You and I

by Jacquelin Thomas

  Cherise watched the play of emotions on his face.

  Steven swept her, weightless, into his arms and carried her to the bed. After placing her in the middle of the bed, he crawled in behind her.

  Cherise could feel his uneven breathing on her cheek as he held her close. The touch of his hand was almost unbearable in its tenderness. His mouth covered hers hungrily, leaving her mouth burning with fire.

  The touch of her lips on his sent a shock wave through his entire body with a savage intensity. Steven planted kisses on her shoulders, neck and face. As he roused her passion, his own need grew stronger.

  Passion pounded the blood through her heart, chest and head, causing Cherise to breathe in deep, soul-drenching drafts. She had never been as happy as she was in this moment in time, and she didn’t want it to end.

  Cherise watched the rise and fall of Steven’s chest as he slept, thinking about what had transpired earlier. He made her feel loved in the way that he touched her, kissed her and held her in his arms.

  She closed her eyes, seeking sleep, but images from her past resurfaced, forcing her to stay wide awake. Cherise shook her head, trying to shake the turbulent thoughts away.

  Steven placed a protective arm around her, pulling her closer to him. He never opened his eyes.

  She felt a thread of guilt at the thought of keeping secrets from the man she was falling in love with. Steven was right—there shouldn’t be any secrets between you and that special someone. However, she didn’t believe she needed to tell him about every aspect of her life.

  What happened in the past stays in the past, Cherise decided. She was a different person now, more mature and self-assured. Life was good. She had a wonderful family and a good man.

  It was time to bury the past once and for all.

  She stretched and yawned, waking Steven.

  “Hey, baby,” he mumbled.

  “Go back to sleep,” Cherise whispered. She snuggled up against him.

  Steven planted kisses on her forehead, her cheeks and neck, sending delicious spirals down her body.

  They made love a second time.

  Cherise fell asleep, but was awakened an hour later by thoughts of her secret one night ten years ago. The night she and some friends decided to break into what they thought was an empty house. She was fifteen at the time, overweight and willing to do just about anything to be accepted by her friends. None of them expected someone to be inside the house.

  A woman came toward them swinging a bat. Everything happened so fast that night. One of the boys she was with hit the woman, knocking her unconscious.

  Cherise winced at the memory.

  The others ran away, but she stayed behind. Scared that the woman was seriously hurt, Cherise called 9-1-1 before rushing from the house, wanting to forget that night forever.

  Steven and his parents were having dinner the next day, and he invited Cherise to join them. He wanted her to meet his mother in particular, because she was able to read people like books. She had a wonderful gift of discernment.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to meet your parents,” Cherise told him.

  He studied her for a moment. “Okay, I thought we were on the same page. Was I wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I was under the impression that we’d be taking things slow.”

  “It’s just dinner with me and my parents, Cherise. I wanted them to meet you.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”

  He met her gaze. “Cherise, I have feelings for you. I can’t really put a name to them yet, but I know that I like being with you. We have a lot in common. I like that you are straightforward, you don’t play games—at least not that I can tell. You’re ambitious, intelligent, beautiful…what more can I say?”

  “Sometimes I feel like you have me on this pedestal, Steven. I’m not perfect. I do mess up from time to time.”

  “We all do,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you take my breath away every time I see you. When you smile, my heart does this little flip.”

  Cherise broke into a grin. “Steven, you are such a romantic.”

  He pulled her to him. “I don’t want to rush you into anything, sweetheart. Let me know if I’m being too pushy.”

  She kissed him. “I will.”

  “So what about dinner with my parents?”

  “I would love to meet them,” Cherise responded. “Now I need to get to work and so do you.”

  He followed her outside.

  “I’ll pick you up at six-thirty,” he told Cherise.

  She climbed into her SUV and followed Steven to the freeway.

