Cruise Control (Watchers Crew)

by Johnson, Ines

“You want breakfast?”

  “No, Momma. I was thinking about taking a walk.”

  “Okay, pick up a pack of Kools for me.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?”

  My mother tore her eyes away from the window. Her fingers grasped the phone. “You know I can’t leave, Shakira. What if your father calls and needs me to come pick him up? What if I’m not here when he comes home?” She pulled the phone into her lap and turned back to the window, taking another pull of her cigarette. “He forgot his key the last time he left. I don’t want to leave just to have to run back home. Like I always told you, a man isn’t really yours if you have to chase after him. Why don’t you sit with me for a while?”

  I sat down in the folding chair beside her, not the comforter opposite her; that was my father’s chair. Its cushions were plump as though it hadn’t been sat in for weeks, maybe months this time. I had no idea the last time my father returned home this year.

  My mother kept this place exactly as it had been when my dad lived here full time. No additions of trinkets, no subtractions of anything. She sat bound to that chair with no ropes, not even a voice command. My father didn’t care if she came or went. But she chose to always be here just in case he called or stopped by because a real woman always stood by her man, even if he wasn’t there.

  I shook my mother’s voice out of my head. “I gotta get back to campus, Momma. Exams are coming up.”

  She nodded her head, her attention focused off in the distance up the street. I doubt it registered when I walked out the door.

  *******

  I turned in my biology exam, certain I’d aced it. I’d spouted a lot of bullshit about natural selection and the Theory of Super Fecundity. To solve Darwin’s issues of organisms producing more offspring than what’s required to replace themselves, I recommended that the world adapt to a polyamorous model of matriarchy where one woman would mate with a number of males. She could only have one to two offspring at any one time. If none of the males were sure of the paternity then they’d all be compelled to care for the woman and the child. To prove my theory, I pointed to bees, which my biology tutor, Ellie, had pointed to as an example early in our sessions. I was certain my Biology 101 professor, who was an older female, would get a kick out of the paper if nothing else.

  With that over, I made my way out of the classroom and ran into Ellie. She was dressed in jean shorts and a t-shirt. I realized I’d never seen her out of knee length skirts… or naked.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  I shrugged, not wanting to discuss my break up. Ellie reached out for my shoulder. I let her touch me, not realizing until she did how much I needed the contact.

  “If you need somebody to talk to, I’m here,” she said. “I doubt any of your other girlfriends would understand the choices you made in the last few weeks.”

  I didn’t really have other girlfriends. I’d never trusted them to not try and steal my man. I looked at Ellie with her trusting blue eyes and friendly smile. It was the same smile she’d given me when she agreed to fuck my boyfriend to show me that there was nothing to worry about in sharing sexual partners. I should feel angry with her for opening the door and then her legs, but I didn’t. She’d only been trying to help then. I believed she was trying to help me now.

  “I thought he was different,” I said. “I thought if we kept everything out in the open I wouldn’t get hurt. But he lied to me. He cheated on me just like all the others.”

  Ellie led me to a bench under a tree. “When you say he cheated, what do you mean exactly?”

  “He fucked another woman. It’s the one thing we agreed he would not do -without my okay first. I was trying to live his lifestyle. I did everything he asked. And he couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

  “Did he actually take it out of his pants with this other woman?” Ellie asked.

  “He was playing with her clit. Fondling is fucking in my book.”

  “I’m not discounting what you feel,” Ellie continued, rubbing my shoulder. “But I think you should talk to him. I suspect fondling is not in his definition of fucking.”

  “All men are just selfish, immature, and incapable of commitment. This whole fuck-my-friends thing is just a cover to fuck whoever he wants without taking any responsibility. I thought I could deal with it. How do you?”

  Ellie leaned back against the bench and thought about her answer before giving it to me. “It’s not that I don’t get angry or jealous when Hawk’s with somebody else. I didn’t when he was with you because I know you. I feel more comfortable when he’s fucking somebody I know.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, sis, but I don’t think I’ll be fucking your boyfriend again any time soon. I don’t think I’ll be fucking any man again anytime soon. It’s times like these that I wish I were a lesbian.”

