The Break-Up Diaries

by Ni-Ni Simone

  Candace called the next day. I answered the phone on the first ring.

  “Where did you go last night? Jay was looking all over for you.”

  “I left.”

  “That’s obvious. Where did you go?”

  “I was with DeMarco.”

  “O.M.G. You left the dance to be with DeMarco? Please tell me you are not serious.”

  “I did. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that you didn’t go to the dance with DeMarco, you went with Jay. That was just plain out disrespectful.”

  “Jay is the one that was disrespectful to me.” My mind went back to when Jay was talking to the pretty girl. Now, I really didn’t care that Jay was talking to her, I just cared that he was doing it while he was my escort to the dance. He could talk to her on his own time. I wished I had not told her about DeMarco.

  “Don’t judge me,” I said

  “I’m just saying that is not right. Your mom didn’t raise you to be like that. I know Jay is not your type but he is a nice guy, he didn’t deserve that.”

  “I know, but he flirted with Crystal Rose’s friend right in my face. I don’t know her name, but you know who I’m talking about. That tall cute girl.”

  “Brittany.”

  “Yeah, I think Jay should talk to her. She’s cute and I guess she’s his type.”

  “Jay likes you and you know he likes you. He’s always had a crush on you since the eighth grade.”

  “But he must like Brittany, too, I guess. I think Jay should be with her, they obviously have some kind of chemistry. Something that he and I don’t have.”

  “So you left with DeMarco. I didn’t see him at the dance and he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy that would even be caught dead at a dance.”

  “He didn’t go to the dance. He got a room in the hotel.”

  “So you planned to escape with him to the room?”

  “No. I didn’t know he had gotten a room in the hotel. He texted me and told me he was in the room and that I should come up.”

  “So, he just assumed you would come to the room. Wow, he thinks highly of you.”

  We’ve been on good terms for less than a day, and Candace was already buggin’ and grating on my nerves. “Listen, I told you the reason why I left. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Cool, let’s not talk about it.”

  I heard a tap on my door. Before I could respond, Mom appeared in the doorway.

  “What’s up?”

  “Jay is here and he looks upset about something. He wants to speak with you.”

  “Candace, I’ll call you later.”

  Mom and I went into the kitchen where Jay waited. His face looked more hurt than angry as Mom had said. My heart skipped. “What’s up?”

  “That was really uncalled for, what you did to me last night.”

  Mom looked confused. Her gaze went from Jay’s face to my face. Finally she asked. “What’s wrong Jay? What happened?”

  “I will let your daughter tell you.”

  “Somebody tell me something.”

  “Jay disrespected me at the dance last night. He flirted with this girl, Brittany right in my face.”

  Jay turned to Mom. “Ms. Neal, I ain’t gonna lie. Brittany does like me, but I like Zori. I have always liked Zori and I did not disrespect her, she disrespected me.”

  “How did she disrespect you, Jay?” Mom asked with curious eyes.

  I can’t believe Jay is sitting here about to whine to my mom about what happened last night. About to tell on me. Now I would have to hear her mouth for days. She would not let me live this one down. I wished I could disappear right now. I wish I could make him disappear, or at least the hurt I caused him to disappear.

  “She left the dance and went to be with another guy.”

  Mom turned to me, her face now red. I knew that look. I could tell she wanted to kill me. The last time I’d seen that look, I’d stolen her car and wrecked it. That happened when I was fourteen. For that I had gotten put on punishment for a month.

  She asked, “Is this true?”

  “I did leave the dance.”

  “With who?”

  I didn’t want to say I was with DeMarco. Mom had never met him and that would have made it worse. I didn’t answer.

  There was about a minute of silence before Jay said, “She was with DeMarco Mobley.”

  “Who is DeMarco, Zori?”

  “Just a guy from school.”

  Mom stared at me so hard, my face burned. “So you went to the dance with Jay and you left with this guy. That is unacceptable. I did not teach you to be some skank.”

  “Jay didn’t see me with nobody.”

  Jay turned to me. “I didn’t have to see you. One of my friends saw you and DeMarco at the Waffle House.”

  Dang, this dude was really snitching. He was really telling everything he knew. But he was hurt and I could see it in his face. I was sorry and I couldn’t justify my actions any longer.

  I looked Mom in her eyes and said, “Mom, Jay is telling you the truth. What I did was wrong.” I turned to Jay and said, “Jay, I’m very sorry. I hope you can one day find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  There was a long awkward silence. I looked at Jay and then I turned to Mom. She now had a disappointed look on her face.

  “Apology accepted,” Jay said.

  Mom hugged Jay. “I am so sorry, Jay that this happened to you.”

  “Not your fault, Ms. Neal,” he said, then left. I didn’t want him to leave. Wished he could stay for a few more hours ’cause I knew that once he was gone, I was gonna get chewed out big time.

