Beware, this is a story of hurt, throughout this tale it may seem like a love story that has a happy ending but keep it in the back of your mind that no true love has a happy ending because true love never ends.
It all began in the 6th grade, I’d just moved back to Kansas City, Missouri after my mom had gotten into some trouble with the law and the list of people that could take care of me and my two younger brothers started to wear thin. Running out of options and feeling like none of the people in my family gave a fuck about us I figured it be best for the courts to let me and my brothers to go and stay with our dads, which was hard for us because it meant that we would have to split up, me and my brothers had spent the last three years looking out for each other and warding off all the evil a place like Oklahoma City throws at you, but I knew that it was best for us because we had more than worn out our welcome with Ms.Renee. Ms.Renee was our school counselor her and most of her immediate family had moved from New Orleans after hurricane Katrina devastated the city and lives of the people living there, hoping for a better life. She had two kids of her own Ronald her son was her youngest child and she had a daughter who’s name for the life of me I can’t recall. At the time I was what some would consider oddly close to my 4th and 5th grade teacher, a sandy skinned woman by the name of Rhonda Richey, she was there for me in times when I felt like my world was turned on it’s side and nothing was going right. Rhonda and Ms.Renee were good friends so she convinced her to take me and my brothers in after child protective services took me and my brothers from my aunt who was neglecting us, just so that she could keep a close eye on me. Upon leaving the loving and protective care of Ms.Renee and Rhonda I was placed under the care of my dad, he wasn’t a complete stranger but after spending much of my adolescence in Oklahoma it was a challenge for me to up and leave in the middle of the school year and start living with family I hadn’t seen or heard from in years.
After getting adjusted to the city during my second semester of 5th grade and the summer going in to 6th I was excited for what the next school year had in store for me. I was starting at a new school that year, KIPP Endeavor academy (Knowledge is power program), It was one of many schools across America that began with the same acronym but all ended in different word that tried to embody the schools identity. KIPP’s whole thing was pushing college prep, the homerooms were all named after universities that the entire grade level would get to travel to that year and take a college tour. I was in the Oklahoma University homeroom, the other two homerooms were DePaul and Northwestern. During my first few months there I made some friends and already had my first crush, an almond eyed brown skinned angel by the name of Janae, I still know her to this day and we remain acquaintances. My friends were as follows, Brandon, Javier, Alexus, Tarique, and Rashawn most of which I would still consider to be friends today. Although I was crushing on Janae something terrible I was forced to put that on hold because she was spoken for at the moment, so when the first of many cringy yet memorable middle school dances came around on valentines day I decided it be best if I just go alone instead of finding a date just to not complicate things. This was the night that it all began, everything up to now that happened in my life shaped the man I would become as a result of the things that happened after that night. Spending much of my adolescence in predominantly female households and seeing the women I loved and admired being hurt by men who were supposed to love them drove me to seek out the proper way to love a woman at a young age so I read romance novels, watched romantic movies, and always asked questions on the way you were supposed to love and treat a woman so that one day I could find that girl for me and fall in love and treat her the way I felt all the women who helped raised me should have been. But enough background back to the story, so I remember the dance sparsely so bear with me as I recount the evening. The dance was for the entire school so the auditorium was packed with tweens dancing, singing, and getting t’d up to some of 2012’s greatest hits including young thug’s “Lifestyle”, but even in all the excitement the theme of the dance was still valentines day and we all knew that at some part during the night there would be a song or songs played that was designated for a PG-13 slow dance. Throughout the night there was a girl that I kept noticing but didn’t necessarily recognize so I asked my friend Tarique what her name was and he told me “oh that’s Marjai.” She wasn’t any Janae but for some reason I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, so I approached her and asked her if she would save me a dance for when they played the slow song and she just kind of giggled and brushed me off, but I wasn’t giving up that easy so I let her know that I was serious and she just smiled back at me and said “sure,” shortly after her friends came over to pull her away and ask what we were talking about and I went back over to my boys to hang and have a good time until the slow dance began. When the slow dance started I located Marjai with a group of her friends and signaled that it was time for our dance, I took her hand in mine and we walked to an empty space on the dance floor. She placed her hands on my shoulder, I placed mines on her hips and we began to sway to the rhythm of the music, she was obviously nervous, she couldn’t stop grinning and giggling the entire time we were dancing. About halfway through the dance her friends came over to once again pull her away and ask how things were going and simultaneously ruined our slow dance but for the first time in a long time I wasn’t thinking about Janae so I knew that there was something different or special about her. The night went on and the dance came to an end, as everyone headed out the front doors of the school I caught up with her again and chopped it up with her about the night. As everyones rides came we continued small talk until my dad came and we said our goodbyes. That weekend was as normal as any I played basketball hung out with my family and got ready for school Sunday. When Monday came around I got up and went to school like it was any other day went to my homeroom class then headed to English, now keep in mind this is middle school and we were still walking in lines on the way to classes but KIPP was different in the fact that while we walked in line we read, so on the way to my English class my homeroom usually catches a glimpse of the Northwestern homeroom and I realized not only was Janae in that homeroom but so was Marjai. We waved at each other and went about our day. I didn’t see her again until lunch and I decided to sit by her because I liked talking to her so we talked, ate, and laughed through lunch; just enjoying each others company, unaware that her friends and every other girl in our grade was speculating that we were a thing. Lunch was over and the rumors and questions started to spread until they finally got back to us both in the form of the question “do y’all go out” a question neither of us had even asked each other, so throughout the rest of the day I just couldn’t wait to see her again to see for myself and sure enough at the end of the school day I saw her and popped the question. Again she gave me the same nervous and shy energy from the night before and asked me, “Do you wanna go out with me?” to which I responded , “Yeah do you wanna go out with me?” To which she replied, “yeah!” and just like that it was a match made in heaven, or so I thought…
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