  Cherise hummed softly to the music playing on the radio. The song ended, and a news report about a recent break-in put a damper on her mood. She wondered what Steven would say if she told him that she and her friends had attacked some poor woman in her home when she was fifteen? Although she never struck the woman, she still felt just as responsible. She was pretty sure that Steven wouldn’t think she was so perfect if he knew her secret shame.

  Chapter 6

  Cherise hadn’t been in her office ten minutes when the secretary buzzed her to say, “Maxie would like to see you. Can you come to her office now?”

  “Sure.”

  She pushed away from her desk, got up and left her office.

  Cherise stopped outside of her supervisor’s door to straighten her clothing. Dark brown eyes closed, she whispered a quick prayer before entering the huge office, saying, “Maxie, you wanted to see me?”

  An older woman with salt-and-pepper hair peered over her bifocals and nodded. “Come on in, Cherise.”

  Easing into one of the visitor’s chairs, she sat down, looking across the huge oak desk at the reed-thin woman sitting there.

  Tapping her foot impatiently, Cherise waited for Maxie to complete her notes.

  Finally laying the pen aside, Maxie Sheppard settled back into the high-backed chair that seemed to swallow her. Smiling warmly, she asked, “I’ve been in and out of the office so much, you never did tell me how you enjoyed your cruise.”

  “It was wonderful,” Cherise said. “In fact, I met someone on the ship. He lives here in Los Angeles.”

  “Really? Have you two kept in touch?”

  She nodded. “We’ve been seeing each other since the cruise ended. He’s an architect with Lawson, Hendricks and Sampson.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Maxie said with a sincere smile. “Well, the reason I wanted to see you is because I know how much you wanted the senior counselor position. Are you still interested?”

  Sitting up straight, Cherise almost shouted her answer. “Yes.”

  Maxie smiled. “I’m happy to inform you that it’s yours, then. You’ve got the position.”

  Cherise could barely contain her excitement. All her dreams were coming true. “Thank you so much, Maxie. You have no idea how much I wanted this promotion. Thank you.”

  “You can move into your new office today, if you’d like.”

  “I think I’ll do just that. Thank you so much, Maxie. I really appreciate it.” Cherise was almost giddy with happiness.

  “Let’s get something clear. I didn’t give it to you,” Maxie stated. “Cherise, you’ve earned it. You’ve been here at the Darlene Sheppard Center for a few years now. All the kids here love you, and so does the rest of the staff. You’re good at your job and with the girls.”

  “It’s because I understand how those kids feel, Maxie. I’ve been there.” Cherise paused a moment before continuing. “I wish there had been a center like this when I was growing up—a place where overweight kids can wear swimsuits with pride, or just have fun without others picking on them. I remember when I used to go swimming how some of the children used to follow me, yelling, ‘Fat! You’re so fat, it looks like you’re wearing a slingshot.’”

  “After my daughter committed suicide…” Maxie shook her head sadly. “I knew I had to do something. The thing is, Darlene was a normal twelve-year-ol
d. Not skinny like me, but certainly not what I’d call obese either—Darlene just thought she was fat, and the other kids wouldn’t stop teasing her… She tried so hard to lose the weight over the summer and she did lose thirty pounds, but when she went back that fall they still made jokes. She hanged herself in the closet.”

  Maxie swiped at her wet eyes. “I don’t want another mother or another child to suffer the way my daughter and I did.”

  “Children can be so cruel, and unfortunately we tend to believe what others say about us. Good or bad.”

  Maxie nodded her head emphatically. “Yes, they can. But at least we’re doing something to help. My daughter will not have died for nothing.”

  Feeling her supervisor’s heartache, Cherise sought to comfort her. “You’re a very special woman, Maxie. It takes courage to do what you did in Darlene’s memory.”

  “I wish you could’ve met my daughter and talked to her. Maybe …” Maxie fell back against her chair, sighing. “I guess it’s no use thinking like that. I’ll meet with you in the morning, and we’ll go over your new duties in detail.”

