Chapter 3 #2
No. Something buzzed in my ears as nausea roiled my stomach. I heard Mr. Floyd in the background saying, “Testing, one, two, testing,” but his voice sounded far away.
“Anyway, it worked out,” Donique went on.
“Deon got to talk to Taniyah that day, right? So, he was happy. But Jabali kept on entertaining you even after. That’s when it got funny.
He said you were sweet, though. Real sweet.
He didn’t want to hurt your little feelings.
You different, a fun little break for him. ”
“Like a Thanksgiving break,” Shayla chimed, a knowing smile on her face.
My throat closed. “How you even know about—”
“Girl, this Emancipation. People talk. You think people didn’t see that F-150 by that tree?
You think he didn’t brag about being the one to bag the Lil Houston girl with the soft voice?
Mrs. Amanda’s granddaughter? Girl, you like royalty to some people.
He got all that from playing wingman? Jay winning,” she said, laughing.
“But the break is over. Jabali will be right back where he belongs,” Donique added, rubbing her belly.
I realized the humming in the speakers had stopped. There was a strange silence hanging in the air for one long moment. Then, from outside, there was the sound of a microphone squealing and someone saying, “Umm… who turned my—” before it cut off again.
The “God mic.” My stomach dropped.
“Was that on?” Mr. Floyd yelled from across the stage, sounding panicked. “Somebody tell me that was not on!”
But even as he shouted, I heard sound from the audience. There were murmurs and soft laughter. I could imagine the heads turning as people whispered to each other. I saw the realization flicker across Shayla’s face. Then she grinned.
“Oops. Guess everyone just heard that, huh? It ain’t like they didn’t already know. Probably not even really funny anymore,” she jeered softly.
I swear the world tilted then narrowed. My body started moving before my brain caught up. I pulled the headset off and tossed it onto the nearest chair. My vision blurred, my eyes burning with tears I refused to shed.
Behind me, somewhere near the edge of the curtains, a familiar voice shouted, “Kyleigh!”
I didn’t stop.
“Kyleigh, wait!”
I ran down the stone steps, away from the stage, away from the bright lights and the rows of faces I knew were staring at me. Me. Kyleigh. The outsider. Always the outsider. I ran up the stairs, hit the gravel path behind the amphitheater and kept going, the cold air slicing into my lungs.
“Ky, hold up!”
I could hear the thud of his footsteps behind me. Each step matched the quick rhythm of my heart as it slammed against my chest. He caught my arm near the little rope fence that separated the amphitheater from the back parking lot.
“Get off me,” I screamed, jerking away so hard one of the gold hoops I’d borrowed from Mrs. Amanda flew out of my ears.
He let go immediately, lifting his hands like he was surrendering.
Under the glow of the security light, I could see his face clearly—brown skin, tight jaw, his breath visible in the air.
The dark green hoodie he had on looked familiar.
It was the same one I stole whenever he left it at Mrs. Amanda’s house.
“Kyleigh, please just listen,” he said.
I laughed. It didn’t sound amused at all. “Listen? You want me to listen? Everybody else just listened. The whole fucking town just listened!”
“That was an accident. They left the God mic on. Mr. Floyd already cussing somebody out. I’m sorry you had to hear that at all, but I swear—”
“Just tell me,” I demanded.
He frowned. “Tell you what?”
“Deon! In the cafeteria that day, you walked up to me because he asked you to get me away from Taniyah so he could talk to her. That’s what Shayla said. That’s what he told them. Is that true?”
He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, the guilt there was answer enough. At least he didn’t lie. What did Mrs. Amanda always say? Thank God for small blessings.
“It’s not like that—” he hedged.
“Yes. Or. No?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Ky—”
“Yes. Or. Fucking. No, Jabali?”
He sighed. “That’s how it started. I’m not gon’ sit here and pretend I came over there that day thinking we was gon’ end up like this. He did ask me to—”
“So, I was an assignment. Homework,” I said, my voice shaking.
“No,” he said quickly, stepping closer. “No. Stop that shit. That’s not what it was.
That’s just how I ended up at your table.
That’s all. After that, it was me. I sat there because I wanted to.
I kept coming back because I wanted to. I kept texting you, calling you, sitting on your grandma’s porch because I wanted to.
Deon ain’t have nothing to do with how I feel about you. That’s all me, Kyleigh!”
“How you feel about me? You mean how you pretended to feel?” I argued.
“I mean how I feel. Right now. Today. I love you, Kyleigh. I know we young and that sound crazy, but I do. I been trying to figure out how to say it because I don’t want to scare you off. I know you worry about people sticking around, and I—”
“Do not,” I whispered, my throat almost closing. “Don’t you say that shit to me right now!”
