Halo #4
“Yup. Regan knows I do and she is super supportive. I only want to do braids in my salon though. And I want to have my youngest clients start at eight years old.” She was so excited as she told me her plans.
“It’s so damn cute how you get so geeked about it. It’s going to happen for you Story, I know it will.”
She got bashful, looked down for a few seconds with a smile then looked up at me. “Thanks Halo. What about you? Outside of collaborating with your brothers what else do you want to do?”
Nobody, even my brothers, has ever asked me that before. I started to lie and make up something, but Story did not deserve that.
“I want to open a therapist office for kids and young adults ages five to twenty-one. But not just a grey building with doctors asking questions. I want it to be a safe heaven, like a healing center. The four-story building I want will have each floor that serves a purpose.
The first floor will be where the therapist offices are.
I want consultations and relationships build between patients and therapists.
The second will be where patients eat and get any kind of nutrition help if needed.
It will be one hundred percent food and any kind of assistance pertaining to food.
Third will be education and entertainment.
Tutoring with any kind of subject, GED programs, and high school diploma completion. All kinds of books, access to computers and the internet. I want help with trade schools and anything to further education. The entertainment part will be a gaming room.
Comic book reading, card trading like Pokémon, sports cards, or any other kind. TV’s board games, action figures, Barbie dolls, and other toys. The final floor will be medical and shelter.
I want a pediatrician doctor and a regular one to give exams, STD testing, pregnancy testing if needed. Any kind of medical help they can help. Then if there are any patients who need rest, shelter for the night. It seems like so much, but I am telling you it will be dope.”
“Wow Halo. I have never heard of a place like that. You really have something that can stretch beyond Michigan. It’s needed for the community and so many children could benefit from it. What made you want to do something that specific and unique?”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Don’t know it just came to me some years ago.” I lied.
I do not think Story brought my lie at all. The expression on her face was a sympathetic one.
“Halo, you can tell me anything. I know we haven’t known each other for a long time but I’m not the kind of person to run off just because you shared things with me that I can’t relate to or never heard of.”
I sat up all the way in her bed and moved closer to her. My back was against her headboard and for some reason I wanted…no I craved something specific from her.
“Can I have a hug?”
Story’s eyes looked slightly surprised, but she nodded. “Sure.” She moved closer to the side of me then she gave me a hug.
Her arms went around my neck and mine went around her waist. No bullshit, we hugged for about two minutes.
“I appreciate this.” I told her before we broke apart.
Story moved her faced forward in mine, “No problem, Halo. You can get a hug from me anytime.”
“Real shit?”
That one dimple appeared when she smiled then answered, “Real shit.”
We shared a little similar laugh then I think we both realized how close we were. Story looked me in my eyes then I saw her look at my lips. My heart started beating in a way that it never had before when she came closer.
Her lips looked plush, full, and tasty but she was getting too close and my reflexes were to hesitate.
“Story.” I whispered her name.
“Shit. I am so sorry, sorry.” She jumped up from me and off the bed. It was as if I cracked an egg over her head.
“You don’t have to say sorry----
“Yes, I do. I don’t even know why I let myself do this. It’s not what I want at all.”
“Fuck does that mean?”
Story’s eyes watered but I couldn’t react to that because I needed her to answer me.
“Halo, I already know you’re bi-sexual and that’s not the kind of man I want.”
I laughed and that made her pissed off. “It’s not funny that I just humiliated myself!”
“You didn’t humiliate yourself Story. And I am not bi-sexual or gay at all.
But I know you got that from either ya’ sister or everyone else.
They wrong though, I’m straight. I laughed because you had the same face that my family has.
Except at least with you, you’ve e said the words out loud to me. ”
Story stood on the other side of her bed looking confused. “Then it’s me you don’t like. Of course, Dallas is more your speed.” She wiped her tears and turned her back to me.
“Dallas and I don’t have shit going on and we never have.”
She turned back around and got frustrated, “Then what is the problem Halo because I’m done guessing and making assumptions.”
“You’re not the problem…I just…This shit is.” I ran my hand down my face again. “I don’t do this sort of thing Story.”
