by Amir Abrams
“No, Kamiyah,” Miss Johvonna snaps, clapping her hands. “Stop the music. Look at you. You come down like big clunky elephant. Not light and airy like butterfly. What is the matter with you? Concentrate. You are all over the place like wild mongoose. You’re wearing your troubles on your shoulders and it’s showing in your movements—heavy and clumsy, like fat old walrus. Twelve years of training and you dance like newborn klutz. I do not like.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Johvanna,” I say, hanging my head, embarrassed by her tone and her disapproval. This whole mess with Sincere has me on edge. It’s bad enough I can’t eat, think, or sleep. But now it’s affecting my dance. Everyone in class is staring at me, smirking. They are enjoying the fact that her most talented dancer is not so perfect after all. I try to catch my breath. My muscles ache. She has been making me stop and redo my steps for the last forty minutes. I try to forget the blisters sticking to my toe shoes. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“I see. And none of it on ballet. Again, on pointe.”
I do as I am told. Go up on the point of my right foot, then go into a series of hops.
“If you wish to be ballerina, you will need to block out all outside forces. When you hit the stage and the curtain goes up and lights come on, ballet must be all you bring out there with you. You are changing, Kamiyah. Do you not wish to be ballerina?”
“Yes.”
“Then dance like one, or leave!”
In all the years of working with Miss Johvonna, she has never spoken to me like this. But everything she’s said to me is true so I can’t be mad at her. She knows better than anyone how badly I want to be a professional dancer. Miss Johvonna’s the one person I’d never, ever, give attitude to; no matter how hard she is on me.
And for the next thirty minutes she yells out combinations, making us stop and start over. This is my punishment for ducking out on all those dance classes to be with Sincere. And now it’s showing. And she’s making the whole class pay for it. I follow Miss Johvonna’s commands, avoiding the piercing eyes of those in back of me. If their stares were bullets, I’d be dead.
27
When all else fails, break into his Facebook and e-mail accounts! Trust me. You’ll find out all you need to know in one sitting. So, here it is Saturday afternoon. I’m parked across the street from Sincere’s house, waiting for him to leave to meet his boys at the gym. You wanna know how I know that’s where he’s going? Uhhh, helloooo. How else? I figured out the password to his Facebook account. I stayed up all last night until I finally figured out how to get into his account. It took me almost six hours, but I did it! Then I went into his in-box and read all of his messages. Once I figured out his Facebook password, it was easy for me to go into his Yahoo! account.
I didn’t get to sleep until three o’clock this morning. Oh well. He should have returned my calls. Then I wouldn’t have had to resort to such drastic measures. It’s times like these when I wish he had Twitter, too, so I could spy on him that way as well. I glance at the time. It’s 12:57 P.M. He’s supposed to be at the gym at one, so I know he’s going to be walking out of his front door anytime. I pull out my binoculars, zooming in for close observation. Two minutes later, the front door opens and it’s Sincere, heading to his truck.
I pull out my cell and call him. I watch as he pulls out his phone, glances at the screen, then sends me to his voice mail. I call back. He does it again. I wait until he starts driving down his driveway, then pop a U-turn and pull up at the end of his driveway, blocking his path. He’s staring at me, burning a hole in my skin as if he hates me. I take a deep breath and get out of my car. He’s shaking his head as I walk up to his truck.
“Yo, you need to move your car,” he says, cracking his window.
OMG, I miss him sooooo much! And I feel so weak and pitiful, but I don’t care. I want my man back and I ain’t too proud to beg. “Why won’t you return any of my calls?”
“’Cause I’m not beat for you like that,” he says, acting like he’s not happy to see me. But I can see it in his eyes that he is. Still, he’s treating me like I’m some stranger on the street. “Now move your car so I can go.”
“No, not until you talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not effen with you, Miyah.” He rolls his window up on me. Right in my face!
