When You Come to Me

by Jade Alyse

  She sat down across from him, pulling the granola bar that she’d been nibbling on down from her desk.

  “You call that food?” he asked her, opening a book, looking at her with an arched eyebrow.

  Natalie took a bite in his face and shrugged her shoulders. “It does the trick.”

  “So that explains why you’re a toothpick…”

  “I think my mother would beg to differ…”

  “Well, since I’ve never met your mother, all I can say is, you could use a steak or something…”

  “You want my help or not?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m just doing my job…”

  “Great,” she said. “Now let me do mine…how much did you study?”

  “Not much…”

  “Bran…”

  “Well, between this and Christmas shopping and FBLA meetings and all the holiday festivities, this kind of got put on the back-burner…”

  “So, you dump it all on me?”

  “Not necessarily…I have all of the problems written down…”

  “I swear you’re a handful sometimes…”

  “But, you love me through and through…”

  “That’s arguable right now…”

  She snatched the book he’d been flipping through from him and instructed him to pull out a scrap sheet of paper and a pencil.

  Natalie amazed herself. How she knew these equations, she would never know. But they seemed so easy to her. The numbers simply fit into her head perfectly once Brandon showed her the steps he was taught in class. The pencil in her hand moved wildly on the paper as she instructed him on what needed to be added, what needed to be subtracted, what needed to be plugged into the calculator, what needed to be carried where.

  “Why don’t we switch majors?” Brandon asked her. “How in the hell did I get into grad school?”

  “You’re smart,” Natalie assured him, patting him on the knee. “You just get caught up in the formula and you don’t plug it in correctly…you do it like I just showed you and I’ll guarantee you that you’ll make a good grade…”

  “God, you’re so smart,” he said. “When did you get to be so smart…?”

  “It’s not a function of being smart,” she explained. “I just look at numbers a little differently than you do…”

  “My professor’s an asshole, and he grades terribly…we’ll see if I make a good grade or not…”

  She reached up to him, pushed a few strands of his hair out of his eyes softly and smiled into his face. “You’ll do fine…and if you don’t, rest assured I’ll have a thing or two to say to your professor…”

  “Would you really?”

  “Yes, I’d tell him, ‘Sir, Mister, whatever, if you don’t give Brandon Greene a good grade I’ll knock you in the head’…”

  “Very threatening, Nat, really…and please make sure you use that sweet southern belle accent too…that’s really intimidating…”

  “Fine, I won’t say anything…”

  He reached out to her playfully, and she attempted to push his hands away, all the while failing to realize that her cheeks had now grown hot.

  “Brandon, stop it…”

  “No, really, it’s cute, you should do it just like that…I’m sure he’ll melt, really…”

  “Or, I can do this…”

  It was then that she lifted her barefoot up, stuck it in his face, feeling him reach up and knock it out, calling out, “Nat, quit it,” grabbing her ankle, attempting to hold it off that way. But she persisted, got instant pleasure out of watching Brandon squirm, watching his face wince in disgust. He caught hold to her ankle swiftly, lowering her leg forcefully.

  “When’s the last time you washed those things? They smelled…”

  “They did not…”

  “I didn’t know you could be so disgusting, Natalie Chandler…”

  “Only when pressed to be…”

  “Now, would you like it if I did that to you?”

  “No, no,” she told him, chuckling a little. “Because yours really do smell…”

  “Exactly,” he laughed. “And you wouldn’t be laughing then, would you?”

  “No, because I’d be too busy kicking your behind…”

  “You have the most incredible accent, I swear,” he laughed.

  “I do not…”

  “I do not,” he mocked. “Where on earth do you come from?”

  She knocked him over with one push of her two hands into his chest, knocking his back onto the floor. He chuckled, pulling her down with him.

  And he held her there with him, just for a second, just long enough to make her heart start beating strangely, just long enough to where she could smell him…some kind of soapy, laundry detergent scent.

  Their new thing to do together when they were bored was wrestle. Initially, Natalie fell victim to Brandon’s brute strength and height advantage, but, one rainy night in early November, Natalie discovered his weakness; he was ticklish in a nook just below his armpit. Natalie started winning every “match” thereafter.

  And she freed herself from his grasp, pushing him down again before he sat up all the way, hearing him groan and laugh at the same time as he went down. “Damn it, Nat…I wish you would let me study…you’re always distracting me…”

  “So that explains why you’re always asking me to do your homework…”

  “Yes, among other reasons,” he grinned. “Maybe I should leave…that way I’ll get some studying done…”

  She’d stood up at her desk, messing with her stereo, attempting to pick a CD to listen to. She’d turned to him, checking his face to see if he was serious, and said, “No…don’t leave…I’ll behave…”

  “Good, good,” he said, opening another book. “I wasn’t going to leave…I just have to read this chapter and we can have all of the fun that you want…I could be an accountant someday, you know…”

  “I don’t see that for you…”

  “Oh?”

