CHAPTER 2 #3
Monique leaned her weight onto her back foot, her face completely free of expression, her voice coming out low, dry, and flat as a slab of granite.
"Seems like you didn't learn a damn thing yesterday, Fraser."
She shifted her bag on her shoulder and made a simple, direct movement to step past his right side.
Josh didn't let her pass.
His long, dark arm shot out like a strike from a copperhead, his wide palm slamming hard into the center of Monique’s chest, right above her sternum.
The force of the shove drove her backward three feet until her spine slammed hard into the steel face of locker 114 with a loud, ringing BANG that echoed down the entire corridor.
The noise cut through the morning chatter of the hallway. Students who had been walking toward the exit stilled their feet. Phones came out of back pockets with terrifying speed. The low, electric static of campus gossip began to ripple through the crowd like a current.
"Don't you walk away from me, bitch," Josh snarled, leaning his face down until he was barely four inches from her nose.
His breath smelled of artificial strawberry gum, cheap mint, and a mean, sour aggression that made her skin crawl.
"Stop playing all tough and shit for these people.
All these other little girls on this campus give it up easy the second I look at 'em.
Why the fuck you trying to play so hard when you know a nigga is fly? "
Monique didn't look at his eyes. She looked down at his dark, broad hand, still firmly pressed against the fabric of her black crop top, pinning her against the metal.
A cold, liquid rage began to build deep in the pit of her stomach—not the wild, sloppy anger that makes a person scream or throw wild punches, but the cold, calcified, sharp-edged fury that her Uncle Dave had taught her to cultivate.
The kind of rage that turned her vision razor-sharp around the edges, slowed time down to a crawl, and made every muscle in her legs feel like a coiled steel spring.
"Nigga," Monique said, her voice dropping into a register so quiet, so deadly, that Josh’s jaw stilled its chewing for half a second. "Did you just shove me into a locker?"
Her fingers tightened around the spine of her ninety-pound textbook.
She was already calculating the mechanics: a hard, upward drive of her left knee straight between his knees to break his base, followed by the heavy, hardcover edge of the textbook driven diagonally across the bridge of his nose to break his posture—
"Josh. In my office. Right now."
The voice cut through the stagnant air of the hallway like a meat cleaver through cold butter.
Dean Harris rounded the corner from the faculty wing with the quiet, terrifying presence of an old-school administrator who had seen every conceivable version of college-aged stupidity and remained deeply, permanently unimpressed by all of it.
He was a tall, lean black man in his late fifties, his dark suit impeccably pressed, his temples silvered, his sharp eyes taking in the entire scene in less than half a second—Josh’s hand on Monique’s chest, Monique’s coiled stance, the two freshmen with their phones raised, and the thirty students holding their breath along the walls.
Josh’s hand dropped off Monique’s chest instantly, as if her shirt had suddenly turned into white-hot iron.
He took two quick, exaggerated steps backward, pulling his shoulders down, smoothing his varsity jacket, his face instantly shifting into a picture of wide-eyed, harmless athletic innocence.
"Alright, people," Dean Harris said, his voice flat, sweeping his gaze across the assembled crowd. "The show is over. Move along to your lectures. That goes for you too, Ms. Gray."
Josh’s two friends vanished down the stairwell like smoke clearing from a room.
Josh himself turned to follow the dean toward the administration office, his head bowed in a performative display of respect, but as he crossed the threshold of the corner, he turned his head and shot Monique one final, lingering look over his shoulder.
His mouth pulled into a silent, ugly promise: This isn't finished.
Monique stood against the locker, her jaw clenched so tight her molars groaned under the pressure. She watched his red varsity jacket disappear around the corner, her breathing coming in slow, deliberate bursts through her nose, her fingers still locked around her book.
Dean or no dean, she thought, her eyes narrowed into two black slits. I am going to humble that bitch-ass nigga once and for all.
Introductory Psychology was an absolute write-off.
Monique sat in her usual seat in the third row of the sloped lecture hall, her textbook open to Chapter 4: Cognitive Dissonance and Behavioral Conditioning, but she didn't process a single word coming out of the professor’s mouth.