I knock on the window. “Please, Sincere. I don’t know what I’ll do without you. Please, give me another chance. Just let me talk to you. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” He tries not to look at me. I press my face up to his window, peering inside. “Please, Sincere. All I want is to talk, then I’ll leave you alone,” I say, fogging up his window. I take my hand and wipe it away. Sincere is staring at me now. I look at him with pleading eyes. “Please, Sincere . . .”
Okay, he still wants to ig me. Now it’s time for Operation Tear Ducts. Yup, when all else fails, cry! Tears always work. Well, almost always. ’Cause let me tell you, right now they’re not doing one damn thing to help my situation. Sincere just stares at me, then shifts his eyes, looking straight ahead.
Okay, now I have to step it up a notch. I go into Operation Turn It Up. It’s when you fall down on your knees, rocking and screaming and crying at the top of your lungs. Trust me. This will definitely get me what I want ’cause Sincere, like most dudes, hates it when you make a scene.
“Pleeeeeeeeeease, Sincere . . . whyyyy won’t you talk to me? . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m so so soooorry . . . I was so wrong for what I did. Pleeeeeease, Sincere . . .”
He swings open his door, quickly hopping out of his truck. See, I told you. “Will you please get up. You’re gonna have my neighbors thinking I’m out here beating you up.”
I look up at him with snot running down my nose and spit and drool and tears everywhere. “All I”—hiccup—“wanna do”—hiccup—“is talk”—hiccup—“to you. I-I-I’m so sorry. . .” I cry louder. This time he leans down and helps me up.
“C’mon, Miyah, will you stop with all the noise? Pull yourself together.”
I wipe my face with the back of my sleeve. “I know. . . I . . . I was wrong . . . for what I did,” I say, trying to catch my breath. Whew, all this crying is a lot of work. But at least it got Sincere out of his truck and willing to talk—okay, okay, listen, since I’m doing all the talking. He’s leaning up against his truck with his arms folded and his face twisted up, like he’s not buying it.
“I can’t keep going through this with you, Kamiyah. All this fighting and arguing. It’s crazy.”
“I know. I promise you. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s what you said when you slapped me.”
I think back to that day in the school parking lot, try to remember if I promised that I wouldn’t hit him again. I can’t remember. He doesn’t give me a chance to say anything.
“What you did was real effed up, Kamiyah, for real. My parents taught me to never put my hands on a female. But I really wanted to take it to your dome for what you did, hitting me then spitting in my face. Do you know how nasty that is? To spit in someone’s face?”
“But you spit in my face, too,” I reason.
“Yeah, after,” he says, raising his voice, “you spit in mine. That was real foul.”
“I’m really sorry.”
He stares at me, shaking his head. “You should be. I didn’t have a phone for four days, messing around with you. You didn’t have to smash my phone up.”
“I’m sorry, Sincere. I know I was wrong for that. I’ll give you the money for the phone.”
“I don’t need your money. It was insured. But that’s beside the point. You be bugging, Kamiyah, for real. I can’t deal with it. Then you got me lying to my parents. Why you key my door up like that?”
“I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what came over me. When I get angry I don’t think.”
He frowns. “Then you need to get some help for that. That ain’t cool, you acting all crazy.”
I start crying again. �
�Sincere, please, let’s work this out, okay? Don’t give up on us. You have to believe me. My life has been hell without you.”
He glances at his watch. “Well, welcome to the club. Now you know how mine’s been. Look, I got somewhere to be. You need to move your car.”
“No. Where do you have to go that’s more important than talking to me?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Who you going to see? One of your Facebook hoes?”
“See. This is why it’s not gonna work between us. Why you always thinking I’m going off to meet some other girl?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem. Everything’s ‘I don’t know.’ I’m sick of hearing that. You don’t trust me. That’s it in a nutshell. I don’t wanna be with anybody who can’t trust me. Damn. Every dude ain’t out here cheating, Miyah. But it’s chicks like you who make us wanna.”
“So you’re seeing someone else now? Is that what you’re saying?”
He huffs. “Didn’t you hear anything I said? No.”