  Mom’s eyes were intense. She didn’t say a word and the silence was killing me. I wished she’d just get it over with and chew me out. I could take the cursing, but not the hard stares. The disappointment. What would my punishment be? Maybe she would take the car. My phone. Whatever it was, I needed her to tell me now. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I broke the ice. “Mom, I know you’re mad and I’m sorry. This will not happen again.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders and shook me hard. She had never hit me, but the look in her eyes told me that she would backhand if she got mad enough. I took a step away from her, waiting on her to go off. I needed her to go off. I needed her to get it out of her system.

  “Mom, I’m sorry.”

  She paced angrily. “You’re right, you’re sorry. One sorry little heifer. This boy got his dad to rent a stretch limo for this dance. This ain’t even the prom but just a regular dance and this is what you do, behave like some chicken head.”

  “I’m not a chicken head.”

  “Yeah, chicken heads know better than you.”

  My mind went back to the night. I thought about the drinking in the back of the limo. Thought about the alcohol I had with Adrianna. I was not a drinker. Maybe the alcohol had impaired my judgment. I wanted to tell Mom I was under the influence and perhaps that made me behave the way I did. But that would have been worse. I could not tell this woman that I had taken a few drinks. Could not tell her I might have been drunk. This would have made it worse. God, the only thing that could be worse than her finding out that I had been drinking was if she found out what had happened to Adrianna. That could not happen. Ever.

  “What is wrong with you, Zori?” she asked. I could only see the whites of her eyes and this made me nervous.

  “Nothing is wrong.” I turned away from her stare. My mind raced. I needed an excuse but there was none. I had just done what I had wanted to do.

  “Who is this boy you left with?”

  “I didn’t leave with anybody.”

  She gave me that look again.

  My eyes met Mom’s. I hesitated before speaking. “Look, Mom, DeMarco didn’t go to the dance. He had gotten a room at the hotel.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight. You break curfew coming in the house after midnight. You go to the dance with one boy and leave with another. You go to a r
oom with a boy. I’m assuming you had sex, too. The only thing you didn’t do was get drunk.”

  I didn’t have sex with him but in her mind she was going to believe that I did have sex. It was only logical. I mean, I did leave the dance and go to a hotel room with a boy. Who does that unless they’re going to have sex? But the truth was that I didn’t have sex, I only fell asleep in DeMarco’s arms. Jimmy came the closest to having sex.

  “DeMarco. Now why does his name sound so familiar?”

  I was silent. I knew why his name sounded familiar, but I didn’t want to remind her. I knew if she thought about it long enough it would come to her.

  “Zori, why does DeMarco’s name sound familiar ? Do I know him?”

  Might as well connect the pieces for her. I just wanted this whole scene to be over already. “Yeah, he was the boy that took me shopping.”

  “The boy that took you shopping.” She was almost screaming now.

  “Yeah.”

  “A boy that I have never ever met, but yet you’re going to hotel rooms with him?”

  “Mom, you make it sound so bad.”

  “There is nothing right about my sixteen-year-old daughter going to a hotel room with a boy.”

  I decided that I had to speak up for myself, I had to let her know the truth. Well, not the part about Adrianna and Jimmy, but I had to let her know that nothing happened, so she could calm down about this whole room thing. “Mom, nothing happened. All we did was watch tv, then go to the Waffle House.”

  “You expect me to believe that, Zori? I know why people get rooms, I was a girl before. A girl that dealt with boys.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Zori, I’m not going to be a grandmother just yet. I am not ready to be a grandmother.”

  “Mom, you’re not going to be a grandmother.”

  She shook her head. “I hope you know that you really messed up this time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know it would have been better if you didn’t go out with Jay at all. That would have been better than to go out with him and leave. That was really poor character.”

  “Mom, I’m sorry.” I looked her in her disappointed eyes. She looked like she had failed as a parent. She had taught me better and I knew better, but I had chosen not to do better.

  She hugged me and said, “Go to your room and bring me that cell phone. There will be no hanging out on the weekends for a month.”

  “A whole month?”

  “And I’m taking your car, meaning that you’ll be catching the bus to school.”

  “The bus?”

  She gave me a look that said I was pressing my luck. Mom really wanted to punish me longer than that. I could tell and actually I had expected a harsher punishment than that. My cell phone would be gone for a month. I would have to text DeMarco and Candace from Yahoo Messenger, and Jay, well he was gone for good. I reflected back on that night and it had actually started out pretty good. Jay wasn’t as stuffy as I’d thought he’d be. He’d looked very handsome and he’d actually made me a tad bit jealous. Like Jamie Foxx said, blame it on the alcohol . . . that Mom would never know about. Thank God Jay didn’t snitch about that. If he had snitched about that, he would have had to snitch on himself.

  I went to my room and got my cell phone, deleting all my text messages before I handed it over. When I returned to give it to Mom, she asked, “How in the world did a teenager get a hotel room?”

  “I don’t know. I think his brother got it for him.” Did I just say too much?

  “I know what happens in rooms and I know you weren’t in the room playing monopoly. I need more info on this boy. You told me his mom was dead, but where is his father?”

  “I don’t think his father is in his life. His older brothers are raising him.”

  “How did you get tied up with him?”

  “I like him, he’s cool, he’s smart. Just because he don’t live with his parents don’t make him a bad person, Mom.”

