ii.
“Oh, my God, I hate you.” I pulled my sheets up over my head and shielded my face from the sunlight.
“Baby girl, get up,” He tugged at the sheets and yanked me up by my arms. “For someone who doesn’t party, you sure do know how to get fucked up.”
“Why’d you let me?”
“When I got back downstairs, you were already doing body shots off Mike’s girl,” He walked around my room and opened my windows. “And that was before you kissed her.” He looked back and smirked at me.
“I don’t wanna hear anymore,” I rubbed my eyes and groaned before I felt goose bumps break out all over my stomach. “When did my clothes come off?” I quickly covered myself with my sheet when I realized I was only in my bra and panties. Brian tossed me his shirt that I had on last night, “I brought you home and you kinda started stripping. Then, you passed out.” I held my hand up to stop him from speaking any further and pulled his shirt over my head. I also untied the knot so that it covered my ass.
I rolled my eyes and got out of bed while fixing my hair into a bun. I saw my jeans and black Converse sneakers on the floor by my closet.
“You do this often? I mean you’re walking fine and you ain’t get sick through the night.”
“What? Get fucked up?” He nodded. “Not publically, but I’m no stranger to, uh, getting wasted. That’s kinda how I spent my 16th.” I caught his surprised expression when I glanced over my shoulder. “What’s that face?”
“Nothing, you’re just… different than I remember.”
“It’s been a while, Bry. This ain’t the same little Nahla from middle school.” It’s true. Whether I like it or not, I’ve changed. I don’t feel like the kid that Brian knew in middle school and I know he noticed it, too.
After I brushed my teeth, washed my face and took two Advil to stop my head form pounding, I put on a pair of running shorts and slipped into my robe before heading downstairs where Brian was waiting for me. I spotted a Dunkin’ Donuts cup on the island alongside a box of bagels.
“What is this? A hangover care package?” I took a bagel out of the box while Brian handed me the cup.
“I ain’t know how you took your coffee so I just got you tea,” There was a feeble smile on his face when I took white foam cup from his big hand. Brian’s a nice kid, but he isn’t this nice. There was also this weird look in his eye.
“Ask it, say it, I don’t care. What’s on your mind?” I raised an eyebrow at him and waited for him to speak.
“How you know I got something on my mind?”
I took a huge bite out of my bagel, “You got that look in your eye.” I patted his cheek and ate some more of my bagel.
“What happened with you and Brandon?” I damn near choked and quickly regained my composure so I could answer his question.
“We dated, he’s my ex, that’s it,” I was about to walk away from him to take a seat on a stool when he grabbed my arm and spun me around.
“That ain’t how you made it seem last night,” His hand rested on the small of my back while my heart raced and my hands shook. Brian noticed my tremors and removed my tea and bagel from my hands and slid his palms into mine.
“No, don’t... don’t do that. Brandon used to do that whenever I… just don’t,” I removed my hand from his and pushed some unruly curls out of my face. “Um, it was a shitty breakup and an even worse relationship.”
“You got really wasted, Kira.”
“I said it was really shitty.”
“No, you got really, really drunk, baby girl. I know you changed and shit, but you ain’t that typa girl,” As he spoke, I avoided his stare and focused on the little gold cross around his neck. “Did he hurt you?”
I chuckled, “Obviously.” I still refused to look at him.
“No, baby girl, look at me,” Brian hooked a finger under my chin and tilted my head upwards. “I mean physically. Did he hurt you?”
My breath got hitched in my throat and my eyes began to water. My silence spoke volumes and I felt Brian getting tense. We were unnecessarily close anyways. “Did he put his hands on you?”
“Calm down. He never hit me, Bry.”
“So what happened?”
“Why you so sure something happened?”
“’Cause you got fucked up last night!” His thick eyebrows furrowed and his high yellow skin turned a bright red. “You ain’t change that much. That wasn’t you last night, Kira.”
I was locked on his intense stare when the front door opened. “Kira!”
“Yeah?” I began walking towards the door but I didn’t make it very far before Brian pulled me back, yet again, and wiped his thumb across my cheek. I didn’t notice I had let any tears fall and I felt stupid for crying in the first place.
