“We switched seats, boo. I thought I would enjoy sitting next to you.” She grinned.
I looked at her. I smelled a blackmail coming on. “What the fuck do you want, Alisha?”
“I know you fucked Jamie, Charlene Campbell.” She glared at me, pointing at my face with her American-manicured pointer finger.
“And how the fuck—”
Alisha put her hand in my face, cutting me off. “Don’t try to play me, bitch. You walk different, talk different, skin glowing and shit. And I saw the way he looked at you. You fucked your best friend’s ex-boyfriend, and instead of being ashamed, you’re actually falling for the nigga.”
I hated that bitch, but she was right. “Like I said, Alisha, what the fuck do you want?”
“I want you to quit the cheerleading squad,” she grinned.
My eyes widened. “You must have lost your fuckin’ mind if you think I’m going to give up something that I have been working my whole life for!”
Alisha couldn’t care less. “You have until homecoming game to give up your pom-poms, boo, or I’m telling Ne’Vaeh. And it’s as simple as that.”
I shook my head at her. “You have no proof that I slept with Jamie, the same way that you have no proof that I ever slept with Ashton’s ass, trick.”
Alisha looked at me as if she wanted to smack me in the face for even bringing up Ashton’s name. “I don’t? Back in high school, you had niggas callin’ their girl ‘Charlie’ every time their girl gave them head, and why? Because you were giving them niggas head. You had them niggas asking their girls to swallow that shit, and why? Because your nasty ass was swallowing that shit. When I gave Ashton head the first time, the nigga called me ‘Charlie,’ and why is that, bitch?”
I sat back in my seat, looking out the window. I couldn’t even deny what the bitch was saying. “I’m not quitting the team. I don’t give a fuck what you say. You have no proof of that shit you talkin’.” I looked back at her, my eyes glistening. “No proof.”
“What’s on the note Jerry handed you? Did you even look at it?” Alisha asked.
I hadn’t looked at it, and I didn’t even realize that I still had it in my hands. I hesitated. What did I have to lose by opening the note? I unfolded it.
Alisha leaned over to take a peek. “‘I can still feel your lips on it. Until the next episode. 901-761-3228, Jamie G.”’ She looked at me.
I looked up at her, swallowing hard. That nigga Jamie, boy, I tell you . . .
Alisha was disgusted. “Ol’ nasty-ass bitch. Still suckin’ dick. You a dick-sucker. You’d probably suck mine too, if I had one.”
“Shut up, Alisha.” I rolled my eyes, folding the note back up. “Keep talkin’ shit.”
“Homecoming game, Charlie.” Alisha shook her head at me.
* * *
It was the second week of school at Morgan State, and we were behind on cheerleading tryouts. I was going through my own personal issues and really wasn’t in the mood for being one of the judges on the panel that chose which girls were worthy of being on our cheerleading squad. I had an eye for talent, which is why I was on the panel, but I really wasn’t feeling it that day. Alisha had already warned me that I only had a few months to come clean about my affair with Jamie.
Four weeks had passed since Miami, and I found out just a few days before tryouts that I was pregnant. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to deal with the situation. I’d avoided any contact with Ne’Vaeh, and I made it a habit to seduce Aaron from the very day that I found out that I was pregnant. If I decided on keeping the baby, I had to get the timing right. Aaron kept his promise of trying to spend more time with me. However, it wasn’t until the night that I found out that I was pregnant that I finally came around to sleeping with him. Though I loved the attention from Aaron, a part of me couldn’t help but wish that I was back on that beach with Jamie.
“Girl, are you all right?” Dana, the assistant cheerleading coach, nudged me in my shoulder that afternoon at tryouts.
I snapped out of my daze. “I’m good.” I looked up into her pretty brown eyes, faking a grin. “I’m good.”
Her eyes searched mine. “Mm-hmm. Well, we need to make a decision. We should have had a decision like yesterday, and your ass is sitting over here daydreaming. We have games and tournaments coming up in like two weeks, and we don’t even have our squad together yet. I’m tired of UMBC and Howard showing us up. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them bitches from College Park show up here today, just because they know we’re having tryouts. Alisha is pissed, okay? And I really ain’t trying to hear her mouth today.”