The white projection screen at the front of the room was displaying slides about Pavlov’s dogs and Skinner boxes, but all Monique saw was the red leather sleeve of Josh’s jacket, the arrogant slide of his jaw, and the metal face of locker 114 biting into her shoulder blades.
Her mind kept replaying the shove—the arrogant assumption that he could put his hands on her frame whenever he pleased, that her body was open territory for whatever male ego happened to walk down the hall.
She wasn't going to report him to the campus safety office.
She wasn't going to file a complaint with the student conduct board so three white administrators in tweed jackets could give him a slap on the wrist and a one-game suspension before the homecoming tournament.
That wasn't how things were settled where she came from.
She was going to humble him properly. Not with a shouting match. Not with a box-cutter behind the bleachers. She was going to break his spirit in front of the entire campus, in a way he would feel in his bones every time he tried to take a step for the next three weeks.
When the bell finally rang at eleven-forty-five, releasing two hundred students into the humid midday glare, Monique packed her bag with slow, deliberate precision.
She walked straight toward the student union food court.
The space was packed to capacity—a roaring wall of noise composed of clattering plastic trays, shouting, the sizzle of burgers on the flat-top grills, and the booming bass of a trap song leaking out of someone’s Bluetooth speaker near the vending machines.
Monique stepped through the double glass doors and paused near the tray station, her sharp eyes scanning the floor like an artillery commander surveying a battlefield.
She found Josh immediately.
He was sitting at a large, round eight-top table right in the center of the main floor, positioned directly under the high skylights where everyone could see him.
He was surrounded by four of his basketball teammates, laughing loudly, throwing crumpled napkins at each other, and actively flirting with a bright-eyed redhead freshman from the cheerleading squad who was leaning over his chair like he was giving away free money.
He was grinning, his head tossed back, looking like he hadn't spent thirty minutes in the dean’s office getting chewed out for putting his hands on a female student.
Of course he was grinning. He thought he was untouchable.
Then Monique’s eyes drifted twenty feet to the left.
Denise was sitting at a rectangular booth near the windows, surrounded by three of her netball teammates. She was wearing a deep purple university athletics sweatshirt that made her chocolate skin look luminous, her locs styled in a high, elegant bun.
The moment Monique stepped into the hall, Denise looked up. Their eyes met across the crowded room, and Denise’s entire face lit up with a brilliant, wide, dimpled smile that hit Monique square in the middle of her chest, melting half the ice in her ribs before she could stop it.
Denise raised her long arm, waving Monique over with an easy, affectionate gesture.
Monique felt her face soften despite herself. She walked over to the buffet line, grabbed a tray, and loaded it with grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, and a mountain of French fries she knew she had no intention of eating. She carried the tray over to Denise’s booth.
The second Monique reached the table, Denise stood up.
Monique set her tray down on the laminate wood, and before she could say a word, Denise stepped into her space, wrapped her long, smooth arms over Monique’s shoulders, and pulled her into a firm, full-body hug right there in the middle of the dining hall.
Monique buried her face briefly into the soft, warm curve where Denise’s neck met her shoulder, taking a deep breath. Denise smelled of sweet shea butter, clean cotton, and that intoxicating, personal heat that belonged only to her.
Denise inhaled sharply against Monique’s ear, a low, appreciative hum vibrating through her chest.
"Mmm... you smell so damn good," Denise murmured, her lips brushing the shell of Monique’s ear.
Monique pulled back just far enough to look into Denise’s brown eyes, a small, crooked smile touching her lips. "You say that every single time you see me, Richards."
"Because it’s true every single time I see you, Gray," Denise grinned, her thumb lightly caressing the small of Monique’s waist before she turned to face her teammates. "Y'all, this is Monique. Monique, this is the netball crew—Cindy, Tasha, and Brielle."
Cindy—the blonde girl from the weight room—gave a bright, energetic wave from her side of the booth. "Heard a whole lot about you already, Monique!"
Tasha, a dark-skinned junior with sharp, intelligent eyes and a wide, crooked grin, crossed her arms over her chest. "All good things. Mostly. Denise wouldn't shut her mouth about your squat form for two hours last night."
Brielle, a quiet, athletic girl with thick cornrows, just offered a warm, approving nod.
Monique offered them a cool, respectful head-tilt. "Nice to meet y'all."