“Oh, Brian, I didn’t know Kira invited you over,” My mother eyed Brian and I suspiciously. When I realized that she was looking at Brian’s hand on my cheek, I quickly moved it and thought up a bullshit excuse.
“There was an eyelash in my eye.”
“Yeah, she thought she was goin’ blind,” Brian added. I side-eyed him and watched my mother drink my tea before joining in on Brian’s joke.
“So, how was that party?”
“Boring, like I expected.” I mumbled.
“You stayed out pretty late,” Tamira quirked her brow.
“I, uh, made her stay out a little longer,” Brian rose from his stool and reached in the box for a bagel. Here he goes saving the day again.
“Mhm, can you guys get some stuff out the car?” She widened her obnoxiously wide eyes as if for emphasis. I walked as slow as humanly possible to the door so Brian couldn’t badger me with any more questions but it was mother I should’ve been worried about. She made sure Brian was out of earshot first, “You guys are cute together.”
“He’s got a girlfriend, ma. It was a nice thought, though.”
…
I paced around my room, biting my nails and staring at my phone. The light coming from the screen was almost blinding since this was all taking place in the dark after midnight.
My mind was racing and my nerves were killing me. I couldn’t sit down for more than 30 seconds.
Before I could process what was happening, I was walking across the street towards Brian’s house. Before I could stop myself, I began knocking. Once I realized that I might wake his aunt I looked around in search of her car and noticed that only Brian’s truck was in the driveway.
He opened the door with a confused expression on his face, “It’s late, Kira.”
“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just you’re the first person that came to mind. Did I wake you? You can go back to –”
He stepped outside and closed the door behind him, “Slow down, Kira. You wanna talk or somethin’?” I was fighting an internal battle with myself on whether or not I should tell this kid my life story. My mouth started moving before the battle was even over.
“It was once. Brandon got physical with me once,” I quickly looked away from his face as I saw him growing angry. “We were fighting and screaming and shouting, as per usual, and shit got outta hand and he pushed me and I stumbled and fell. And, uh, while I was trying to get up, he kicked me in the side.” I managed to get that all out in one breath despite the tremors that took over my body causing my jaw to shake.
I looked up at him and his stare was settled on the ground. “Again, I don’t need your pity, okay? He took me to the hospital right before breaking up with me and my cracked ribs healed perfect, just ask your aunt.”
“Why would she know about that?” His deep voice came out low and gruff and his eyes were finally somewhere other than the bricks that made up his front steps. He eased up off of the door frame and towered over me.
“She was the attending while I was in the ER. I don’t know if she remembers me but I didn’t forget her.” I vividly remember her trying to get me to admit that Brandon had hurt and pushing me to press charges. I wasn’t in denial; I just didn’t want to take it that far. He broke up with me 5 minutes after I was admitted and I never heard from him again so I knew for a fact that it wouldn’t happen again.
At the time, I was still living in Brooklyn so I was staying with my sister since she lived outside of the city and closer to my school. “The only other person who knows about this is my older sister, Maia. We made up this elaborate bullshit lie for our mom about me falling down the stairs or something. She doesn’t know that my ribs were fucked up but she saw the bruises.”
Silence consumed us afterwards. Maybe he was processing everything or maybe he was trying to figure out why I decided to tell him this now. “But that’s what happened. You asked earlier and it’s been bothering me ever since, it’s got my anxiety all fucked up. But, you know, it’s late. You should go back to bed.”
I turned to walk away and I was already down the steps when he spoke, “Are you goin’ to bed?”
“No, I, uh, can’t sleep.” He nodded but stood still, making no movements to go back into the house. My fingers toyed with my keys in the pocket of my sweatpants, “You wanna go somewhere with me? I’ll drive.”
He chuckled and approached me, “Its 3 AM. I don’t think anywhere is open right now.”
“Yes or no, Bry?”
…
“How do you even know about this spot? You just got here,” Brian’s voice was low and raspy as he spoke into the cool summer night air.
We were seated atop the trunk of my car practically in the middle of nowhere. I drove us up to a hiking trail in the mountains that border the town we live in and we were overlooking the downtown area from what was basically a cliff. This is actually a popular hook-up spot.
