupt stop. He dug deep into his pants pocket to retrieve his phone. The tiny cell phone vibrated in his hand as he held it out to her. “Looks like it’s for you,” he said, reading the caller ID screen.
“Hello?”
“Jordan?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“What are you doing? Are you on your way home?”
“Yeah. Why? What’s up?”
“Just making sure you and Warren didn’t decide to take any detours. We need to talk about how you’re going to work off this fine. I hate to be cruel and make you come home to sit in the house all day.”
“Mom, can we talk about this when I get home? This really isn’t such a good time right now,” Jordan whined. She just wanted to enjoy the limited time she had with Warren.
“Okay, okay. I’ll let you go. You just remember what I said. I expect you home in an hour.”
Click!
“What’d she have to say?”
Jordan hung up the phone. She couldn’t resist the urge to smile as she wrapped her arms around her boyfriend and pecked him on the lips.
“To make a long story short, I have to be home in an hour or else.”
Warren aggressively grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close without warning. He took his time kissing her in the privacy of the shadows.
Jordan kept her eyes closed long after the kiss had ended. She slowly opened them to see Warren’s smiling face, and as usual, his mood was contagious. She couldn’t stop smiling whenever she saw he was happy.
“I gotta get you home.”
His tone was so sexy it made Jordan’s body temperature rise to what felt like a hundred degrees. She blushed as his hand caressed her cheek, and they did nothing more but enjoy each other’s company in the peaceful quiet.
Their foreheads touched as they held each other and lovingly stared into each other’s eyes. It was only when a strange noise sounded throughout the lobby that they separated.
The couple looked up to see Adrienne limping down the corridor. She’d put the only sandal she had left back on her foot and held a handful of her weave in one of her hands. Her bruises were visible in the light, and Jordan could see that her eyes were red and glossy from crying.
“Come on, baby,” Warren whispered in her ear, and guided her out the door with an arm around her waist. Jordan looked out to the vacant parking lot and began to descend the concrete stairs, then she turned around and looked back inside. She was just in time to catch one final glimpse of Adrienne before the door shut all the way. In that moment, she saw how lonely her old friend was. Blind hate had prevented her from seeing the truth until now.
Jordan rested her head on the window as Warren turned the key in the ignition. The wind blew her hair back from her face as the radio roared to life. As Warren sped away from the school grounds, Jordan kept the building in her sights by watching the side-view mirror. The farther away he drove, the smaller the school appeared, until finally, it was gone.
“You know, for as long as they have us up in there, you’d think we’d actually learn something,” Warren said as he glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Speak for yourself. I know I learned something this year.” Jordan gazed out the window. In three months, she wouldn’t be able to cite statistics or quote poetry, but she would never forget all she’d gone through that year. She was still learning and growing, but she was beginning to understand she needed to use her mistakes to fuel the process.
She regretted not having stepped up sooner. She thought about how she’d nearly gon
e crazy after the “Fast Life” video, and how once it was classified as old news, she had fallen off the radar. She was making other friends now, and the rumors didn’t seem to affect how they treated her. They weren’t worried about gossip, and it made Jordan wonder just how many people had really been feeding into it in the first place. Maybe she’d been the only one. It was no secret everyone loved watching drama unfold—it was entertaining. However, she would never know, which made her feel all the more foolish.
In the past months, she’d experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and in the end, she’d come out a different person. She was a little stronger and smarter than before, and as awkward as it was, she had Adrienne to thank for it. She told herself that from this day forward, if she was to ever get into a fight, it would be over something better than a boy. Not that Warren was just any boy to her anymore.
Jordan shifted to face him and softly caressed the back of his neck with her hand. She could almost feel her heart growing in her chest when he met her stare, but another thought prevented her from fully focusing. When she looked at the bigger picture, she realized fighting was tacky and immature—two adjectives she had no qualms about reserving for Adrienne.
As Jordan and Warren cruised the city streets, they held hands, and she carried on a conversation while beaming with pride. There was one special lesson she was confident she’d mastered, though many others, such as Adrienne, failed when given their first test. Just turning sixteen wouldn’t change any girl. Girls had to change themselves, not wait for a magic number and hope for a miracle. Jordan just wished she could warn them that it wasn’t that easy, and that sometimes being sixteen wasn’t always so sweet.
16 ISN’T ALWAYS SWEET
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1356-6
© 2008 by Cassandra Carter
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