Unsatisfied with Friday night’s programming, Jordan lay quietly in bed with the phone resting on her stomach. She hadn’t bothered turning on the light in her room, but the moon was so blinding, it illuminated the blackness and made her squint to see the plastic stars stuck on her ceiling. She folded her hands behind her head and studied the visible craters that dotted the surface of the full moon outside.
Some nights Jordan could stare off into space for hours, just thinking, and tonight was one of those nights. As she lay there, she wondered why she wouldn’t hesitate to rush to Tariq’s aid if he were being mistreated, but in her own case, she’d remained passive and allowed herself to be dissed by her own best friend. She felt weak for not taking a stand against Adrienne sooner and was becoming eager for a confrontation that would settle things between them once and for all.
Jordan turned onto her side, her back to the moonlight, and shut her eyes. She was less than one week away from taking care of her unfinished business with Adrienne, and nothing would make her stray from her chosen course. Once next Friday rolled around, Jordan would be ready to leave school for the summer. And she’d go out with a bang.
It might have taken some time to set in, but Jordan had finally come to realize that her mother’s advice all those nights ago was beneficial. People would always talk about her. But this time, Jordan was going to give them something to talk about.
CHAPTER 19
“Have any of you seen Adrienne around today? No? How about you? Have you seen her? Has anybody seen Adrienne?” Jordan questioned dozens of students as she hustled down a first-floor hallway. It was the last day of the school year, which meant it was her last chance to get revenge on Adrienne, and the final bell had just granted freedom for the summer. Many people ignored her and rushed past. They were tired of answering questions of any kind, and from their point of view, she was nothing more than a nuisance.
In the back of her mind, Jordan knew she should have been happy to have a break from her studies, but instead, she was heaving and in a frenzied rush. She’d been on the hunt all week, and she was set on getting even. So set, in fact, that no matter how hard time worked against her, she fought back and refused to give up her search. Adrienne had been unexpectedly absent during the week of final exams, but Jordan’s intuition told her something was special about today.
It wasn’t that she was caught off guard by Adrienne’s poor attendance record. Adrienne was notorious for skipping class and wandering the hallways. And still, as each day passed, Jordan continued to hold on to her hope that the following day the two would meet again. She was more than ready to spring into action without a second thought. All Adrienne had to do was show her face, and Jordan would embarrass her in front of everybody, just as Adrienne had done to her.
“Adrienne who?” A random girl turned around to be of assistance, but Jordan couldn’t put a name to her face.
“Adrienne Hayes? You know her? She’s a junior.”
“Naw. Sorry. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Jordan didn’t stop, nor did she slow her pace. She snapped her fingers at the disappointing news, but her spirits soared when she spotted Michelle and her gang standing only a few feet away.
“Hey, Farrah, have you seen Adrienne around anywhere?”
Jordan remained civil when approaching them and targeted Farrah for the very reason she didn’t like her: she talked too much. Farrah would tell anybody’s and everybody’s business to all those willing to listen, no matter how deeply personal the issue might be.
“No, I don’t know where she’s at, and I could really care less.” Farrah was quick to answer Jordan, in order to continue participating in the ongoing conversation within her circle.
Jordan peered over her shoulder and disapprovingly shook her head at the sight of the sophomore girl enclosed by the three upperclassmen. Eva Parker was the new recruit being groomed for their clique, just as Jordan had predicted.
Jordan remembered how she’d tried to warn Adrienne about Michelle, Kenya and Farrah. Every couple of months or so, they’d replace a fourth member of their clique with someone new, just for fun. Adrienne wouldn’t listen. And Jordan didn’t know why, but it seemed like no one did.
Michelle and her friends would trick girl after girl into thinking she’d finally found her “place” in high school. They would create the illusion that they were her only true friends and would relax her enough to make her believe she was popular, envied, admired—that she fit in. And just when she got comfortable, they would chew her up and spit her out. Then it was on to the next girl, and it was time to continue the vicious cycle.