  “No,” she told him, as Jill Scott sang “You’re gettin’ in the way of what I’m feelin’...” from her stereo. “I see you doing something else…something more creative…accountants are bald and boring…”

  “And what do you see me doing, Natalie Chandler?”

  “Marketing, or Advertising…where you have to come up with those cute little storyboards…”

  “You really see that for me?”

  “Yes, silly thing,” she told him, returning to her spot on the floor. “I always have…you’re far more creative than you give yourself credit for…”

  “I’d say the same about you, Nat…”

  “Please,” she began, waving her hand in front of his face. “I help you with a few equations and you think that’s something special…”

  “No, dumb ass,” he began. “The part about what you give yourself credit for…”

  “It isn’t necessary sometimes,” she told him with a shrug of her shoulders. “I just do what I have to do…”

  “And you’re very good at what you do…”

  She looked at him. Something eased her about the fact that he seemed to have her figured out. Something pleased her about that as well…

  Brandon curled his long body up into a remarkably tight ball on the floor, placed the textbook before his eyes, furrowed his brows and fell silent.

  She climbed atop her unmade bed, reached for her own book, rested it on her knees, and started to read the chapter that was assigned to her on the study guide. She knew that she had to do well on this test if she had any shot at making a decent grade in the class, but for reasons unknown to her, Brandon Greene’s lounging position on the floor captured her attention far more easily than any equation in her book.

  She watched him easily flip a page, knowing that he was a fast reader, and randomly wondered if he still thought about Sophia. She then wondered why she cared at all, because for the past couple of months, their friendship was less one-sided, and Brandon was far more of a pleasure to be aro
und, far easier to talk to, and seemed to care more about how she was carrying on her life far more than he used to. So, maybe she shouldn’t wonder or worry about it. She should savor these moments that she had Brandon here, and appreciate the fact that there was someone there that would listen to her, that was beginning to understand her.

  Perhaps a lot better than she understood herself…

  She didn’t realize that she’d fallen asleep on top of her book until Brandon shook her gently, saying, “We should go eat…”

  “Eat? What time is it?”

  “Three…”

  “As in three in the morning?”

  “Yes, genius,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And I want pizza…”

  “My exam is in five hours…”

  “Nat, you fell asleep on top of your book,” he told her, reaching for her arms in an attempt to pull her up. “I think you deserve a break…”

  He sat her up, pushed her hair out of her face, and she wiped her eyes.

  “Did you finish your chapter?”

  “Yes,” he chuckled. “A couple of hours ago…”

  “Well, what in the world have you been doing?”

  “Watching you sleep,” he admitted, with a sneaky grin. “And you snore…”

  They got into his truck, parked in a lot down the sidewalk from the dorm. They went to Mario’s on Lafayette on the other side of downtown, one of the very few places that was still open at that late hour. And Brandon bought both of them a slice of cheese and sausage each, and they returned to the dorm shortly after, consuming their food on the floor of her room together.

  And by five-thirty, tossing her book to the floor angrily, Natalie Chandler climbed into her bed, and tossed her Caucasian companion, who’d stretched out on her floor an extra blanket from her bed, and a polka-dotted throw pillow, given to her as a high school graduation present over a year ago.

  “It would be great if you didn’t snore,” Brandon said, adjusting himself on the floor.

  Natalie pulled the covers up to her cheek, rolled her eyes, and got settled in. “It would be great if you went back to your own house…there’s a bed there, you know…”

  “Yea, yea,” he mumbled. “And then you’d have a freak attack, because I left you. You can admit it now, you like me being here…”

  “I plead the fifth…”

  “I love you too,” he told her. “Did you set your alarm?”

  “Yes, mother…”

  “Goodnight, Natalie…”

  “Goodnight, Brandon…”

  #

  By springtime, when the trees swayed under speckled sunlight to a lazy, natural rhythm, Brandon found Sophia again.

  He called Natalie one night as she sat with Asha in the library. She had to whisper, but wanted to yell, wanted to reach through the phone and kill that Brandon Greene!

  “Brandon, are you crazy?” she forced through tight lips.

  “Yes, Natalie, I’m crazy,” he told her plainly. “I don’t know what happened. She came to my house, told me she loved me and that was it…I was a goner!”

  “I repeat…Brandon David Greene…are you crazy?”

  “Nat, don’t be upset…”

  “Upset? I’m not upset. I’m furious! And I’m going to kill you!”

  “Don’t be overdramatic…”

  “Fine…I won’t…but please don’t come running to me, when she starts running off at the mouth about trivial things. Or, when you start getting into fights about trivial things…”

  “I won’t, don’t worry…”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine…”

  “Are you done?” she asked him.

  A period of silence followed.

  “Yes…quite…” he answered a few seconds later.

  She didn’t say goodbye, only chose to hang up the phone, slowly, glance at Asha and roll her eyes.

  Her friend closed her textbook quickly, sighed and asked, “What has that boy done now?”

  Natalie shrugged her shoulders, rolled her eyes once more, pictured that Greene boy in her mind and said, “What else would he do that would make me want to murder him?”