  Ellie chuckled. “I’m sure lesbians have the same problems as heterosexuals. What I’ve realized is that when I’m feeling a way about Hawk having sex with someone else it’s rarely his fault.”

  I recoiled at her statement.

  Ellie held up her hands in a stop motion. “Just listen for a sec. When I get jealous or angry it’s usually because of something I’m insecure about. If we argue, and we have, it’s never about sex. Maybe I feel like another girl is more attractive than me. Or she has better moves. And that all might be true. But those are my issues. Hawk thinks I’m beautiful, and he’s happy just to hold me in his arms.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocketbook. We both looked down at my purse. I didn’t need to take it out to know who was calling me. Again.

  “Do you think this could be about something else?” Ellie hedged.

  “You’re asking if this is somehow my fault?”

  “No, that’s -"

  “I gave him total control over me and he abused that power and fucked someone else. I’m tired of being fucked over. I’m just going to stay by myself.”

  I got up and marched away, leaving Ellie behind and my phone buried in my purse.

  I stomped across the grounds, trying to drown out Ellie’s accusations. How could she think this was possibly my fault? I hadn’t broken my promise to Owl. I’d given him more than I’d been prepared to give, and he took advantage. I was serious with what I’d said; I was done with men, done with dating. I obviously wasn’t cut out for it.

  I saw girls sitting under a tree, pretending to have a conversation with each other while looking at their phones and alternately looking around at the guys walking around the campus. They plumped up their breasts and flicked their hair any time one would come near.

  I saw a couple embracing on a blanket. That look of love and devotion was in the girl’s eyes. The guy looked up at me and winked.

  I moved past it all without looking back. I made my way to my dorm. Only to find that what I was trying to get away from was there sitting on the floor outside my door.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Owl didn’t get up when he saw me enter the hall. He just stared at me, his eyes drinking me in. He sat with his back against my dorm room door in dark jeans and a white, collared shirt. His legs were stretched out before him like he’d been there for quite a while.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I said.

  He looked down at his phone in his hand and nodded. Slowly, he brought his legs up under him and stood. He put his phone in his pocket. He brushed off the back of his pants and took a step.

  I thought he was going to go. My heart screamed in my chest to stop him. It was the struggle of my life to stay still and silent.

  “I’m going to…” He stopped, cleared his throat, and then started again. “I would like to apologize for what happened the other day first, and then I’ll go. I owe that much to you.”

  He stood there silently, waiting for my response. I wondered if I told him no, that I didn’t want to hear any apology, to just go, would he?

  His hands rested at his sides. I looked down at the floor instead of looking at the fingers that had been on
that other woman. When I said nothing, I guess he took that as a sign to continue.

  “I shouldn’t have commanded you to come in the middle of the street like that. It was a violation and I’m sorry.”

  I glanced up at him. He stood there looking contrite and miserable. I heard my heart, as well as my resolve, crack at the sight of him. I had been so angry these last twenty-four hours I’d never thought about what he must be going through.

  Wait, no. I didn’t care what he was going through. He brought this on himself.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all?”

  Owl’s handsome face crumbled in confusion. “Well, yes. I took advantage of something sacred between us by ordering you to come out in the wide-open while you were vulnerable. That was a betrayal of your trust. I promise you it will never happen again, and I hope you will forgive me. I’m willing to work to regain your trust.”

  I stared at him, trying to find his angle. Was he going to pretend the rest of it didn’t happen? “What about the other part?”

  He frowned, looking around the hall for a clue. “What other part?”

  I dropped my bag on the floor and jerked my finger in the direction of his chest. “You cheated on me.”

  Owl held up his hands. It was a move of placation more than self-protection. When he spoke, he spoke very slowly as though I were a child just learning the English language. “Kira, aside from Ellie, who you said I could have sex with, I never fucked anyone after we committed to each other.”

  “Owl, I saw you with my own eyes. You had your hands on that woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “In the garage.”