I looked over at Alisha, who was in the middle of the basketball court, choreographing the cheers for the tryouts.
I rolled my eyes. “Man, fuck Alisha, okay?”
Danita, who sat to my left, laughed a little. “Girl, we have been dealing with y’all’s drama since middle school. How long are you two gonna let that old shit dictate your lives?”
I looked at Danita, who seriously needed to get those thick-ass eyebrows tweezed before she wanted to try to check somebody. “‘Old shit’? Please, okay? She is still trippin’ off of that shit with Ashton. Her ass is the one who can’t leave the past where it is. She’s been accusing me of fuckin’ her man for the past five years. . . .”
Dana looked at me. “Well, wasn’t it you who told me that Ashton ate you out in the ninth grade?”
Danita burst out in laughter.
I elbowed her then looked back at Dana. “What? I never told your ass no shit like that! I told you that I sucked his dick. Please get your facts straight. See, that’s how rumors get started. Sucking a boy’s dick doesn’t mean that he reciprocated the favor, nor does it mean that there was any penetration involved. Alisha wasn’t suckin’ his dick to his satisfaction, so, hey, he came to me.”
Danita rolled her eyes. “Okay, Superhead, and you wonder why the girl can’t stand you. She loves that boy. Call it what you want, but sex is sex. Suckin’ and fuckin’ are the same damn things, if you ask me.”
“Well, nobody asked your ass, Danita.” I rolled my eyes.
Danita shook her head. “Alisha can destroy you, and you know it. Fuckin’ with someone’s man in any type of way is suicide. Trust me. Y’all know that I know.” Danita pulled back her hair that covered her left ear. You could still see where the doctors sewed her ear back to her damn head.
In the eleventh grade, Danita got into a fight with this Puerto Rican chick named Marcia. Marcia was the hottest, most talented dancer of the senior graduating class that year. Danita was fuckin’ Marcia’s boyfriend, Carlos, nearly six months before Marcia caught the two. She’d seen Carlos’s car parked in front of a Motel 6. She went to the front-desk clerk to ask what room he was in. The clerk barely got the words “room 206” out before Marcia rushed off to the room. She got to the room, damn near out of breath, but as calmly as she could, she knocked on the door. She heard a woman’s giggle behind the door. She knocked again then stood to the side of the door so the person wouldn’t see her through the peephole. Danita’s stupid ass opened the door, sticking her head out. As soon as she turned to see Marcia’s face, it was too late. Before the bitch could run back inside and slam the door, Marcia grabbed her by her hair. If the housekeeping cart hadn’t blocked Marcia from throwing Danita’s ass over the railing, Danita’s ass would have been dead. Before Carlos could even make it out of the room, Marcia had pulled out her got-damn knife and cut Danita’s ear slap off.
I shook my head at Danita. “That’s your crazy-ass life, Danita. Not mine. Nobody told you to fuck Marcia’s man. She’s the only girl in a family of eight boys. You knew she’d fuck your ass up on sight, no questions asked. You lucky she didn’t throw your ass over the railing, you crazy bitch.”
Danita laughed, shaking her head at me. “All right, Charlie, keep talking that shit. That might be you one day.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please, Alisha ain’t shit but talk. I knew Ashton all my life. We’re ju
st friends, regardless of whether Alisha wants to believe me. I ain’t got shit to prove to her, and I damn sure ain’t got shit to prove to y’all bitches, either.”
Dana shook her head at me too. “Well, whatever. All I’m sayin’ is that as bitchy and as loud as Alisha can be at times, she is cool people. Best damn captain that we could ever have on our team. You know she’s leaving us in January to be a Laker Girl, right? She’s going places. Where the hell are you going?”
I should have known that she would stick up for Alisha. I mean they are cousins.
I rolled my eyes.