“I love you so much, Sincere. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. You’re all I think about. I don’t want to be without you. I don’t wanna break up with you.”
“Then you shoulda thought about all that before you spit in my face and keyed up my truck. I don’t wanna be with anyone who can’t control their temper.”
“I’ll change. I promise. Just give us another chance. I’ll do anything you want. Pleeeeease, Sincere. Don’t do this to us.”
“You did this to us. I told you I wasn’t going anywhere. And that still wasn’t good enough.”
“I’m sorry. I was soooo wrong. I can change, Sincere. I will change. Can you please give me another chance?”
He looks at me. I know I’m a pitiful mess. But I’m losing my man. And if begging him back is what I gotta do, then dang it, that’s what I’ll do.
“I don’t know. You got me going through it, girl. You got my moms asking me a buncha questions. You coming up over here ringing my doorbell.” He shakes his head. “Miyah, you crazy. For real.”
“I’m really not. I just never loved anyone the way I love you.”
“If putting your hands on me is what you call love, then I don’t want it. I don’t know how your parents get down. But mine don’t fight like that. They have disagreements and they talk it out. I didn’t grow up in violence. Maybe you did.”
I only saw . . . well, I didn’t really see it, I heard it. . . when my mother threw a vase. It was the night my dad moved out. I heard her yelling and screaming at him. Calling him all kinds of names because he told her he was moving out; that they needed space. Then I heard the noise—the shattering of glass. She had snatched one of her favorite crystal vases and thrown it at the door. It scared me. When I ran to see what happened, all I saw were tiny pieces of glass everywhere. It was then that I realized my family was broken.
“I didn’t,” I say, shaking my head. I am feeling desperate. I am losing him right before my eyes. “My dad has never put his hands on my mom and he’s never raised his voice to her.”
“Then where’d you get it from?”
“Watching my sister and her boyfriend,” I admit. He asks me if I ever hit any other boyfriends. I tell him no. But it’s a lie. I used to fight my other boyfriend, too. But I didn’t love him. I love Sincere.
He looks at me in almost this sad, pitiful way. That’s not the look I want. I wanna see his love for me in his eyes. “Then you need help,” he says. “Now, move your car or I’m gonna call the police.”
I am stunned as he hops up into his truck and slams the door. He starts the engine and waits. He keeps his stare on me. I can tell he’s angry and hurt. And I have caused this.
I don’t want the police called on me. It is bad enough I have to go to court soon for fighting that girl. I don’t need any more problems than I already have. I walk over to his truck, place my hand on the window, and mouth the words, “I love you,” then walk back to my car, feeling defeated and all alone.
28
Desperate times call for desperate measures! That’s what I am thinking as I lie on my side, propped up on my elbow, staring at Sincere as he sleeps. I’m happy to be back in his arms, and now. . . back in his bed. Soooo, drum roll please . . . I am officially no longer a virgin. Not that I didn’t wanna hold on to my V-card, but I felt like I was losing control over this situation with Sincere and I needed to rein him in. For me to be happy, I need to be with Sincere. And I needed to do whatever I needed to do to hold on to my man, because I felt like he was slipping right through my manicured fingers. So what better way than give him my most prized possession? The one thing I held on to up until three days ago when he called me.
“Why you leave me all those crazy messages on my phone like that?”
No hello. No how are you; nothing. Not that I was complaining. But after how he played me in his driveway last Saturday, I wasn’t expecting to hear from him, especially since he wouldn’t take any of my calls or respond to any of my texts after I left his house that day. But he finally called. Three days later. But who’s counting? I guess he figured he had made me suffer enough. Anywaaayz, I was real hyped to hear his voice, but I kept it cute, tryna front like I wasn’t really pressed.
“What messages?” I asked, playing like I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You know what messages I’m talking about. C’mon, don’t play dumb. Those messages about if you catch me with another chick you’re gonna beat her up.”
“And I meant it, Sincere.”
“You be wildin’. You know that, right?”
