Chapter 17 Javonte
“Where were you last night? I called you, and you didn’t answer.”
That’s the first thing Zea says when she gets into my car after school.
I turn and look at her. “Excuse me?”
“Where were you last night? I called you, and you didn’t answer. Did you not hear me the first time?”
I take a deep breath and look away from this little girl who has way more attitude than she needs for someone I’m about to take to get her hair done.
“I was out. On a date.”
“With who?” she asks, her voice rising.
I huff. “I was with Lily. I took her on a date.”
“Is this your second date with her? Are we getting serious?”
I run my hand down my face. “I don’t know what we’re getting.”
We’re getting warmer, I guess. I wouldn’t say we’re getting serious. I don’t know. We’ve just been out twice.
“You don’t know?” she asks. “Aren’t you trying to win her back? Get back in her good graces? Do you want to marry her?”
“Whoa,” I say, leaning back in my seat. “You went from zero to a thousand.”
“Well, if you’re trying to get her back, what do you want her back for? What’s your end game? What are you actually doing with Lily now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Javonte.”
She sounds like somebody’s mother right now, and I don’t like it.
“What’d y’all do on your date yesterday?”
“I set up a rooftop painting date. We painted each other’s portraits. I painted a pretty good one, and it made her cry. And I kissed her.”
“What?” she says. “You got a kiss? Oh, you’re in, big bro. Now you’ve got to do this right. What are you going to do now?”
“We’re still warming up. There’s nothing hot, nothing serious happening. I’m just warming up.”
“For what?” she asks. “What are you warming up for? When you warm up for basketball, you go play. What’s your play? You know you hurt her, and now she’s letting you back in. What are you going to do?”
I stare out the window. We’re still sitting in the school parking lot, kids flooding out of the building.
“Hello? Are you trying to be with her or just around her? Because those are not the same thing.”
“I’m just trying to take it slow,” I tell her. “If I move too fast, I’ll mess this up.”
“Okay,” she says, nodding, “but slow does not mean unclear.”
I sit with that, leaning back in my seat, really thinking about it. Because I haven’t figured out what I want or where we’re going. I did just want to be around her.
But for what?
Again, this girl is right.
I’ve been careful with Lily. Dancing around it. Being soft and gentle and... not clear.
I turn to Zea. “I want her back. Like, for real.”
“Then you gotta act like it.”
“What’s it going to take to get her back?” she continues. “Because you’ve been stalking her, right? You’ve been helpful, but I think you gotta take it a step further.”
I frown, listening.
“You didn’t listen to her before, right? Something like that is what broke y’all up? So maybe you didn’t choose her. You chose yourself. You chose your friends. You chose your party. You gotta choose her.”
I stare at my sister, all sixteen years of her wisdom hitting me at once.
“How do you know all this?”
She shrugs. “I’m a girl. We’re smarter. More mature.”
I shake my head.
“That’s not the point,” she says. “What are you going to do?”
Zea steps out of the car and closes the door. I watch her walk in, a bounce in her step. She gives me so much trouble, but she also puts a smile on my face. I love that I can do for her what no one did for me, or cared to do.
I love that I can see her like that and give her what she needs.
I sit in the car in the quiet, watching women come and go from the salon. I know I’ve got a lot of time before I have to pick her up. I don’t have anywhere to go, so I pick up my phone and start scrolling.
My algorithm is out of control. A whole lot of everything, and it’s almost overwhelming.
I open up my DMs, full of messages, then take a deep breath and close them. Because I know what I’m doing.
I’m avoiding.
I’m avoiding everything Zea just said to me. Avoiding figuring things out with Lily.
And I don’t want to do that.
I think about the party and how I thought we were having such a good time. But the truth is, I was having a good time.
A part of me noticed she wasn’t happy the moment we walked in.
But I made it about me.
Not about her.
And she went along, because that’s what Lily does. She goes along with me. Goes along with everything I want.
She chose me.
I never chose her.
I pull up her text, the one I ignored for over a year, and I read it, trying to really hear what she’s saying.
She’s just explaining herself.
At first, it doesn’t feel that heavy.
I set my phone down and look out the window. I see Zea walking to a chair, her hair wet, a towel wrapped around her shoulders.
I pick up my phone and read the text again. There’s something deeper there.
I read it one more time, and it clicks.
I thought she was blaming me, but she’s not.
She’s explaining how she felt.
At that moment at the club, I messed up. I didn’t defend her to Tank’s girlfriend. I didn’t go after her when she left. And I didn’t respond when she texted me.
I abandoned her.
It’s plain and simple.
I had her tagging along with me all the time. She was my plus one. I was never hers.
I never even imagined what it was like for her to order a rideshare, wait outside the club, get in the car, and leave alone.
But I do now.
And it hurts.
Because she was mine. She shouldn’t have had to be alone.
What Tank’s girl said didn’t seem like a big deal to me at the time. I thought she’d be mature enough to let it go.
But she wasn’t wrong.
She held a boundary.
And I disrespected it.
I’m going to be there for her now and make her life easier. My job is to make sure she knows she can depend on me by being available and not expecting anything from her. It’s on me now to give her the soft life she deserves.
I open her event schedule and take a closer look.
She goes to a lot of the same places every month and none of them are too far from each other. My mind starts creating a plan, but I need to think on it more.
For now, I’m going to show up and help where I can.
I set my phone down and look back at my sister with a smile.
Now, I’ve got two girls to show up for.