When You Come to Me

by Jade Alyse

  “That’s your decision, isn’t it?” Natalie asked, looking over at him for the first time. “Last time I checked, you didn’t have a ring on your finger…”

  “Exactly! U—U—UGA has an awesome business school…I could go for marketing, get my masters and get a great job…”

  “That’s a decision you need to make soon, right?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. I could keep paying rent on the house and just go to school here. My folks are okay with it, why she isn’t, I’ll never understand…”

  “Well, where does she want you to go to school?”

  “That’s just the thing, Natalie Chandler,” he sang funnily. “She doesn’t want me to go to grad school at all…”

  “It’s your decision, Brandon…”

  “Tell me what I should do, Natalie,” he whispered. “If you tell me to go, then I’ll go…”

  “Brandon, I can’t make a decision like that for you,” she told him.

  “Yes you can,” he said. “I trust all of your decisions…if you tell me that grad school is right for me, then grad school I’ll go…”

  “Brandon, you’re drunk,” she sighed, gripping her wheel tightly. “You shouldn’t make such drastic decisions when you’re like this.”

  “What?” he said. “I’m fine, damn it…I could go another round…”

  “Well, throwing up like that suggests that you can’t…”

  “I can hold my liquor, girl,” he laughed haughtily. “When you drink then you’ll know…”

  “I don’t think that day will ever come…”

  “Yes, it will,” he told her, poking her arm. “And I’ll get you there…we can get drunk together…”

  “I think you should cool it for a little while…”

  “Nat, if it weren’t for my drunkenness, we would have never met…”

  “And just think of how perfect my life would have been…”

  “I don’t take your sarcasm personally,” he said, reclining in his seat. “I take it in stride. Meeting me was the best thing that ever happened to you…”

  “That’s arguable…”

  “Decision time, Natalie…grad school or no?”

  “Brandon, I’m not making that decision for you.”

  “I give you permission…”

  “And I don’t take it,” she said. “If you and Sophia have a future together then you need to tell her what you want…and if she loves you, then she’ll agree…”

  “Fuck that,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You’re making the decision…”

  “Fine, fine,” she sighed. “You probably won’t remember this in the morning anyway…go to grad school here, Brandon…”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Besides, if I left…I’m almost certain that you’d miss me…”

  Natalie Chandler was a natural caretaker. She could easily recall all of the times that she was there for her sisters when they got sick, or when they got stuck, when she was there for her grandmother, her mama, her aunts, her cousins.

  So it was no surprise that Brandon ended up sleeping on his own hardwood floor, while she fell asleep in his bed. She found herself rolling over every once in awhile just to check on him. This moment followed a couple of hours in his black-tiled bathroom, slouched on the cold floor. She caressed the back of her Caucasian friend while she heard him retch, emptying the contents of his poisoned stomach into the toilet. She then glanced up at a small-framed picture of him and Sophia on the top of the toilet.

  Where was she? Why wasn’t his beloved Sophia on the floor with him? What sort of purpose did she serve if she wasn’t there for him? The smell was almost unbearable, but she loved being there for him then.

  “I’m sorry, Nat,” he muttered into her neck as he rested his groggy head on her shoulder once he’d finished.

  “Shhh,” she’d instructed, smoothing down his messy black hair. “It’s alright, you silly thing…”

  Natalie wrapped her arms around him tightly, rubbing his forehead till he passed out to soft snores.

  Yes, she’d sat right there with him on the cold tile floor, her, barefoot, him, sloppily dressed, his weight, too heavy for her to move initially.

  Yes, his drinking problem was beginning to scare her, following a year’s worth of solid evidence and observations, following a year’s worth of late night drunken phone calls, telling her about how cool he thought she was, about how funny he thought she was, about how cool it was that one of his closest friends was a black girl.

  Yes, Brandon’s instability brought her to him, provided her with a year’s worth of closeness, provided her with enough room to give a rat’s behind about him, though she was afraid to tell him that she feared his problems were getting worse.

  Natalie couldn’t believe how close she’d held him there on that bathroom floor, couldn’t believe how comfortable she was just sitting there with him, at three in the morning.

  #

  In her sophomore year, her workload became almost too much to bear, and she spent the majority of her time in the library, alongside Asha Castile, whom she’d grown ridiculously close to in a short amount of time. She’d found her, miraculously, in the student union one night, late in her freshman year, reading the same chemistry book as she. What followed was a remarkable discovery that they had been in the same class all semester and did not know it. They connected on the pure irony that the only two black girls in the entire class would not recognize nor acknowledge each other. Sharing the same major, the same skin complexion and the same cultural background gave the two girls an ample amount to talk about.

  Asha was louder, far more outgoing, wore her neat tight dark brown coils in constant up-dos, with her flashy earrings occupying her small caramel ears, and with her humor, her knack for the social and her need for constant peer communication, Asha was part of every black organization on campus. That meant that in the beginning part of their sophomore year together, her cellular phone was constantly ringing, and in the most random places, Asha’s natural magnetism attracted the hellos of random passersby.