  “Sophia…” Asha sighed with the slow shake of her head.

  “Exactly. Sophia…”

  “What is it with this white girl? She must give a great blow-job…”

  “Asha!”

  “What? I can’t be honest?”

  “A little too honest…”

  “I’m just saying, Nat…there must be something about that girl that keeps him running back…”

  “I just—I just wish he would open his eyes and realize that Sophia isn’t the one for him…”

  Asha nodded slowly, lowered her eyes as if to contemplate a thought, and said, “Yes, yes and that you are…”

  “What? No…no…no…no…uh…no…”

  Asha laughed. “Natalie Chandler!”

  “What?”

  “You like him! Your black ass likes him!”

  Natalie shook her head vigorously as if she’d never processed such a thought in her mind.

  “Again…no…no…no, Asha…no!”

  She had to laugh…had to laugh off the audacity of it all.

  “You do…you like that white boy! I saw it from miles away! I did! All the girls saw it…miles away!”

  “Can I not care about my friend?”

  “Oh, but of course you can, Natalie…but you not only care for him…you want him…and now that your opportunity is gone, you can only kick yourself…you like him!”

  “You’re wrong…I can only kick you…you’re crazy…”

  “Ha, you’re crazy, Natalie, crazy for him…”

  Natalie scoffed…scoffed again…laughed nervously…yes, she had absolutely nothing to say.

  “I mean…go ahead, girl…go for it…he is a good-looking little white boy, isn’t he? Well, he’s certainly not little…but…you get the point, surely…”

  “I’m not going for anything…Brandon and I [She pictured Brandon, his long body extended on her dorm room floor, a book in his hands, a Georgia hoodie hugging him…her, loving the fact that her friend is there…Brandon Greene, her best friend]…Brandon and I…are just…friends…yes, friends…”

  She had to admit that, somewhere in the course of her college career (thus far), somewhere in between the time that the leaves fell to the time the flowers and the trees bloomed, somewhere between midterms and pop quizzes and block parties, dinners in the cafeteria, all-nighters in the library, sporting events, she had grown to love Brandon. How did this happen?

  It was warm at the end of the week when she heard from Brandon again. He showed up at her dorm door unexpectedly, was silent when she opened the door and spotted him there. She reached for her jacket, shut the door behind her and followed him to the parking lot, where the green Explorer waited patiently. They climbed in together, silent still, and in short time they were walking down the sidewalk downtown, the breeze cool, her arm locked with his.

  “I want you to understand why I did it,” he began as they walked slowly, their strides in sync. “I know I’ve complained and complained about her so many times, I…I think I know what I’m doing, Natalie…”

  Natalie glanced up toward the night sky, saw its clarity, sighed.

  “Bran, when it’s all said and done, I just want you to be happy,” she told him calmly. “And in that same respect, you are an adult…and you can do just about whatever you want…my opinion of your choices shouldn’t matter…”

  “But it does,” he told her. “It always does. Who else can I talk to about this, but you?”

  Natalie shrugged her shoulders.

  “I love her, Nat,” he said quietly. “Shouldn’t that be enough?”

  “I’ve always been taught that if it’s the kind of love that completes you, changes you for the better in some kind of way, then it’s the right kind of love…if Sophia is that girl…then…”

  Brandon only
nodded. She had not yet grasped enough of him to read him. She only hoped, for his sake, of course, that Sophia was that girl who ever the girl may be…

  In the following weeks, she saw very little of her friend, rarely heard from him, with the exception of an occasional phone call, the primary subject of which, of course, was how amazing his relationship with Sophia was.

  “How is she?” Natalie asked him. She secretly hoped that he’d say that she was terrible, that the sex was terrible, that he’d made his final mistake with her.

  “She’s great,” he’d told her with a pleased sigh. “Things have returned to some stint of normalcy…it’s almost as if she’s a new person…”

  “Oh…”

  “How are you, Nat?”

  “I’m fine…”

  “Fine?”

  “Yes, Brandon, fine…”

  “That’s good to hear…well, I have to run…we’re going out to dinner…call you later…”

  “Bye…”

  #

  It was in this time that she got the chance to reconnect with Asha, and took a small time to expand her social circle, if only by a little, just enough to the point where she felt socially comfortable. This included joining the chemistry club, where, with her knack for organic chemistry, she was appointed vice president. This also included going to the occasional party or two, a venture that Brandon had previously said not to take without him. This included the occasional club trip with Asha, the block parties, the cookouts, a road trip or two into Atlanta…anything that could convince herself that her college career didn’t surround Brandon Greene…

  Then, Brandon called one night, over a month following the separation, wanting to go out with her.

  “A movie,” he’d said. “Just someplace quiet.”

  He showed up outside of her dorm building, and when she slid into the passenger seat beside him, she took notice of his appearance. He certainly didn’t look the same, certainly had a darker shadow about him, allowed his hair to grow out longer than what looked right on him.