by Lady Lissa
“Who’s your best friend?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“No, just wanted to hear you say it,” I respond.
“You are my best friend. You are my lover and you are also my soul mate. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Starr. I don’t know what I would do without you,” he says.
“I feel the same way. You’re the love of my life,” I say.
“Hey, I don’t wanna get you down or anything but I saw Mandy today.”
Now, this makes me sit up in bed and changes my mood completely. I know that they’re on the same campus, so they’re bound to run into each other from time to time. I just wasn’t ready to hear about it just yet.
“Now there’s something I wasn’t ready for,” I say, my happy mood deflated.
“Baby, we’re on the same campus so…” he says.
“I know but that’s a huge campus. I just didn’t think that y’all would see each other. Did she speak to you?” I ask.
“Yea, she came up to me and start asking how I’ve been and shit like that. She didn’t put the moves on me so that was something different,” he says.
“Good. Maybe she’s finally got the hint that you really don’t want her ass,” I say.
“Maybe. Even if she does want me, I don’t want her. You’re the only woman I want,” he says.
“Awww baby. You sure know the right things to say to perk me back up.”
“That’s my job. As your man, if I can’t keep a smile on your face, I don’t need to be in your life. I love you Starr and nothing or no one will ever change that. You and I belong together,” he says with a smile.
“I love you too,” I say.
We chat for another fifteen minutes before ending our call. By the time we hang up, I am feeling ten times better than I was when I first came to my room. I slip into Onyx’s Atlanta Hawks t-shirt, which smells of his cologne, and climb back in bed. I have three of his favorite shirts that he left behind for me to wear when I got too lonely or missed him too much. I snuggle up to my pillow and soon, sleep invades my brain.
CHAPTER 7
Onyx
Hearing Starr’s voice before I go to sleep makes me have the best dreams. That’s why she’s the last person I speak to before I close my eyes. As I lie in bed, my mind drifts to the day I first met Starr.
I was outside shooting hoops, which is something that I did on a daily basis, except I always had to go down the street to the park. When my dad got this house, he made sure there was a basketball goal because he knew how much I liked to hoop. I saw the moving truck next door but didn’t pay any mind to it. That is until I see this little girl heading my way.
This little girl, who appeared to be around seven or eight, came bouncing up our driveway and stole my damn basketball. I mean, she didn’t even bother to introduce herself or nothing; just snatched my ball from my hands. I was in a state of shock as I just stood there looking at her like she had lost her damn mind. I mean, who did she think she was, walking into my yard and jacking my ball like that?
As I stood there looking at her lil’ ass, she didn’t pay me any mind as she shot the ball. The thing that surprised me more than her brash and sassy self, was when I heard the SWISH of the net as the ball went in. She ran and caught the ball as it bounced on the ground and placed her hand on her hip. Damn, she sassy, I remembered thinking. She just looked at me and asked, “Are you gon’ play or not?”
I remembered thinking, oh wow, she really wants to play me. She don’t know what she getting her ass into because this shit here is my shit. I do this all day, every day so she might wanna rethink that. But instead of speaking my thoughts, I just said okay, let’s play. I remembered thinking that the two of us reminded me of one of my favorite movies. It felt like we were Monica and Quincy from the movie, Love & Basketball. She threw the ball at me and said, check boy and it was on.
I mean, what the hell was I supposed to do? I checked the damn ball and the two of us began to play. We shot hoops for the rest of that afternoon. While we were playing ball, I learned that her name was Starr. I remembered wondering if she was lying to me or what. People don’t really name their kids Starr, right? But that was her name. Starr and I got together and played ball every afternoon for as long as I could remember. As I lie in bed thinking about her, I really miss my baby.
I can’t wait to see her this weekend. I just want to hold her and kiss her. We don’t even have to make love because our love and bond is way stronger than sex. I just want to hold her tight and make sure she knows how much she means to me. I always knew I was going to come to college here, but I miss being away from Starr. When you’re used to seeing and being with someone every day, it’s no easy task to be away from them for a week’s time.
It doesn’t matter to me if people think of me as soft because I love my woman. When you find true love, you just say fuck what people think. That’s exactly how I feel. As I close my eyes so I can get some rest, a vision of Starr’s beautiful face comes before my eyes.
I wake up in the morning to the shrill ringing of my phone. I usually keep my phone on vibrate, except when I lay my head down at night. If Starr needs to reach me during the night or like now, first thing in the morning, I wanna make sure that I can hear my phone. I roll over and pick the phone up to answer it.
“Hello baby,” I say in my sleepy voice.
“Hey babe. I’m sorry I woke you,” she says.
“That’s nothing. I needed to get up anyway,” I lie. My first class doesn’t start until 10:45 but I don’t want her to feel bad about waking me up.
“Oh good. I’m on my way to school. I wanted to talk with you while I drive there. How did you sleep?” she asks.
“I slept pretty good. How about you?”
“I slept great. I dreamt about you,” she says.
“Oh yea? Well, if it’s anything like the dream I had, you must have gotten up with wet panties,” I say as I rub my hard dick.