Dana thought I was a slut too. The only reason she even hung around me was because I had connections. The reason why she really didn’t like me was because she liked Ashton but never had the chance to be with him because he was with her cousin, who was “going places.” Shit. Who gave a damn? Okay, I gave a damn. I was pregnant and scared as a motherfucka. My mom tried to convince me not to have the abortion, but at that point, I wasn’t so sure. Hearing that Alisha was living her dreams was tearing me the hell apart. My reputation had gotten the best of me. I was turned down from damn near every dance audition that I went to because there were at least two judges on each panel that I’d got into it with in high school because of cheating with their man, or they were friends with the person whose man I slept with. Nineteen and my life was already shot to shit. I had no idea how I was going to get my life back. What was I going to do with a baby? Jamie’s baby at that?
“You know what?” I got up from the table, but Danita grabbed me, pulling me back down. I pulled from her. “That shit with Ashton was five fuckin’ years ago. We were kids. Yeah, Alisha was fuckin’ him, but she wasn’t suckin’ him. So he came to me, his best friend, who, at that time, would do anything for him. Yeah, I was a ho back then. Yeah, I fucked and sucked the whole basketball team! Are you happy now? Y’all can judge me if you want, but that is the past. I’ve changed. I moved on, and I am not that girl anymore! I’ve been with Aaron since January, junior year, spring 2012. It’s almost fuckin’ 2015 and y’all hoes are still talkin’ about the same old shit! Y’all bitches helped Alisha make my life a living hell, and yeah, maybe I brought it all on myself. Aaron barely wants shit to do with me! I damn near have to rape the boy to get him to have sex with me now!”
Dana laughed a little.
I glared at her. “Oh, you wanna laugh, do you?”
She straightened up. “My bad, you’re right. It’s not funny. And you’re right, we’re wrong as hell.”
“If I wanted Ashton, I could have him. Alisha needs to let that shit go and stop putting ideas in everyone’s head about me.” I shook my head in disgust.
Danita looked at me, tapping her pencil on the table. “Oh, okay, so I guess she’s wrong about Jamie too, then, huh?”
I damn near swallowed my tongue. “Wh-what?”
“She said she guesses Alisha is wrong about Jamie too, then, huh?” Dana was always a fuckin’ cosigner.
Danita nodded. “Alisha said that you went missing from the squad for the whole week y’all were in Miami. Said you may have been chillin’ with Jamie the whole damn time. Wasn’t Jamie your bestie’s man a few years ago?”
Just when I started to answer Danita, stomping and chanting echoed throughout the gym. We looked up to see about ten girls, dressed in tight blue, tiny T-shirts and black leggings steppin’ across the hardwood floors, forcing our squad and the girls trying out for our squad out of the way. Hair flippin’, booties poppin’, hips gyratin’, flips, twerkin’, feet stompin’—shit, they were killin’ it—and made our squad look like beginners. It didn’t take me long to notice the big dark blue “M” embroidered across their breasts. My eyes widened. It was the Memphis State cheerleaders.
My heart pounded in my chest as about ten dudes wearing blue and white sport coats made their way into our gym, standing back up against the wall. I looked back over at the cheerleaders, who were seriously showing us up, and I saw Pamela dancing in the center of the squad, chanting her ass off. I looked back over at the ten guys standing up against the wall, only to see Jamie staring straight back at me. My heart skipped a beat. He winked his eye at me.
I looked over at Alisha, who stood, posing with her arms folded across her chest. She looked back at me . . . and winked her eye at me too.
I shook my head at her as the Memphis State cheerleaders’ showdown came to a close. Our squad had no choice but to clap for them, even if it was a forced clap. We could hate if we wanted to, but we had to admit they had skills. I’m pretty sure the girls who were trying out for our team wished they went to Memphis State.
“Well well well, looky here.” Alisha walked up to Pamela, who stood with her hands on her hips in front of her squad. “If it isn’t Pamela.”
Pamela grinned, breathing heavily. “What’s up, girl? You know we had to pay y’all a visit to show y’all how the South gets down and dirty.”
Alisha nodded. “Oh well, that was dirty as hell, showing up here when we have tryouts going on. What are y’all doin’ here anyway?”
“My baby is in town visiting his sister.” Pamela signaled Jamie to come over.
Alisha looked over at me, signaling us to come over too.
I shook my head, but Dana and Danita each took an arm and pulled me up from my chair. “O . . . M . . . G,” I whispered, with my hand over my chest.
Dana laughed a little, letting go of my arm, making her way around the table. “It’s showtime, ladies.”