His eyes tangled with mine. “Why not? Because some nobody mean girls said something in a mic they wasn’t supposed to be touching?
Kyleigh, you know me. You know my heart.
They don’t know nothing about us. They not there when you fall asleep on the phone with me.
They not there when you tell me about your parents and Houston and how you feel like you don’t fit anywhere. They not there when—”
He stopped, and I picked it right up.
“When what? When you fucked me? Is that when you realized your ‘assignment’ turned into a real thing? Or was that just you doing extra credit?” I hissed.
He sucked in a breath like I had hit him.
“If all I wanted was to fuck, I coulda got that from anybody. I waited until you were ready, and I woulda been there if you were never ready. I checked on you after. I took that serious. I took you serious,” he said hoarsely.
“But you didn’t tell me. You knew. This whole time. You knew why you sat down that day, and you let me walk around here thinking you just… saw me. Out of nowhere. Like some story in a book. You let me believe that” I said. The cold air blurred with heat as tears finally spilled over.
“I was gon’ tell you. I swear, Ky. I was gon’ tell you.
I just… every time I tried, it never felt like the right moment.
And after Thanksgiving, the idea of you looking at me like this?
Like I’m some kind of user? I couldn’t stand it.
So, I kept putting it off. I know that’s on me.
I know I messed up. But I’m telling you now.
And I’m telling you, things changed. I changed.
You not some assignment,” he said, voice cracking.
I wrapped my arms around myself so I wouldn’t reach for him.
I had to focus on my other senses. The view of the packed parking lot.
The smell of pine needles. The muffled sounds of the crowd.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I realized the play was supposed to start in a few minutes.
Somewhere, Taniyah was probably looking for me.
“You ever been embarrassed before?” I asked quietly.
He frowned. “Of course, Ky. I—”
I shook my head. “No. Not like this. Not in front of everybody. Not when you already feel like you don’t belong in a place.
My parents shipped me here because they thought it would be good for me.
I worked so hard to fit in just enough so people would stop looking at me like I was strange.
And the first time I let somebody all the way in, the first time I do something that big, I get turned into a joke on a microphone.
Nah, Jabali. You ain’t been embarrassed before. ”
“You not a joke,” he denied.
“Yeah? Then why I feel like the punchline?” I asked.
He reached out, hesitated, then dropped his hand.
“Tell me what to do,” he said softly. “You want me to get on that stage and tell everybody it’s not like that?
I will. You want me to fuck Deon up for even running his mouth?
I will. I already planned to. Whatever you need, Ky. I’m here. I’m not leaving.”
“And Donique?” I asked.
“What about her? Ain’t nobody tryna be with that girl,” he said with a scowl.
“But you were with her before…”
“You knew that, Ky. I never hid that I knocked her down. That’s why her ass hating. She—”
“In August?” I asked suddenly.
He flinched. And I knew. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I need you to leave me alone.”
“It was August, but it was before you, before school even started—”
“I’m serious, Jabali.’
His eyes narrowed. “Kyleigh—”
“I can’t do this. You expect me to stay here and watch…” I stopped, shook my head.
“So, what, you breaking up with me?” he asked, voice hoarse
.
“I’m ending whatever this was. Let me go. Don’t come to my grandmother’s house looking for me. Don’t call me. Don’t text me,” I listed.
He stared at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. He reached out and finally touched me. My face. My tears. My shaking hands.
“We got six more months of school. Then you can go back to Houston and never see me again if that’s what you really want. But don’t throw everything away over how something started. Judge me on what I did after, not on the first step, Kyleigh,” he said, making my name sound like a plea.
“I’m judging you on all of it, because everything was built on a lie!”
Then I turned and walked away before my legs gave out.
I didn’t go back to the amphitheater. Taniyah would be okay.
She always was. I ran from the parking lot, cut through a pretty little tree garden, climbed the hill to my grandmother’s house, and stumbled up the front steps with my vision blurry from tears.
The door opened before I could find my key, like someone had been on the other side waiting.
“Baby?”
My mother’s voice shocked me. She stood there, looking concerned, my father right next to her.
“Kyleigh, what you doing here? Mama Amanda said you’d done so much for this play… we wanted to surprise you. What’s wrong?”
I fell into her arms and cried like my heart was broken, because it was.
By Monday, I was with them on a plane to Houston.
By Wednesday, my resourceful parents, who worried that I’d make the young-girl-in-love mistake of forgiving him too easily, had come into my room with evidence I didn’t even want to know how they’d gotten.
Text messages, pictures, proof of his entertaining Donique, of my being the butt of some vicious joke.
By the end of that week, Jabali Christopher was blocked on my phone, on every app, on every single way a person could access my world.
I cut him out of my life, excised him like something poisonous because he was.
Then, I did my best to forget him.