**disclaimer: the majority of this story will be from Shay’s POV (It’s my first story idk if I can handle so many POVs lol). Eventually, when needed, I may add POVs from other characters… okay bye, happy reading (;
I’m gonna say the right thing at the right time at the right place.. and you won’t know what to do..
Being at school 2 weeks early is the worst thing ever when your friends are not there yet. I have a love - hate relationship with being a LEAP counselor. LEAP is a program that my university puts on for students to build skills that will make them successful throughout their college career. I’m here early to train on how to be effective. Think of it as being an RA (resident assistant). Yep. I have to deal with immature freshmen on the regular. I’m just there as a mentor primarily, but me being me I’m gonna end up a good friend of theirs too. That’s fine with me though long as they aren’t too childish. I’m entering my junior year and I definitely don’t want to be annoyed by childish people.
It wouldn’t be too bad if I didn’t have to be here on my birthday. ITS SATURDAY, MY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND and here I am with my one friend, Raven, on campus trying to figure out a move. My actual birthday is on Thursday so I’m celebrating this weekend and next. I’m turning 20. My second decade on earth. I need to be lit. Okay I’m over exaggerating, I have a few friends here but they live off campus. I don’t; I stay in the dorms so I’m lonely if not with Raven. She’s also here early due to being a leap counselor.
I opened up my Twitter and my DMs was first to pop up on my screen for whatever weird reason and my friend Chris’s name was there from old messages of ours. I then remembered that we were supposed to link up when I got back in town. I know he would have something to do so I decided to text him.
See, Chris is one of the coolest guys at my school. A lot of people know him and a lot of people love him. He has a great personality and people usually flock to him. Surprisingly, he’s really to himself. I mean he has a lot of friends. Like actual friends. He parties a lot. But he’s a typical guy - lays low when needed. He also sells weed so, that alone makes him known. He isn’t in a fraternity, nor any other organizations. He built his name based off his personality alone.
7:48pm Shay: CHRIIISSS! What’s up? I’m out here. Let’s hang.
I continued to scroll through Twitter, just to see if anybody posted anything that I could attend. I went back to Chris and I’s DMs because I know they’d make me laugh. He is a flirt and our DMs show that. He slowed down with the flirting after I reminded him that I had a boyfriend. Now he just asks how my relationship is going or just checks up on me if we haven’t talked in a while. If you asked anybody else, Chris likes me. But if you ask me, he doesn’t. Chris and I had a short lived past. When I first got to college, I met him. We started talking up until I got serious with Keith, my boyfriend. We were in a party, I was super drunk and I told him we couldn’t talk on that level anymore. It was so Funny because my drunk self told him it saddened me to leave him alone. It all worked out in the end. We remained friends. Distant friends actually.
8:12pm Chris: What! Shay’s back? Bet. I’m supposed to chill with some friends in a few. I’ll text you the address soon.
Soon to Chris could mean hours… or never.
8:13pm Shai: Okay. Please don’t forget.
“Rae, we got a move! Chris said he’s gonna text me the address of a kickback in a minute.” I yelled out to raven as she sits in my bathroom fixing her hair.
“So, should we get like dressed dressed orrrr?” She asked me.
“Honestly, I have no clue. I think I’m gonna get slightly cute. I think shorts and a nice top or jeans would be cool” I told her.
I went to my closet and attempted to find something to wear. Of course I struggled. It literally took my an hour just to find something I liked. I decided on ripped jeans and a white body suit.
I knew it. Chris never texted me the address, if I wasn’t so desperate to turn up I’d just chill in my room with Raven. Ya know, play monopoly or some shit. But nah. I can’t not turn up so I’m gonna call Chris because I’m just about fed up. I hate waiting. Chris is literally the worst texter in texting history.
“Chris wtf, you forgot about me huh?” I said as he answered.
“Shay….. chill. I just got here. I didn’t forget. I told you we were gonna hang so we are. I’m about to text you the address, you can come right now.” He replied.
“Alright. Is it far from campus? And I’m with Raven” I said to Chris as my other line started to ring. It was Deja, my other friend who lives off campus. “Hey, hold on REALLY Quick Chris! Hello, Deja?”
“What’s up girl? What you got planned tonight?”