She lets out a lil’ chuckle and say, “You’re so silly.”
Shit. Hard is what I am.
“Do you have any exams today?” I ask, trying to get my mind off my dick.
“Nope. Do you have any?” she asks.
“Nah.”
“I’m going to the doctor today, remember?” she asks.
“Yea, around ten right?”
“10:30,” she says.
“Well, I have class at 10:45 but text me to let me know how it went. I will call you after you get out of school,” I tell her.
“We can’t talk for my lunch period today?”
“No babe, I’m afraid not. Coach Nickelson needs me to handle something for him around noon so I’ll have to hit you up later,” I say.
“Aww, okay,” she says and I can hear the pout in her voice.
“Sorry baby, but we have a baby coming and I have to make sure I have the money to support my child, our child. I won’t be one of those deadbeat dads, no matter what my situation. I have an obligation to handle my business as a father and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do,” I say.
There is no way anyone, especially not her mom, will ever call me a deadbeat. I’m going to support my child. Next year, when Starr starts school here, I will get us an off campus apartment so we can live together as a family. That’s why I need to save my money.
“And that is why I love you so much,” she says.
“I love you too,” I respond.
“Well baby, I just made it to school. I will text you when I’m done with my doctor’s appointment. Have a great day,” she says.
“I will. You have a good day too,” I tell her as I end the call.
I lie back in bed, since it’s only eight o’clock in the morning. When my clock rings at 10:15, I wake up and jump in the shower. After cleaning my body and taking away the heat from my dick, I step out the shower, dry myself off, then handle my personal hygiene before heading out the door. I make it to class at 10:39 and get the shocker of a lifetime.
<
br /> Mandy is sitting in one of the seats in the classroom, which nearly causes me to miss my damn step. She smiles and gives me the fucking spirit fingers wave as I walk pass her and sit in a seat four rows behind her. What the fuck is this bitch doing in my class? Did she change her fucking schedule or something? Those are the questions invading my mind as my professor speaks about some shit I am not paying attention to.
I am trying my best to take notes in my statistics class but having Mandy here is distracting me. How did she get admitted into this fucking class anyway? Man, I wish I had a restraining order on this bitch too. At the end of class, I walk out and can’t wait to get away from Mandy’s stalking ass. I swear, I thought that we were done with all that shit. I could have sworn she had learned her lesson and was going to move on.
“Onyx! Onyx!” I hear her calling me, but I keep walking. The last time we saw each other, I choked the shit out of her. Because of that shit, Starr’s mom started acting like Cinderella’s fucking stepmother.
“Onyx, I know you hear me calling you! Are you really just going to ignore me?” she yells, while continuing to follow me.
I just pick up my pace and keep walking. I push the door open, inhaling the fresh autumn scent of the outside.
“ONYX! I JUST WANNA TELL YOU SOMETHING!” she yells louder before I hear her running behind me.
I finally slow my pace down but keep walking. It looks like if I don’t let her say what she needs to say, I’ll never get rid of her. I don’t stop walking, but slow down just enough for her to catch up and say what she needs to.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” she asks.
“What the hell do you want?” I counter.
“I don’t know why you’re acting like this with me. I haven’t done anything to you,” she says.
I stop and look at her because I can’t believe she is saying this shit to me.
“You can’t be serious yo,” I tell her.
“I am dead serious. What have I done to you to make you treat me this way?”
“You have made my life a living hell this past year. For you to say that you haven’t done anything to me makes me think you’re out of your mind,” I say.
“What have I done besides try to prove my love for you? I’ve let you walk all over me in the name of love, just so you can turn around and choose that bitch over me,” she says.
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth!”
“Sorry, but that’s how I feel about her. You and I were perfectly happy until she decided she wanted more from you than just friendship.”
“We weren’t that happy Mandy. Our relationship had started falling apart long before Starr and I decided to make a go of things. And she wasn’t the one that wanted to be more than friends first,” I say.
“What do you mean?” she asks with a confused look on her face.
I stop walking so I can face her just to make sure she understands the words that are about to come out of my mouth. It seems as though she has been blaming the demise of our relationship on Starr, but none of this is because of Starr. I made the first move on her and it’s time Mandy knew that.
“I kissed her first. I’m the one that made a move on her. Starr didn’t want to go there, but I persisted until she relented. If you wanna be mad at somebody, then be mad at the right person. If I wouldn’t have pushed up on her, she would have never crossed that line,” I say.
“But why? You knew I wanted you back. You knew I wanted to work things out,” she says.
“Yea, I knew that shit but I didn’t want you. I was and I am in love with Starr. I don’t know when my feelings for her changed from friendship to the way a man loves a woman, but it doesn’t even matter at this point. You and I are done Mandy. We’ve been done and you need to let it go. You need to move on and let me go,” I say.
The look on her face almost makes my heart feel sorry for her, but I don’t. She almost killed Starr and had she done that, I would be in jail now for killing her ass.
“But I love you,” she says.
“No you don’t…”
“How can you say that I don’t love you? You don’t know how I feel.”