  “If it hadn’t been for you, the kids wouldn’t have a place like this. Darlene would be so proud of you.” Cherise stood up and strolled over to the door. She was about to leave when she heard Maxie call her name.

  “Congratulations on your promotion.”

  Smiling, Cherise replied, “Thank you.”

  Leaving Maxie’s office, she practically skipped down the hall.

  When Cherise got to her office, she found a young girl of sixteen waiting outside her door. “Hi, Bridgett.”

  Following her into the office, Bridgett murmured a soft hello.

  Puzzled, Cherise glanced down at her appointment book. “Did we have an appointment this afternoon?”

  Her voice barely above a whisper, Bridgett replied, “Naw, I just came by to talk. Are you real busy right now?” She stood near the door as if ready to bolt at any given moment.

  Seating herself behind the desk, Cherise motioned to a nearby chair. “Have a seat. I have a few minutes to talk.” She leaned back and asked, “What’s going on?”

  With her head bowed, Bridgett mumbled, “Nothing much going on. I just…felt like talkin’ to you.” A half smile crossed her face. “You said I could come to you whenever I needed to talk. So I came.”

  “I’m glad.” Cherise could see pain etched on the young girl’s chubby face. “Are those girls still teasing you?”

  Looking down at her hands, Bridgett responded, “Yeah, but that’s never gonna end. They don’t like me ’cause I’m fat.”

  “Bridgett, sweetheart, don’t let those girls get to you. If you ignore them, they’ll soon find someone else to bother.”

  “It’s just that…they’re right, Miss Ransom. I am fat and I’m ugly!” A solitary tear slid down her ginger-brown cheek. Bridgett hastily wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  Cherise’s heart went out to the teenager. She remembered what it was like to be the butt of jokes, to be overweight and wanting so much to be liked by her peers. She leaned forward. “Let’s get something clear, Bridgett. You are not ugly. I think you are one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever met. But my telling you this won’t make the hurt go away. You have to believe it.”

  Bridgett weighed Cherise with a critical squint. “Th-That’s e-easy for you to say. Look at you. You’re not fat.”

  “I’m not thin either. I’m a size fourteen and proud of it. I used to weigh two-hundred fifty pounds when I was your age,” she announced.

  Bridgett’s round eyes opened wider. “You were fat?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Naw!”

  Cherise nodded. “Yes, I was fat. My classmates used to laugh at me all the time. They used to make crude jokes about me. They would shout for everybody to hide their lunches when I walked into the room.” Hot tears burned her eyes from the memory.

  “So, what did you do?”

  Cherise was quiet for a minute determined to void the pain and heartache of the past. “I wanted so badly to be popular, I did whatever my so-called friends wanted me to. One night I got into some serious trouble. It was then that I decided I didn’t want those kinds of friends.” She paused for a minute. “I moved away, started exercising and watching what I ate. I lost some of the weight.”

  “That must have made you really happy.”

  “Not really,” Cherise admitted. “Instead of being thrilled at having lost weight, I found myself becoming angry. The underlying message was that I was making my body conform more to society’s idea of how I should look. As if it were one of the best things I could do as a woman. It was as if losing the weight made me part of the real world. Like being a big girl made me a freak.”

  Nodding, Bridgett agreed. “That’s the way I feel now. Especially when people laugh at me, and I see those commercials where women brag about how much weight they’ve lost—they act like their new bodies are brand-new cars.” She sucked her teeth. “They make me sick.”

  Cherise’s mouth quirked with amusement. “What I’ve learned over the years is that being a full-figured woman doesn’t make me a bad person. Being dark-skinned doesn’t make me bad either. It only makes me an individual. So I’m not one of those skinny women all over TV and magazines. I may never have men drool over my body, but that’s okay, too. These are things I have no control over. Once I realized that particular truth, I became my own cheerleader.”

  “Huh?”