“Chris is about to send me an address now to a kickback. He’s actually on my other line right now” I said to her.
“Okay. I wanna go. I’m with Marvin tho” she said back to me. I immediately rolled my eyes. Marvin is her annoying ass boyfriend. We’re not even gonna get into him right now though.
“Alright bet, I’ll text you the address once I get it. Gotta go Deja, see you in a few.” I clicked over to the other line “hello? My bad. Deja wants to know if her and Marvin can come out”
“That’s fine, just let them know it’s not a party. I know y'all like to juke and shit” he laughed.
“Whatever. I haven’t juked in forever. Text me the address bye” I hung up as I laughed. He’s so annoying.
I texted Deja the address and luckily she lived by the house so I didn’t have to get her. It’s now close to 10:30 so I texted Keith goodnight. I haven’t really talked to him today. Or lately at all. We’ve been very dry in our conversation. I made sure to send a sweet text just so he can sleep with a smile on his face. I love him.
As I arrived to the house, Chris and his friends were sitting on the porch. I approached him and he greeted me with a long, long, tight hug. It was a great hug actually. I haven’t seen him in forever so I guess it was a hug for lost time. He then hugged Raven and Deja and dapped up Marvin. Their greeting wasn’t nearly as long as mine. He hasn’t seen either of them in a while also. He told us we could go in the house, but we’d probably be leaving soon to go somewhere else. As we went inside Deja looked at me and laughed. I asked her what was so funny.
“I seen that Shay.” She said to me. I asked what she’s talking about. “Shay, that hug. Chris likes you girl. I don’t know why you can’t tell. I didn’t even tell you he asked about you a few weeks ago”
“Why’d he ask about me? What’d he say?”
“He just asked about you girl, relax. You need to be careful hanging with him forreal. Chris is gonna get you in trouble” she said referring to my relationship.
I laughed, “no he isn’t, I’m the only person who could get me in trouble. He knows I have a boyfriend. Chris and I are just friends.” She didn’t care what I was saying. Deja is always right and she knows it. She’s like a psychic, not kidding. This girl is never wrong. But in this case, she is. And she’s gonna see that tonight.
In the house, we were clearly bored. There was like 6 people outside, 4 inside not including the people I came with, and other people who were leaving. Chris came in and spoke with us because we’re sort of his guest. We tried to play water pong, but the people before us lost the damn ball. So we’re just sitting here looking silly. Raven is next to me on her phone. Deja and Marvin are being caked. Chris is in a chair near me talking with these guys. He’s dressed in all black today. I can’t lie the color has me a little weak. He looks good af today. I mean really good. I caught myself staring a few times. To my surprise he didn’t even notice. After about 20 minutes of being at the kickback. We left and followed Chris and his guys to another kickback. This kickback actually looks like it has potential. These two whirs girls threw it. You can tell it was on a whim. When we got there they were pulling out the water pong table and a guy with bottles came in.
My type of party. If there’s no alcohol, how am I gonna loosen up?
I asked Chris if we were able to drink those bottles. He went to the kitchen and brought out both a bottle of Apple New Amsterdam and some other stuff I didn’t care for. I chose the New Am. Chris was delighted. He said it’s his favorite drink. We immediately took a shot. All of us. Raven, Chris, and I basically had that bottle to ourselves because Marvin already had his own liquor. A disgusting four loko.
After a while, I started feeling my liquor. Not too much. I wasn’t even tipsy. I just was feeling it. I needed to be around more people I knew. So after consulting with my right hand man, Raven, I decided to invite our old pal Vee. Surprisingly she was with my boyfriends best friend so that was even better. They ended up coming out and that made me feel so much more comfortable. I can be shy sometimes.
At one point in the KB (kickback), Chris came to sit next to me and we talked. At this point it was obvious he was giving me extra attention. I still thought nothing of it because Chris is social in general and come on… I’m his guest.
Mid-conversation, all I remember is me stopping what I was saying and telling him he didn’t want to hear me talk this much.