  Asha Castile was a true bayou baby, hailing from the verdant swamps of Louisiana. Her dialect was low, rich, thick, several years more mature than her status as a teenager would suggest. On occasion, Natalie found herself looking at her friend, wondering how Asha retained the capability to tolerate her contrasting daintiness, her quietness, her religious reservations.

  “I hate this bullshit,” Asha grumbled, throwing down her chemistry book. “Electrons, protons…fuck this!”

  They had midterms coming up. And although Natalie had felt more confident that she’d do well, Asha could self-combust at any moment at the thought of it.

  “It’s alright,” Natalie chuckled, tapping her friend on the shoulder. “It shouldn’t be that hard.”

  “Please, Nat,” Asha said. “Of course it won’t be hard for you. You’re a damn genius. Do you know how many guys want to get with you?”

  “Please don’t bring that up now.” Natalie rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, I will, because I’m sick of studying this shit, and I’m ready to talk about what you’re not ready to talk about.”

  “We’re not talking about it. Don’t even say his name…”

  “Andre,” Asha teased. “Andre Thomas.”

  “Stop it…” Then Natalie’s phone rang.

  Natalie was relieved. Ever since the night outside of the student union that short, crooked-toothed, yet unbelievably sweet Andre approached her, innocently admitting that he’d liked her since the beginning of freshman year, Asha hadn’t been able to let it go, finding it quite and endlessly funny.

  Although Natalie didn’t find Andre attractive at all, she also didn’t find much time to think about other boys either. At least, not in the same way that she watched Asha and her other girlfriends talk about them. To Natalie, boys were a waste of time, and space, and held her back from achieving her goal.

  Brandon G. calling…

  Except for that one… />
  She sometimes regretted giving him her phone number that night, drinking chamomile tea, because he seemed to call her for all the wrong reasons. Though their friendship had started unbelievably strong, it seemed that their entire camaraderie was based off of his uneven and incredibly strange relationship with Sophia Baldwin. Brandon Greene would call and Natalie would listen patiently, she would listen to all of the bad things that Sophia said, or how she flirted with the frat boys from Theta Beta, or how high maintenance she was. Despite her growing affection for her friend, she feared that the topic of “Sophia” was increasingly growing out of control and too much for her to handle.

  “Yes?” She’d answered with a sigh.

  “Let’s go eat somewhere,” Brandon Greene demanded.

  “I can’t, I’m studying.”

  “Can’t you take a break?” “Of course, I’m taking one right now, and then I’ll go right back to studying.”

  “You’re in the library?”

  “Possibly.” “I’m coming to pick you up,” Brandon Greene told her in a singsong voice.

  “You don’t know where I am,” she mocked in a higher singsong voice.

  “I can find you.”

  “That’s creepy…”

  “There’s this new restaurant that I want to try,” he told her.

  “I don’t have any money, Brandon.”

  “I’ll pay for you…you know that.”

  Natalie sighed. “I don’t want to hear about Sophia all night. I’d rather claw my eyes out.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Nat. We broke up…”

  They went to the Sushi Bar on East Clayton Street that clear, chilly night in mid-October. Just a week prior they’d celebrated her nineteenth birthday in which he’d taken her out for burgers and then to a play at the Holden Theatre in the park about a German and a Jew attempting to be together during World War Two. They’d spent the entire car ride back that night arguing about why their differences shouldn’t have mattered and why they consequently did.

  He sat her down first; he sat across from her, authentic Japanese music hailed in the background.

  Over six California rolls set before her, she remained silent, stared at him from time to time, took note of the fact that he showed no indication of heart brokenness, something which she expected of someone who’d just broken up with the person that they’d spent a considerable amount of time with. The only evidence was in his appearance, which was slightly disheveled, hair slightly matted. He didn’t say much, only picked at his sashimi, and looked up at her on occasion, smiling cheekily.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  He looked at her. “Talk about what?”

  “About…you know…her…”

  “Her?”

  “Brandon, don’t play.”

  He cleared his throat. “You didn’t want to hear about her.”

  “I didn’t want to hear about your problems with her…I certainly want to hear about how y’all broke up.”

  He took another long, drawn out bite. “I broke up with her…”

  “You mean, Brandon David Greene actually grew some balls and told her it was over?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not laughing. I’m being serious.”

  “Hardest decision of my life.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “When you get your first boyfriend, Natalie, then you’ll understand.”

  “I’ve dated,” she defended, shoving a whole roll into her mouth.

  “Your chemistry textbook doesn’t count.”

  “I’ve had a boyfriend before.”

  “When?”

  “High school.”

  “High school, really? I believe it’s time to live in the now. You need to start dating.”

  “I’ll date when I feel like it.”

  “And when will that be? And please don’t say, when you meet the right guy. Blah, blah, blah…”

  “It’s true. Certainly, there are no boneheads worth talking about here.”

  “Have you met any guys outside of the library?”

  “Yes…”

  “And not through Asha?”

  Natalie paused. “No…”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well how I meet guys doesn’t matter, Brandon,” Natalie assured him. “It’s the fact that I meet them that matters.”