She massaged her head and looked like she was about to blow. Calmly she said, “I just told you that I was done guessing and making assumptions. Tell me what you mean?”
Was I about to tell this fine ass girl the truth about myself? What if she laughs at me or calls me all kinds of lame? Out of all the times in my life, I couldn’t recall being more ashamed and insecure than this. But looking at her and how she was begging for some answers made me fold.
“Kissing, being intimate, I don’t do that. It’s not that I don’t do that I have never done it…any of it.” I gestured from the bed then to her.
Story followed my hands and looked at me like she was speechless. “Wait, you are telling me…What exactly are you saying Halo?”
I blew out of my mouth and just said it, “I’ve never kissed a woman before. I’ve never had sex before.” I made sure to keep looking her in her eyes.
“Get out Halo.”
“Huh?” I asked her to repeat that because before I flip out, I want to make sure I heard her right.
“I said get out! For you to stand in my face and lie to me is pathetic and pointless!”
“I ain’t lying!”
“Yes, you are! You want me to believe you, the man who looks like that! With brothers and a cousin like you have! Clearly you have money and influence because I saw it at Blake’s party! You want me to believe that not only have you never kissed a woman but you’re also a virgin!”
“Yes! Fuck would I lie for!!?” She and I were shouting at each other so loud.
“I don’t know and I don’t care! Just take your lies and go!”
Now, she had me confused with some other man she was used to talking crazy to. “Quit calling me a liar Story.”
“Then stop being a liar and tell me the damn truth!”
“I did!”
This time she finally stopped challenging and calmed down, “How? How can…how?”
I wanted to put my shit on and leave, I needed to put my shit on and leave. Instead, I stood there and finished spilling more of the real me out to her.
“When I was ten years old, teacher, Ms. Toll, and I had this thing going on. I never asked for anything like that to happen. But it did and it changed me. Wednesday and Thursdays would be the days we had our special time, as she called it.
Everything that I loved and cared about did not matter to me anymore.
The kid that I was, carefree and fun, that kid was gone.
I now had this secret that I couldn’t tell because Hercules would never tell on his Megara.
That was what she called me, her Hercules because she looked like Megara.
I was confused because my parents talked to me and my brothers about anyone touching on us.
How we should tell them immediately and never allow it. Yet, I willingly kept going in that classroom on those two days. I hated that I took comfort in it and held on to it because I felt I had nothing else.
I messed up and couldn’t tell anyone about it. It happened two months after my parents died. Guilt drowned me more because I knew now, they knew what I was doing. I became numb until the end of February. I got to school and an announcement was made.
Ms. Toll was no longer teaching at the school. All that we were told is she moved out of the country for a family emergency. You would think I would have been happy, the chains were broken. I’d never smell Burberry Britt and cigarettes again.
Shit, I left that part out. Ms. Toll used to open the window because she’d smoke a cigarette when we were done and her perfume she would spray was called Burberry Britt. Those two scents haunted me and still do. When she up and left like I said I should have been glad.
But I got depressed and felt abandoned. My parents died, I never said goodbye and now Ms. Toll was gone and never said goodbye.
How fucked up is that, for me to be sad that she just vanished.
” I had no idea that tears were falling from my eyes until they hit my chest. But I had never said any of this out loud to anyone. I never even wrote it all down.
My emotions pulled me back to the present because I spaced out as I talked about this awful memory. Immediately, I wiped my face and pulled myself together.
“I’m done with this shit and I gotta go.” I turned to put my shoes and shirt on.
Story ran over and stopped me. “No, Halo, please don’t go---
I snatched away from her and for the first time since I opened up, I looked at her face. She had tears back in her eyes which made me even more ready to go.
“Naw, it’s all just too fucking much. We don’t know each other and here we are yelling. I poured all this shit on you. Got’chu crying…Just move Story.” She stood in my way and wouldn’t budge.
“So, what if we just met, who cares about time. Stop Halo!” This feisty ass woman took my shoes and threw them across the room. “Can I have a hug?”
I looked at her like she was crazy, but she looked at me like I better give her one like she gave me one. When I pulled her to me my arms locked around her waist and hers locked around my neck.