We made our way to the middle of the floor, just in time to meet Jamie and his boys.
“So, how long do y’all plan on staying here?” Kelissa approached the Memphis State athletes. “Shit, y’all know y’all can’t leave town without us showin’ y’all asses up at the Q party tonight.”
Pamela and her squad nodded. She grinned, teeth looking like she just hopped out of the dentist’s chair. “Well, we’re here all weekend. We could use a little practice for nationals. We don’t mind putting y’all skills to the test at your own school!” Her team laughed along with her.
“Well,” I finally caught my breath. “It has been nice watching y’all kick our asses today, but I gotta get going. I still haven’t gotten all of my schoolbooks for the semester, so . . . I’ll holla . . .” I turned to walk away.
Kelissa caught my arm. “Charlie, we’re supposed to be going shopping, girl! I don’t got shit to wear to the Q party tonight!”
I glanced at Jamie, then looked back at Kelissa. “Girl, I’ll catch back up with you. I’ll call you when I leave the bookstore.”
I hurried off to the bathroom before the chunks started to rise in my throat. I just knew I was going to throw up all over the floor. I could feel my stomach burning, and I could feel the tension building in my chest. I burst into the stall, kneeling down over the toilet, and instead of vomit spewing from my mouth, tears spilled from my eyes instead. How could I have been so stupid? I knew in my heart that I was in love with Aaron, but when I saw Jamie standing there in his letter jacket, looking good enough to eat, my body was on fire. There I was, pregnant with his baby, knowing good and damn well that there was no way I could keep his baby and keep Aaron without telling Aaron that he was my child’s father.
* * *
I did end up going shopping with Dana, Danita, Kelissa, and Lailah that evening. They were pressed to get dresses with our school colors, orange, blue, and white. I ended up buying a tight, backless, royal blue minidress. I wasn’t in any mood to go to a fuckin’ Q party. The fraternity party scene was played out to me. Not to mention morning sickness was kicking my ass twenty-four-seven. I played it off as best as I could, but even the squad knew something was up when I didn’t want anything to drink later. They danced their asses off that night, paying the Memphis State crew back for making us look bad at tryouts.
I sat at the bar, cheering from the sidelines. Jamie sat with his crew at a far corner of the club. I can’t tell you how many muthafuckas were drooling over me that night. Some were
hot, some really not. I was looking good in my D&G dress. My hair was slicked up into a bun. Silver hoop earrings hung from my ears. My makeup was flawless. The stilettos I had on made it look like I had legs for days. Despite how good I knew I looked, I wasn’t in the mood for anybody being all up on me, smelling like sweaty balls and liquor.
Jamie caught sight of me as I took a sip from my ginger ale. I set my glass down on the bar table and quickly got up as I saw him rise in his chair. I wasn’t sure where he was off to, but just in case the nigga decided to be bold and talk to me in a room full of people in front of his girl, I made my way to the bathroom.
I stood at the mirror, set my purse down, and took out my cell phone. Aaron hadn’t called me once that night. Ne’Vaeh had called several times, and I had yet to return her calls. I had only looked that girl in her face about two times over the course of four weeks, and it was only because I needed help studying for calculus. I hadn’t seen her since I found out that I was pregnant. There was no way that I could face her after what I had done. If I was any type of friend, I would have called the girl and told her that Jamie was in town. However, the selfish part of me actually was glad that he showed up when he did. I had to find a way to talk to him about my situation. I never called him once in those four weeks. In fact, I threw away his number the day that he gave it to me at the airport.
“So, that’s how you do a nigga, huh?” I heard a deep male voice over my shoulder.
I looked up to see Jamie standing in the door to the ladies’ room. My eyes widened as I backed up against the counter in shock. “Jamie, what the fuck are you doing in here? Are you seriously bringing your ass into the ladies’ room like somebody isn’t gonna walk up in here and see your ass?”
Jamie grinned as he approached me, looking down into my face. “Why didn’t you call a nigga?”
I looked up into his face, eyes coated in tears. “You need to get out of here before someone sees us, Jamie! What if your girl walks the fuck up in here? How are you gonna explain this shit to her?”
It's Wrong for Me to Love You Page 11