“Jordan?” Michelle called out to her. Jordan glanced over her shoulder again to see her slyly nod toward the girls’ bathroom just down the hall.
Jordan didn’t acknowledge her tip, but she started in the suggested direction. She didn’t want to be on the other end of an off-the-wall setup. It wasn’t as though the group hadn’t been responsible for similar events in the past.
Jordan could feel Michelle’s eyes on her back, which added to the pressure of the situation. She controlled her steps and forced herself to calmly make her way closer to where she knew Adrienne was hiding. She was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions, excited to know she was seconds away from getting what she wanted but nervous about the outcome. Things at home were just settling down and getting back to normal, and she didn’t want to ruin that.
Her relationship with her parents was still fragile, and after the last heated discussion she’d had with them, she grew to find a new appreciation for living at home. All of a sudden, she started to question whether jeopardizing what she loved for someone she didn’t even like was really worth all the trouble. Maybe she should just forget about Adrienne and maintain the harmony with her family—and with Warren.
As Jordan neared the girls’ room, she took a deep breath and clenched her sweaty palms tight. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, and her legs were automatically carrying her closer to her showdown. She couldn’t deny the happiness she felt knowing that Adrienne was at school and that she was finally going to confront her.
Jordan froze with her hand on the door as she scanned the secluded hallway for any witnesses. She didn’t want to get caught if she could help it, and she definitely didn’t want any interruptions once she had Adrienne alone. Seeing no one, she took another deep breath as she tried to enter. To her surprise, the door didn’t budge.
“Dammit! This is just my luck,” she mumbled angrily under her breath, and pounded on the heavy door. She was straining to push it open when suddenly she heard muffled noises from the other side. She curiously pressed her ear against it, and twitched at the sound of the lock clicking. Jordan hurriedly backed away from the restroom and casually leaned against a nearby wall as though she were only waiting to put the room to its proper use.
“Oh, hey. Wad up, Jordan?” Sandra Douglas, Maurice Owens’s girlfriend, emerged with another girl Jordan knew named Rashida at her side. Warren had introduced the girls the night of Spring Fling, and they had gotten along well.
“Nothing. You?” Jordan kept a straight face when replying. She didn’t want to do anything that would indicate she knew what the two had been up to in the bathroom. The loose sweatpants they had rolled to their knees in the summer heat, the tank tops and the braided hair told it all: they were dressed to fight.
“Nothing much. You weren’t waiting long, were you?”
“No. I just got here.”
“You do know there’s another bathroom on this floor not too far from here, right?” Rashida added.
“Yeah, I know,” Jordan said matter-of-factly.
A spell of silence fell over the three for only a second before Sandra spoke again.
“She’s still in there, you know.”
“Who?”
“Who? Oh, now you don’t know who I’m talking about. Stop trying to front.” She chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah, I know full well who you’re
talking about. I take it you guys are beefin’ now, too?”
“Naw. Not no more, we ain’t.” The two girls started cracking up laughing and Rashida jokingly slapped Sandra on the arm.
“What happened? I didn’t even know you two were having problems.”
“Jordan, do you know this bitch would not stop calling my man’s phone? He done told her he don’t like her ass and about how me and him are back together, but she’s so damn stupid, all she did was call more. I’d be sitting there listening to him tell her not to call, while she’s on the other end talking shit about me. So finally, the other day I picked up and we had it out. That ho thought she was really doing something, but that was a big mistake on her part.” Sandra punched the palm of her hand with her balled fist almost every other syllable.
“Hell yeah, the only thing she did was get her ass beat,” Rashida said.
“Look, I don’t have to tell you how she is. You know.” Sandra seemed frustrated talking about her enemy.
“Ha. Do I.” Jordan rolled her eyes.
“So, what are you about to get into? Where’s Warren at?” The anger receded from Sandra’s voice, and she changed the course of the conversation with an upbeat tone.
“You know, now that you ask, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since earlier this morning.”