“I didn’t take you here to hook-up in the backseat. I’ve got a little more class,” I kicked my Adidas slides off and pulled my knees up to my chest. I better wrapped myself in Brian’s sweater that he insisted I put on since it was getting chilly. “I found this place a few weeks after the whole thing with Brandon.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t handle being at school anymore. I left during lunch one day and I couldn’t drive so I took a bus.”
“The main road is almost two miles away.” He looked at me weird before focusing on the light shining from the clock tower in the middle of town.
“Yeah, I walked up here. It was a fucking trek, but it was worth it.”
“You learn somethin’ on the way?” He chuckled.
“Yeah,” I giggled. “For starters, you should never attempt to hike in Sperrys. It’s fucking dangerous; I almost busted my ass like ten times.” Brian broke out in infectious laughter from my confession. I joined in a little before continuing, “Mainly from, um, not being able to see shit ‘cause I was bawling my eyes out.”
“Did you love him or somethin’?” I felt his eyes on me. “No, no, he just dumped me and took all my friends with him.”
I proceeded to explain how Brandon singlehandedly ruined my life. When we broke up and my friends would ask about him, I told them that he ended things and omitted the part where he kicked me and broke my ribs. They were on my side until we got into an argument over something stupid and stopped talking to each other for a while. During that friendship hiatus, he flipped shit around and told my friends that he broke up with me because I slept with his friend. Best believe girls were talking shit about me for weeks.
“You didn’t though, right?”
I rolled my eyes at his question and hopped off the trunk, walking away. “Kira, wait, I didn’t mean it like that.” He was running after me trying to apologize.
“So you’re not asking if I’m a slut,” I lodged my bottom lip between my teeth and looked up at him. “Because if that is what you’re asking, you should know that your little Shakira Nahla Maryse Myers is a super virgin.”
“Kira.”
“No, I don’t mind if you think that because everyone else already thinks that. I’m actually surprised you don’t think that because he told everyone that I was fuckin’ you for the duration of our relationship!” I was out of breath when I finished and he looked shocked. Oh, God, he really didn’t know. I would hear people talking about our supposed tryst and died a little more each time I heard his name. That’s why I was in such shock when I saw him. I thought he knew about the rumors and I thought he was judging me.
“I would never think that about you, Kira. I know you ain’t that type, alright? And Brandon is an ass for doing that to you.”
I was staring at his shoes while he spoke and I had my hands deep in the pockets of the sweatshirt I was wearing. Chuckling, I walked back to my car and dug through the middle console before coming back out and pulling a blunt out of the pocket of the sweatshirt. Brian was staring at me intently as I lit the end of the neatly rolled blunt.
“You weren’t supposed to find that,” He reached for the blunt but failed seeing as I pulled my arm back.
“Me finding your weed is a lot better than your aunt finding it,” Clouds of smoke exited my mouth with each word. It’s been a while since I’ve smoked and the high was already setting in.
“Since when do you smoke weed?”
“I didn’t just come up here to cry,” After passing him the blunt, I looked at the town illuminated below us.
“You coulda came to me,” He mumbled. “All that shit with Brandon, you coulda talked to me about it.” He clenched his jaw before blowing smoke out of his mouth.
“We weren’t exactly on speaking terms, Bry.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s not like you had anyone else to go to.”
“Yes, it does! That’s the point, I had no one to go to! You’ve basically been a stranger to me since freshman year. Did you really expect me to call you out of blue and confide in you about my douchebag boyfriend? The fuck would you have done anyways? Shit, would you even believe me? Would you really believe that Brandon spent most of his time manhandling me? Treating me like a fucking piece of property, reprimanding me every time I breathed wrong around a guy?”
He was silent. Thick eyebrows furrowed and jaw methodically clenching, he stared down at me as I ranted.
“What if I did come to you? Do you know what the fuck he would do if he found out that I was talking to another guy, talking about him to make it worse?”
His silence continued and it began to annoy me the longer he stared at me without saying anything. "You've got nothing to say now and you wouldn't have anything to say then."
The high I was on disappeared and I no longer felt at peace standing on this cliff. Brian managed to single-handedly ruin my safe place.