“Only when it comes to you.”
“You can’t go around beating up chicks or calling them up and threatening and harassing them. It’s not cool.”
“What are you talking about? Who have I been harassing?”
“Me, for one,” he said.
“Sincere, how am I harassing you? I only wanted to talk to you, to hear your voice.”
“Miyah, c’mon, stop. You’ve been calling me around the clock and leaving all kinds of crazy messages and texts. That’s harassment.”
“Well, you wouldn’t take my calls. How else was I supposed to get your attention?”
“You’re crazy as hell. You know that, right?”
“Only for you,” I told him.
“Did you call Miranda, disguising your voice? And don’t lie.”
“No,” I told him. I know it was a lie. Whatever! She had no business calling my man. And I’ma still beat her down for disrespecting me if I ever run into her.
“Well, she wasn’t getting those kinds of calls until you and her got into it over the phone. Now all of a sudden she’s getting calls from restricted numbers from some chick disguising her voice and threatening her.”
“Well, it’s not me. Maybe she should leave other people’s men alone and she wouldn’t have those issues. I’m not thinking about that girl. Are you back messing with her now?”
“Miyah, is that all you care about? Why is it you always gotta go there? No, I’m not messing with her, or anyone else. We’re cool, that’s it.”
“Did you ever mess with her?”
He huffed. “Yeah. For a quick minute. But it didn’t work out. And no, I don’t want her back. Anything else?”
“Do you still love me?” I asked, clutching the phone tight with it pressed to my ear. I was in bed with the covers up over my head. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until he answered.
He sighed. “Yeah . . . unfortunately, I still do.”
Oooh, that “unfortunately” cut me deep. It felt like Sincere had slashed me with a jagged, rusty blade when he said that. But at least I knew he still loved me. And that’s all I cared about. “I miss you, Sincere,” I said, closing my eyes. “You’re all I have in this world. Can you please give me another chance?”
“I don’t know.”
Out of nowhere, my mother started banging on the door about me not doin
g the dishes. Whatever. I ignored her. I’m glad I had the door locked.
“Who’s that?”
“The Witch.”
“You shouldn’t call her that.”
“She shouldn’t treat me the way she does.”
“She’s still your mom, Miyah.”
“I don’t care.”
He sighed. “Then what do you care about?”
“You. Us,” I told him. “I just want things to be the way they used to be between us.”
“Me too. But you gotta chill, Miyah. Stop bugging out all the time over nothing. I’m not gonna hurt you. Damn.”
“I know.”
“You got my head all jacked up.”
“I love you so much, Sincere,” I whispered into the phone.
“Then you need to show it some other way. I won’t put up with you putting your hands on me.”
“I promise. I won’t do it again.”
“I wanna see you,” he said.
“I wanna see you, too, Sincere.”
“I’m still mad as hell at you for what you did. But I need to see you.”
I took a deep breath. “When?”
“Now.”
I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was almost eleven o’clock, past my curfew, and a school night. But it didn’t matter. My man said he wanted to see me, and that’s all I cared about. “I’ll have to sneak out. Can you come get me?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way.”
“Okay. I’ll be standing at the corner.”
And that night Sincere picked me up, snuck me back into his house, and we made up in the best way I could have ever imagined. At exactly 12:37 A.M., Sincere no longer just had my mind and soul. He now had my body, too.
So here I am, two days later, back in his bed—instead of being at school—still floating on soft, fluffy clouds, remembering how Sincere was making me feel no less than an hour ago. And now all I wanna do is kiss his body, and let him fill my body with his love. I pull back the sheets and take in the view. Oooh, my baby’s body is sick! I smile. It’s really true what they say about guys falling asleep after good sex. I never believed it until now. Sincere lets out a light snore, then rolls over on his side with his back toward me and that’s all I need to do what I came to do in the first place. Well, one of the things. I slowly ease out of his bed, then tiptoe over to where his phone is. I pick it up. Damn it! I need a password.