“Oh. Well, uh…you go ahead and have fun in there, but if I were you I’d be in and out. I know I got to hurry up and get out of here ASAP before somebody come around this bitch.” Sandra weakly laughed at her statement while walking backward down the hall, and Rashida didn’t hesitate to speak again.
“What? Are you going to go make her apologize?” She voiced her words more as an insult than a desire for information. She’d obviously sized up Jordan’s petite body and judged her as harmless and weak.
“Yeah, something like that.” Jordan nonchalantly brushed off Rashida’s remark as she watched the girls vanish around the corner. It was getting quiet, which meant there wouldn’t be as many people to pass along the story of what was about to unfold. She crept to the corner in search of possible witnesses and spied Michelle and her crew buttering Sandra and Rashida up for all the juicy details about what exactly had gone on in the girls’ bathroom. Then she headed back again.
Jordan prepared herself for what she was bound to see behind the girls’ room door and put her desire to make a spectacle out of their fight to rest. She gave her surroundings another once-over and braced herself, then pushed the bathroom door open easily.
The bathroom was poorly lit due to the fact that there were no windows and only two flickering bulbs on the ceiling. An unpleasant odor hung in the air, and Jordan held her breath as she tiptoed around the wall of ceramic tile separating her from Adrienne.
Jordan listened closely for crying but heard nothing. She jumped when the sound of crunching plastic hit her ears. She looked down to discover that she’d stepped on small pieces of a broken tiara. A trail of gold-painted debris led her eyes to the corner, where a fragment bearing the words “Happy Birthday” was still intact and missing only a few of its colorful fake gems.
Jordan smirked as she bent down to pick up the shattered tiara. She’d eventually managed to make herself forget about all things Adrienne, including the fact that her birthday was coming up. And now it was here. Today was Adrienne’s sweet sixteen.
“What are you doing here?”
Jordan almost jumped out of her skin when Adrienne’s hoarse voice sounded throughout the small room. She’d been so lost in her thoughts, she’d forgotten where she was.
“Nothing…I just came to say…happy birthday!” Jordan laughed sarcastically and dropped the toy on the floor, cracking it in half. She looked down at Adrienne, who sat on the floor covered in what used to be her own birthday cake. Jordan’s eyes bounced to the small, crushed store-bought container inches away from her own two feet, and she kicked away a popped pink balloon that read “Sweet 16” in glitter.
“It doesn’t look like such a happy birthday to you, now does it? I know you’re enjoying this,” Adrienne said bitterly, sucking her teeth. Her back was against a stall door, her head hung low and her knees pulled up to her chest, but she wasn’t crying. She was rubbing her scalp, where pieces of her extensions hung loose and her hair stuck out in all directions. Jordan assumed from the way she winced when she rubbed certain areas that Sandra and Rashida had hit her in her head so no one would see her wounds. The lumps where they’d struck her were beginning to come up.
“So what if I am?” Jordan retorted. “I don’t feel bad for you. I’m more than sure you’ve brought this on yourself.” Jordan folded her arms as she examined Adrienne’s brand-new Pepe outfit. She recognized tiny dark stains down the front of the white hooded dress as blood, but that didn’t move her. She watched as Adrienne tilted her head back, giving Jordan a better view of her face. In the light, Jordan could see her swollen nose and noted that it was no longer bleeding. “You’ve only got yourself to blame.”
“And that makes it right?” Adrienne grumbled, her hands smearing and flicking icing and cake from her ruined dress and out of her hair.
“I never said that. But I’ll be honest…It sure doesn’t hurt…Me, anyway.”
Adrienne extended her hand for assistance.
“Oh, come on, now. You should already know I’m not about to be the one to help you get back on your feet. I didn’t come here for all that,” Jordan said. She took a step back to give Adrienne enough room to regain her footing on her own and wobble to a sink.
“Oh, so what? You came here to fight me, too?” she asked over her shoulder as she tore a long sheet of cheap paper towel from a dispenser on the wall. “Y’all bitches taking turns or some shit? How many more out there waiting? Tell them they can all come in!” she yelled, obviously paranoid.