  “I learned to love me, Bridgett,” Cherise explained. “Once I did that, I learned to pick my friends, not the other way around. So what if I’m not popular? Or have light skin or the body of a model? I’m still a nice person.” Grinning, she stated, “The way I see it, there’s just a lot more of me to love.”

  Hope sprang into Bridgett’s eyes. “Do you think I can lose some of this weight? Like you did? I know I won’t ever be thin, but I do want to lose some of this fat.”

  “I believe you can do anything you want. You just have to want it bad enough, Bridgett. You’ve only got to believe in yourself.”

  Cherise smiled and handed the young girl a tissue. “But understand that you don’t have to change yourself to please your friends. If they can’t accept you for who you are, then change your friends. Don’t let those other kids get to you.”

  “I won’t. Thank you, Miss Ransom.” Bridgett beamed happily as she stood up to leave. “I guess I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “Come talk to me anytime.”

  “I will.” Bridgett smiled and closed the door.

  Cherise leaned back into her chair feeling whole and complete. She hoped and prayed that Bridgett’s low self-esteem would not lead her down the same road hers had led her. The loud ringing of her telephone interrupted her reverie. Picking up the phone, she announced, “Cherise speaking.”

  “Hello, honey. How’s your day going?” Steven’s voice held a rasp of excitement.

  She felt her heart race with anticipation over hearing Steven’s low, baritone voice. “It’s so good to hear from you,” Cherise said. “My day is going great. What about yours?”

  “It would be better if I were spending my time with you,” he said huskily. “I can’t wait to see you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Lowering her voice, Cherise whispered into the phone saying, “I’m looking forward to seeing you, too. We’ve got a lot of celebrating to do tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah? So what are we celebrating?”

  Cherise could no longer keep her news to herself. “I got a promotion at work. I’m the new senior counselor.”

  “Honey, that’s great. Congratulations.”

  “This is my year, baby. I can feel it.” Cherise talked with Steven a few minutes more before hanging up.

  She strolled gaily down the hall toward her new corner office.

  Cherise stood in the room visualizing her artwork and desk accessories in there. She rubbed her fingers across the red-brown-stained desk as she sank down into the swivel chair.
“I’m going to have to adjust the height on this,” she murmured to herself.

  She glanced up at the wall clock and decided to postpone her move into her new office until tomorrow. Today she needed to leave the office right at five in order to be ready by the time Steven picked her up.

  Cherise silently counted her blessings. She was dating a wonderful man and had just gotten a promotion she desperately wanted. The way things were going for her, Cherise was positive that nothing could destroy her happiness.

  “Aunt Eula Mae, I can’t wait for you to meet Cherise. She’s a really nice girl.” Steven shifted the phone from one side to the other. “Mom’s meeting her tonight. We’re having dinner with her and Dad.”

  “Isn’t this a little soon?”

  Steven frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  “Hon, you just met the girl a few weeks ago. What do you really know about her?” Eula Mae asked.

  “I know that Cherise comes from a very large family, and that she loves working with teens. She’s beautiful and intelligent, and there’s no drama. We don’t have any secrets between us. She understands family loyalty.”

  “She does sound perfect, I guess.”

  “When you meet her, you’ll see what I mean, Aunt Eula Mae. Cherise and I are not rushing into anything, but we are trying to build something here. I’m ready to settle down and so is she.”

  “Well, I look forward to meeting her.”

  They talked a few minutes more before ending the call. The opinions of his mother and his aunt carried a lot of weight with Steven. They both possessed strong discerning spirits which had kept him out of harm’s way throughout his life.

  Steven was sure they would both see Cherise through his eyes.

  Steven arrived promptly at six.

  As they headed to the car, she mumbled, “I hope your parents will like me.”

  “They will.” He reached for her hand. “Honey, you have nothing to worry about. They’re going to love you.”

  Cherise laughed. “I’ll settle for them just liking me.” She still couldn’t believe that she was already meeting his parents. Usually she was in a relationship for months before the man ever took her to meet his mother and father.