“You’re right, I don’t know how you feel. But how can you love me when I’ve been out of love with you for over a year now?”
“Over a year? Has it really been that long since you loved me?” she asks with the pitiful look of a puppy dog trying to get her way.
“Yes and I’ve been trying to tell you that but you wouldn’t listen.”
“I love you Onyx. Why can’t you love me and we work this out?”
Damn. Is she listening to a word I’ve been saying? For a girl that is smart in books, she acts dumb as fuck in real life.
“Because I’m with Starr now and I’m in love with her. I DON’T LOVE YOU AND I NEVER WILL,” I say, trying to get through to her.
“Why are you being so mean to me?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be mean to you, but you aren’t listening to me. I’m tired telling you that this shit between you and I, that’s over. I cared about you, but the way I feel about Starr makes me feel like I was never in love with you.”
“But you were my first,” she says.
“I know and I’m so sorry about that,” I say.
“Don’t say that! Don’t apologize for making love to me. Don’t ever do that,” she says.
“I’m apologizing for having sex with you,” I say.
“What?”
“You and I had sex, we never made love.”
“How can you say that?” she asks.
“Because it’s true Mandy. I care about you, but I never really was in love with you.”
“So you used me for sex?” she asks.
“No, not at all. I would never do that to you or anyone else. I really thought that I loved you,” I say.
“Until you got with Starr,” she says.
My phone beeps before I can respond, so I pull it from my pocket to check it. I’ve been waiting to hear from Starr ever since I got in class. I want to know how her first doctor’s visit went. Just as I hoped, it is Starr. I open up the first text message and break into a huge smile. Mandy should take notes because this is what love does to you. This is what love looks like.
Starr: Hey baby
Me: Hey…hru
Starr: Great…I know ur on ur way to ur next class, but I wanted to give u the news…I’m 14 weeks along which puts my due date around Valentine’s Day!!!?? ?? ??
Me: V Day, really? OMG! That’s amazing!
Starr: Ikr…that would b so wonderful if our baby could come on the day of?? ??
Me: That would b fantastic…I’m so happy!
“Ahem,” Mandy clears her throat.
Shit. Once I started texting Starr, she’s lucky I didn’t walk away from her ass because to be honest, I forgot she was standing here.
“You’re being really rude right now,” she says.
“Sorry, but that’s what love does to a nigga,” I tell her.
“So, you really never loved me?”
I check my phone and Starr messaged me again.
Starr: Call me when you can…I??u
Me: Ok n I??u more…
“I don’t think so. This feeling I have right now, just from answering Starr’s text, is so much different than any feelings I’ve ever had for you. I don’t know what I felt for you, but it wasn’t love. It couldn’t have been love. I never knew love until…” before I can finish, she cuts me off.
“Yea, I know. Until you got with Starr,” she says.
“That’s right.”
“Woooooowwww! You really know how to hurt a person’s feelings,” she says.
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I’m just trying to get you to see that Starr never took me from you because I was never really yours to begin with,” I say.
She stands there with tears in her eyes, but I can’t let that shit get to me because that’s the type of shit she does. She makes people feel sorry for her and t
hen she pounces on them and eats ‘em up. She’s like a spider trapping people in her lil’ funky web.
CHAPTER 8
Mandy
I’m standing here trying to wrap my head around everything that Onyx just said to me. He said he never loved me. He said we never made love, but had sex instead. What the hell does he mean we never made love? I gave up my innocence and virginity to him when I was just fifteen because he said he loved me. What the fuck was that if it wasn’t love?
Yea, I know he said we were having sex. But that couldn’t have been all it was. It couldn’t have been just sex because I was and still am totally and completely in love with Onyx. All this time I’ve been thinking we just fell off because of Starr, but here is Onyx telling me that he never wanted me in the first place. He’s staring at his stupid ass phone, looking like a giddy thirteen year old and I just wanna snatch him by his collar and slap him.
“You are the most evil dude right now,” I say.
“What are you talkin’ bout?”
“All this time, I’ve been in love with you. I thought you were someone special and this whole time, you had been playing me,” I say.
Y’all can’t possibly know how I’m feeling right now. I feel as though my heart is crushed and broken. If you have ever been in love, I mean really in love, then you should know exactly how I feel. Everything I did was for love. Everything I did was because I thought Starr had stolen my man. Now, I have a record and I’m on probation for the next four years. And I did it all for love.
Now, this fucking nigga right is telling me I was in love by myself because he never loved me. I allowed him to stick his dick in me because I thought he loved me, but he didn’t.
“I wasn’t playin’ you, so you shouldn’t look at it like that. I cared deeply for you and I really thought I was in love with you at the time. I would have never slept with you if I didn’t think I was in love with you because I’m not that type of person.”
“You did play me Onyx and you snatched away my innocence by making me think that you loved me. I can’t believe I fell for that shit,” I tell him.
“Look, I got a class to get to and I don’t have time for this bullshit. Sorry if you feel as though I played you, but I didn’t. Take care,” he says and walks off, leaving me feeling like yesterday’s trash.