“No. It’s just me, but you are right about one thing.”
“What are you waiting for, then? I’m right here.” Adrienne was hostile, but Jordan could see she was tense when she posed the challenge.
“Because I know Sandra and Rashida already beat me to the punch. Oops, sorry, no pun intended.” She chuckled.
“I done told your ass before, you ain’t fuckin’ funny, Jordan.” Adrienne relaxed and turned her back. She soaked the paper towel and began scrubbing the chocolate stains on her dress. The streaks of dyed icing were beginning to blend in with the colorful print on the white material.
Jordan looked her over from head to toe in disgust as she watched her labor on the orange satin trim. The rest of her body was still covered in food and she was trying to clean her dress.
“Look at you, taking care of your things before you even take care of you.”
“What are you trying to say?” Adrienne wasn’t paying Jordan any attention as she bent down to assess a tear she’d just found. “This shit is fucked—dammit!” In the middle of her tantrum, Adrienne sent one of her slip-on sandals flying across the room, leaving her barefoot. Her other sandal had came off during her tussle with Sandra and her friend and slid under a stall marked “Out of Order.”
“What the fuck! Why are you just sitting there watching me?” she screamed at Jordan. It was obvious that her emotions were finally getting the best of her.
“I’m not fucking watching you. Why you always think somebody worried about you? You always try and act like you the shit, and you ain’t,” Jordan told her unsympathetically.
“Ladies and gentlemen, take a look at the pot,” she mumbled, sloppily rinsing icing from her hands and face.
“Me? How you figure?”
“Because once you did that video, you changed, Jordan.”
“How? How did I change?”
“Because I never would’ve thought you’d do that to me.” As she spoke, Adrienne hinted at the hurt already showing in her eyes.
“Not this Warren shit again.” Jordan sighed.
“It’s the principle, Jordan. Best friends don’t mess with their friend’s man.” Adrienne leaned closer to the
mirror over the sink to see her bruised eye up close. “Shit!” A black-and-blue ring was settling beneath the skin around her eye, and as she cleaned herself she seemed to find more injuries. She huffed and quickly turned off the faucet.
“Okay, I understand that,” Jordan admitted, “but, Adrienne, y’all weren’t together. Plus, I’ve told you before, I didn’t even used to like Warren. I barely paid him any attention. If anything, you pushed me toward him, starting all that bullshit. You made me pay attention to him, you kept making such a big deal out of everything. And then, when you dropped me for Michelle and them, he was the only person who still acted like he gave a damn about me and who I really was. Not about all the rumors you told.” Jordan noticed Adrienne’s black eye, but it wasn’t enough to distract her and keep her from speaking her mind.
“Whatever. I could see it in your eyes that day in the hall,” Adrienne spat out. “You two were all hugged up when I came in. There’s nothing you can do to change how that felt.”
“Adrienne, if I knew that was going to hurt you so much I wouldn’t have done it.” Jordan surprised herself with this admission but knew it was the truth.
“You’re lying! You didn’t even know I was there at first. You probably wouldn’t have even bothered to tell me you saw him, had things played out differently.”
“But they didn’t. And I’m done trying to explain and apologize to you. You don’t give a damn about my feelings, and you never have. Why the hell should I care about yours? Especially now. Not only have you talked down to me constantly, but you got me caught up with the police! It’s not going to happen!”
Jordan sighed. She could feel herself getting worked up, but she took a moment to calm down. She wasn’t going to give in to Adrienne and get into a huge blowout. She no longer wanted their encounter to escalate into something physical.
“You know what?” she said to Adrienne with a laugh. “I’m not going to fight you. I’m not going to argue with you. Not that you care, but you put me through a lot of shit this year. So hell yeah, I’m happy someone knocked you down to size, but that’s gonna have to be good enough for me. It was only a matter of time before someone did it. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be me.”
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