That statement came from Keith and I’s issues. I talk A LOT. As I grew up, I learned to control it. I actually do pretty well. I know when I’m talking too much now, ya know rambling about nothing. But, no matter what I would say Keith would stop me in the middle of my sentence and say something along the lines of “OKAY Shay.” When he didn’t want to hear me talk anymore. It messed with me every time because I would barely be saying much. We’d be holding a conversation and he’d stop me from talking. Yet, I would have just listened to him say everything he wanted to say. I would feel shut out. So to change that, I reduced the the things I had to say to a minimum or I wouldn’t talk much at all.
After telling Chris that what I was saying was a waste of his time, he said something that made me realize how unhappy I was in my relationship.
“No no.. I want To hear what you have to say. I enjoy hearing you talk Shay. Finish
I haven’t been told that before so it caught me off guard. To be honest, I wanted to cry. Sounds weird to want to cry from that but it was something I’ve been wanting to hear from Keith. I love to talk. To hold conversations. I hate feeling like I can’t. So for Chris to want to listen really shocked me. It was foreign to me.
We continued to talk until we decided to play water pong. It was his idea, we partnered up and played against Deja and Marvin. We made a good team lol he was really good and I wasn’t bad myself. We strategized as if we were gonna win a trophy in the end. Chris showed me so much attention during the game which confused me completely. He touched my lower back. Softly touched my arms. At one point I was against the wall with his arms and hands touching the walls behind me while he was in front of me. We were close. Just talking about the game, it was completely innocent. But I felt it. It was there, something strange. I couldn’t understand. He was flirting with me. I couldn’t stop him either. If I did I’d end up making it obvious to Keith’s best friend who was sitting on the couch not paying us any mind.
After the game I tried my best to avoid close contact with Chris. I went as far as sitting with Deja Raven and Vee to try to make it seem like us girls just wanted to talk alone. He came by me again though. But attention wasn’t solely on me this time which was cool. I almost ended up in the bathroom with him alone. I was about to pee, but he asked if he could rinse his finger because he cut it. At one point we were both in the bathroom taking care of his bleeding pointing finger. I started to feel nervous so I got out of there once I could. I didn’t understand this feeling that was coming over me or where it was coming from. Chris doesn’t make me nervous. Yea, he’s flirting with me. Big deal. I get flirted with a lot. It doesn’t phase me but for some reason it made me feel a type of way.
The night started to come to an end. Everything started to die down. I realized I needed to leave when Chris friend came and sat next to me and my friends and asked what we were about to do. He asked me, “Aren’t you going home with Chris?” I quickly said no. He was drunk. I assumed he seen us flirting and just thought that’s what I’d be doing. I’m sure that’s what normally happened after parties. Chris brings home a girl. Not this girl though. After my friends left, Raven and I prepared ourselves to go. Chris walked us to our car which was across the street. I said something about the gym and he felt the need to begin complimenting me.
“Why do you need to go to the gym? You look fine… I mean you look really fine Shay” I then begin to explain to him that you don’t have to feel fat to want to practice a healthy lifestyle.
“I’m just saying you look good how you are. You’re already small. You had guys asking me if you were single in there. You’re beautiful. You don’t need a gym.” He continued ranting. He was drunk. I was getting annoyed. I hate when people tell me I shouldn’t go work out. I did gain weight. I’m not fat. I know I look fine but damn a girl can want some abs right?
After we wrapped up our convo. He hugged Raven and I goodbye and told me to text him when I got in.
I did exactly what he said and let him know I had a great time and thanks for inviting me. I laid in my bed and began to recap the night.
See, Keith doesn’t like to go out. Like at all. He’s not a people person and parties aren’t his thing. I’m the total opposite. I’m super outgoing and if there’s s party you can bet I’m there. I don’t mind Keith not being like me, it’s never phased me. I would love to party with the love of my life sometimes though. That could be why I was so nervous to be around Chris. Yes, cause he was flirting and I felt something. But also because I don’t have too much experience partying with someone interested in me. I normally push people away and continue partying with my girls when I’m out. I have a boyfriend, there’s no need for any guy to get too close to me. I guess I allowed Chris because he was drunk and he’s my friend. I didn’t want to embarrass him. Hed never act that way if he was sober. Chris is really the most respectful guy I know when it comes to my relationship. This was the only time he stepped out of bounds. I didn’t think about it too much longer. Sober Chris will apologize later.
2:26am Chris: I’m glad you had a good time. We’ll hang again no worries. Goodnight Shay 😌
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