Chapter 5 Jamaica #2
The Friday night crowd yelled at the top of their lungs as the Oak Valley High Knights scored a winning touchdown with five seconds left in the Homecoming game.
Lori and I jumped up and down with everyone else.
Our football team finally had a winning season, and I chose the perfect time to attend my first game during my senior year.
“I can’t believe I waited so long to come to a game, and now I’m graduating.” I hugged Lori.
She pulled back, twisting her lips. “You don’t care about this game. You’re here hoping to see Freedom.”
“No, if I came to see him, I would’ve left by now. You see that he isn’t here.” I rolled my neck, though I had been disappointed to see Kody and some other guys from our class clowning near the band. But no Freedom.
Lori laughed loudly. “You stayed because we don’t have a ride until my mama comes to get us.”
“Not true.” I protested as we piled out of the stadium.
I looked over my shoulder at Kody and his friends, walking behind us, hoping to see Freedom.
Kody caught my glance and winked at me. I nodded quickly and turned back around.
Something about him didn’t gel with me. I couldn’t tell if he was breaking bro code or something.
He would talk to me or compliment me whenever Freedom wasn’t around, whereas Freedom didn’t hide that he was interested in me from anyone.
Freedom had told me he would be here tonight, that we could sit together, and that he would buy me a chili dog.
I’d worn a thin jacket to cover my crop top, wanting to show Freedom the piercing in my belly that I managed to hide from my overbearing father.
I thought maybe we would finally kiss after a month of lunches and meeting me at my locker every morning and afternoon.
Standing me up didn’t seem like him. Yet, Lori and I were in the parking lot searching for her mother to pick us up for a sleepover at Lori’s house, and I hadn’t heard from him.
Biting back the ache in my heart, I listened to my friend chat about the game and our classmates.
I’m sure Freedom had a good excuse. Maybe he couldn’t get a ride or had the money.
I knew he was raised by a single father who struggled to maintain employment.
Coming up with a rationale for his absence consoled me, and that we won the very first game I attended.
A breeze lifted the back of my hair, and I sensed him.
Scanning the crowded parking lot, I spotted him, leaning against the metal legs of the bleachers, alone, wearing a hoodie.
My breath caught when our eyes locked, and even from this distance, I could see the bruise on his face from the bright stadium lights.
My eyes remained trained on him as if he would disappear if I looked away. “Um…cover for me. Tell your Mama that I’m spending the night with my grandparents, okay? Freedom is waiting for me.”
“He’s here?” She looked in the direction of my gaze, and he pulled the hood closer around his face. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“We were supposed to stay up all night watching reruns of The Game. I’ve been recording them just for tonight,” She whined.
“We still have tomorrow night. I promise I’ll find a way to get to your house tomorrow. Please.” I nudged her shoulder. “You know if it were Brett, you would forget I existed.” Brett was her hopeless crush, a member of the football team, who only went after the cheerleaders.
She flared her nostrils. “How are you going to get home tonight?”
“His cousin has a car that he borrows sometimes.” I lied, refusing to worry about how I would get home. Freedom needed me. That’s all that mattered. “I’ll text you once I make it home.”
“Then you better go before my mama sees you. She’s going to want to wait around until someone picks you up.” Lori finally relented.
“Thank you.” I hugged her tightly.
“You owe me.” She called after me as I hurried to Freedom.
My arms went around his neck the moment I reached him, and his arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me off my feet. He placed me back down and gave me a weak smile. “Had to get here so you wouldn’t think I stood you up.”
“Why didn’t you call?” I studied his face, wanting to kiss the bruise around his eye and his lip that had been cut. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “Got into it with my father because I told Peace he could go out with his friends. He hit me in the face twice, and I ran out of the house, leaving my cell.”
“He did that to your face?”
His normally teasing eyes welled up. “I’m so sick of his shit. Sick of this life. Sometimes I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Don’t say that.” I cupped his face, and he winced, though he didn’t move his head away from me. “Don’t ever say that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like living with him.
Mean and abusive one minute, and apologetic the next, because he can barely keep a roof over our head and clothes on our back.
He can’t keep a job because he can’t stop drinking and smoking to pass a damn drug test. I got to do things I hate to make sure we eat when that’s supposed to be his damn job.
Then he stays after my brother, trying to make him into a man when my brother is already a better man than him.
” He grabbed me to him and whispered in my ear, “I’m so tired, baby. You’re the only hope I have.”
Fear strangled my heart, and I placed my arms around his neck again. “You’re scaring me. Please don’t talk like this.”
Freedom’s eyes watered as he chuckled. “Guess, I do sound like I want to kill myself.”
“Do you?” I asked quietly. “Because if you do, I won’t ever get over it. I won’t. You’re the reason I can’t wait to wake up every morning.”
He inhaled and exhaled. “You’re the reason I want to wake up.”
We gazed at each other, and his gaze dropped to my lips. When his head followed, my heart raced in anticipation. Our first kiss. Before his lips touched mine, he smiled. “Glad to know you like me too.”
I punched his chest. “Stop playing with -”
His kiss cut off my words. A kiss that started tentative and sweet and then deepened. He stole my protest and my breath with his tongue that opened my mouth. My softness melded into his hardness as we kissed. A horn blaring nearby broke the kiss.
Freedom rested his forehead against mine. “You probably have to go.”
“Wherever you want to go. I have time.” My voice's calmness belied the bubbling emotions that threatened to explode at the kiss, which was better than my wildest imagination.
His expression saddened. “Nowhere to go. I can’t go back home, and Kody is hanging out tonight. And I don’t want him to see me like this, even if he were at home. Um…I’ll find something.”
I grabbed the ends of the large pocket of his hoodie. “You’ll come home with me. My parents are out of town. We can figure everything else out tomorrow.”
Freedom jammed one hand in his pocket and shifted away from me. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. What if someone sees us or your parents get back early?”
“No one’s home, and they won’t be back until Sunday. You can spend the night. Maybe even tomorrow night, too, if you need to. I’m supposed to be with Lori, but she’s covering for me. I won’t get in trouble.”
He ran his hand over his thick hair. “You’re too good for me.
Any other dude in this school would’ve been here at the game with you, having fun.
You should be headed to eat at some fast-food joint, hugged up beside him in his ride.
And you stuck with a boy caught up in family drama who can’t do shit for you. ”
Freedom had always been full of energy that could be light or dark if provoked. Witnessing his vulnerability and self-doubt only made me like him more. I lightly touched his sleeve. “Being stuck with you is better than the best date with another boy.”
Freedom’s gaze slowly rose to mine, and he removed his hand from his pocket, tugging me to him to kiss me again. This time, when he broke the kiss, he grinned. A tiny spark shone in his eyes. “I’d rather take you to my place. It’s not that far from here. We can walk.”
“But I thought you didn’t want to go home because of your father?”
“I said ‘my place’, not my house. It’s where I go to think.
We can stop at that Walmart down the street and get a blanket and some snacks.
My treat.” He entwined his hand with mine, and he pulled me behind him as we blended in the dwindling crowd of students and families enjoying their Friday night, like we were about to do.