  “I didn’t say he was.”

  There was an awkward silence again. Then she said, “Go to your room and think about your actions. I am hurt and embarrassed by your behavior. I’ve taught you better and you need to act like it.”

  Finally dismissed, I rushed to my room to get away from my mom’s disappointment. I hoped that she’d keep this whole episode to herself, ’cause I didn’t want to have to deal with my dad, too.

  8

  Being without my cell phone was brutal. I could catch up with some of my friends on my computer on twitter, but there was nothing that could replace my cell phone. Nothing. Sometimes I would forget that I didn’t have it and check my purse. It was the worst in the morning when I would roll over and look for it. I was glad I deleted all my texts and told all my friends, including DeMarco, that I didn’t have my cell phone, just in case they wanted to text something weird to my phone. When I saw Jay at school, he looked in my direction but didn’t acknowledge me and it was killing me inside to see somebody who’d liked me, now didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I was now a bad person in his view. After the second period bell rang I walked past him again.

  This time I stopped him. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  The look on his face said: Are you serious? I dare you.

  “Just one second, I promise you it will not take long.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hey, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “You said that at your house and I accepted your apology.”

  “But I want you to believe me.”

  He took a deep breath and said, “Look Zori, are you really sorry or are you sorry because your mom knows what you did?”

  “Jay I’m sorry, really I am, I am not that kind of person. What I did to you was wrong and nobody should have had to go through what I took you through.”

  “What really pissed me off about the whole situation is that I asked you were you seeing DeMarco, but you kept saying no.”

  “But I did say we’d gone out on dates.”

  “You should have told me it was kind of serious, you should have told me that you liked him.”

  What Jay was saying was right. I should have been respectful enough to tell Jay that I liked DeMarco. I don’t know why I couldn’t bring myself to just tell the truth. I guess part of me liked Jay. Part of me knew that Jay was the type of boy that I should be with.

  I stared at the floor for a moment and when I realized it I looked up into his eyes. They were sad. My apology really was heartfelt, and I wanted him to believe me. I just didn’t want these to be just words.

  He extended his hand and when we shook hands he held my hand for a long time. Our pulses were in sync. He smiled and his eyes became a little bit happier. He finally said, “I forgive you Zori.”

  I smiled and said, “Thank you Jay.” I walked away feeling a little bit better about the situation. Not because I had offered a sincere apology, but because Jay had really forgiven me.

  After school, I ran into DeMarco walking into the student parking lot. He was just about to hop in the truck when I called his name. He turned, smiled, and leaned up against the truck.

  “So, you hanging out with me today.”

  “You know I’m grounded.”

  “So how does that grounded thing work?”

  I laughed because I knew he couldn’t be serious. He knew what being grounded meant. Everybody did, well everybody who had been grounded. When I saw that his face was serious, I realized there was a possibility that DeMarco had never been grounded before. I mean how could he? Why would he? Who would ground him? He didn’t have a mother and I knew his drug dealing brothers darn sure wouldn’t ground him.

  “Being grounded means I can’t go anywhere after school.”

  “Okay, but why don’t you have a phone?”

  “She took that away, too. It’s part of my punishment.”

  “Your mom is tripping. That ain’t even fair.”

  “It ain’t supposed to be fair.”
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  He pulled me to him. I was now positioned between his legs. I looked around. I didn’t want any of the faculty or staff to see me up on him like that. That would be all I needed to get caught kissing at school with DeMarco. Mom would really flip.

  He put his hand around my waist and I leaned into him briefly before I pulled away.

  “What’s wrong, shorty?”

  “Now you know we ain’t supposed to be kissing here. What if we get caught?”

  “Everybody kisses at school.”

  “Look, I ain’t trying to be grounded till next Christmas.”

  “Your mom is hardcore, huh.”

  “She’s being a parent.”

  “She’s going overboard with this whole thing.”

  He still looked confused. DeMarco was a guy who had disrespected many people and he didn’t think there was anything wrong with what I done. In his eyes, this behavior was perfectly normal.

  “I wanted to hang out this Friday. My brother is going to let me hold his Benz.”

  “Well, I can’t.” I looked him in the eye. He looked sad, but his sadness didn’t pull at me the way I thought it would. What had changed? “You know I want to hang out, but I can’t.”

  He hugged me. “This month will be over before you know it.”

  “I hope so.”

  After school I was en route to the bus when I heard Candace call my name. She was behind me. I turned and faced her.

  She asked, “Where are you going?”

  “Home.” Duh!

  “The student parking lot is the other way.”

  “I’m catching the bus home. Mom took the car away.”

  “Come on, you can ride with me.”

  I was hesitant at first for two reasons. The first reason: me and Candace haven’t been on the best of terms lately. Reason number two: I knew she was going to lecture me about what happened and try to make herself out to be holier than thou, but this is the same chick that was sexing a college dude.

  “Come on. You know you don’t wanna ride the bus.”

  She was right about that. Once you’ve stopped riding the bus, you don’t want to go back. It was like moving from a nice neighborhood to the hood. I followed her to her car.