  “If you say so…I would just like to see you get your nose out of a textbook every once in awhile.”

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “Of course it is, Nat,” Brandon said, tapping her hand once. “What else is a best friend supposed to do but worry about how their right hand is conducting their life?”

  She studied his face, wanted to catch the moment where she was sure that he was joking. After all, there was never a moment where she looked at this boy and considered him a “best friend”. What did they talk about besides the complicated complexity that was Sophia? Yes they’d been friends now for over a year, but did they spend much time together?

  Maybe.

  Did he know much about how she conducted her daily life? Did he care?

  It was a rarity that their two opposing worlds collided. He was captain of the club soccer team, president of Future Business Leaders of America, would’ve been a part of the glamorous Greek life if it weren’t for his drive to defy his family name and his father’s legacy, and for his ardent hatred for all frat boys. He probably only cared about her when he was sitting across from her, pouring his heart out about how Sophia had wronged him, or how bad their fight was, or how good their sex session was the other night, as if she wanted to hear such things about them, as if she even wanted to picture Brandon in such a position!

  Natalie had never witnessed a more shallow relationship.

  She certainly wasn’t as socially driven as Brandon, and she knew nothing about which white social circles he ran in. She only assumed that he was a part of the other brightly colored polo shirt-wearing suburban duds with their shallow jokes and domineering attitudes.

  Except for Scotty. Scotty was the only one she knew and the only one she was certain that she liked.

  It was only then that Brandon became different from those Abercrombie-wearing, trust fund having minions. He was funnier than what she initially expected, and she shockingly came to learn that his jokes would sometimes have her in tears, that inside jokes between them could easily be established, that she had a sense of humor at all. And he was far more laid back than the spontaneous, life-of-the-party persona he’d put on when they first met. He had his quiet spells, and she increasingly found comfort in the fact that she could sit back with him on a lazy Friday, watch a couple of sitcoms, not say a word, and be content.

  She, on the contrary, was a part of the small circle that thrived under Asha’s popularity, which included a world that she was more comfortable with, a world that reminded her of where she came from; certainly a world that the powerhouse Brandon David Greene would find no comfort in.

  In the course of campus life, they really had no business being friends, and she couldn’t quite remember the moment that they clicked, that he begin to call her at all hours of the night, because he knew that she’d answer, that he begin to invite her to pizza at three in morning just because he knew she’d be up. He knew that she’d be there for him.

  They left the restaurant, he drove her back to campus, and instead of immediately hopping out of the car, she sat back into her seat, turned to him slowly and said, “You’re better off without her.”

  Telling him this surprised her, as if she’d molded tightly into her role of “listener”. She couldn’t recall the last time that she actually gave him solid advice or showed that she cared at all. Brandon only assumed that she did, kept telling her his romantic and relational anecdotes, as Natalie stared back in silent absorption.

  He looked confused, in the shadowed light of the dark interior, and replied, “Better off without who?”

  “Brandon…”

/>   Suddenly, clarity came to his face. “Oh! Her…”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, we’ll see about that, now won’t we?”

  She nodded.

  “And I think you should date him,” he told her, and a smile formed slowly on his face.

  “Who?”

  “Andre Thomas,” he sang.

  “And on that note…I’m leaving…goodbye Brandon.”

  “Oh, come on, Nat,” he called after her in a teasing tone. “I’m just joking with you! I ran into Asha on campus…she had to tell me about it…since you didn’t tell me about it.”

  She’d shut the door, and he rolled down the window to speak to her. “With good reason!” she said.

  “Alright then,” Brandon said. “I approve…”

  Natalie scoffed and rolled her eyes, placing her hands on the door. “Please, Brandon…”

  “Look, I know that that’s what you were after! My approval…and although I’ve never met the guy, I approve. I’m sure if you like him and Asha likes him…then he’s got to be an alright kind of guy.”

  “I don’t like him! He just helps me with my biology…nothing more.”

  “Is that what you science geeks call it these days, Nat? ‘Helping with biology’?” Brandon began to laugh a hearty laugh at her, and in the process he didn’t see her begin to walk away.

  “I will be calling you soon, Natalie Chandler! This discussion is not over!”

  “As far as I’m concerned, Brandon Greene, it is!”

  #

  When the winter winds blew, and the leaves fell daintily from the trees, Brandon Greene and Natalie Chandler found themselves inseparable, the type of connection that beckoned no explanation or no reasoning behind their gravity towards each other, only, in the simplest form, that she enjoyed his company and that he, as much as his eyes would reveal, enjoyed the idea that being around her brought him solace.

  He’d come over the night following the first day of exams, somewhere close to eleven at night, and her roommate, had gone to see her boyfriend, and would probably stay the night. She’d been studying all evening for her organic exam that following morning, and he’d called her, asking her to help him with his equations again, and she’d agreed to it if he came over and kept her company while she studied. She’d let him into her suite, him, wearing nothing more than a bulldogs pullover and a pair of black sweatpants, and black messy hair to top it all off, and he’d sat down comfortably on the round blue rug, atop the bumpy tile floor, placing a stack of Accountancy books before him.