  He paused and tilted his head up as though to shake the memory lose. “Yeah, my hands. Not my mouth or my dick.”

  I stared at him. He truly didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. I turned away from him, rubbing at the back of my neck.

  Ellie was right. What I saw and what he did were two different things in each of our eyes. A hysterical laugh bubbled up and out of me.

  “That’s what we agreed on,” he said. “Is touching like fucking to you?”

  “Yes.” The word came out on a choked laugh as I turned around to face him. “Yeah, Owl. Touching a woman’s clit, even flicking at it, which sounds painful, is still fucking her in my book.”

  He approached me cautiously, his hands up where I could see them. “It’s not to me,” he said softly, gently. “I didn’t understand that’s what it meant to you. I was not trying to hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

  His voice was so coaxing. I wanted more than anything to believe him. To go into his arms and lay my head in that space in the middle of his chest that fit me so well. To listen as our heartbeats fell naturally into sync.

  He hadn’t meant to hurt me. It had been a mistake, a misunderstanding. He was owning up to it, not hiding from it. He saw that it hurt me and he was apologizing. He was promising not to do it again.

  I believed him. I saw in his eyes that he was telling the truth. Owl always told the truth.

  He stood before me, his arms outstretched, but he wasn’t touching me. I watched his fingers jerk and tremble, as though reaching for me on their own accord, but he kept them away.

  “If I had known it would’ve hurt you,” he said, “I wouldn’t have done it. Can we please go inside and talk about this?”

  As soon as the door closed behind us, he pulled me into his arms. It felt amazingly good, like coming home. Not the home I’d just come from at my mother’s. Not the home I’d made my dorm room into.

  My body reacted to Owl like I was a part of him. He knew me so well after such a short time period. A large part of his intuition about me was because he paid attention to me. While he made love to me, his eyes were always wide open watching my reactions. But for someone who could read me so well, how could he not understand what his actions the other day would do to me?

  “I just need to hold you for a minute,” he whispered into my ear. “Where did you go? I couldn’t find you. I was going out of my mind.”

  My fingers curled into his shoulder blades. I closed my eyes and buried my face in that special place for me in his chest. “I went home. To my mother’s house,” I clarified.

  “Fuck,” he held me tighter to him. “I don’t even know where that is.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”

  Owl pulled away, but didn’t let me go. He stared into my face. His eyes roamed over my mouth, my cheeks, my eyes, all the way up to my hairline. “I want to change that, Kira. I’m not ready to lose you. I want this to work between us. We can have a closed relationship if that’s what it’ll take. No fucking, no touching, anybody else.”

  My eyes took the same journey over the topography of his face. I searched his eyes for sincerity, his mouth for the truth, his cheeks for any blush of falsehood. But by the time I got to his hairline, I still wasn’t sure. “Is that what you want?”

  “I want you.” He placed his lips on mine, softly, lightly, reverently.

  My body instantly responded to him. It was like I’d been the dead walking for the past twenty-four hours, but I came alive in this moment just for him.

  I pulled away. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? I should’ve felt certain, but I didn’t.

  “Kira?”

  “It’s me,” I confessed. “It’s not you.”

  “Baby, I don’t understand.”

  Ellie was right. It had nothing to do with the sex. It was my insecurities that he would one day change his mind and leave me any way. I was so terrified of being alone that I didn’t know how to actually be with someone.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t do that to you. I can’t do that to me. It’s not what I need.”

  “Tell me what you need, Kira, and I’ll give it to you.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t. If we get back together this is just going to happen again because there are things I need to work on.”

  Owl reached for my hands and I gave them to him. “Let me help you.”

  I placed my hand on his heart and felt it beat strongly under my palm. “I rely too much on you for validation, Owl. I rely on you to tell me how to come, when to come.”

  “We don’t have to do that any more.”

  “But I would still have to find my own voice, learn to hear my own desires. I gave you so much power over me because I didn’t take it for myself. I need to be enough for me. I need to learn to please myself, to be by myself before I can be with anyone else. Otherwise we’ll come right back to this point over and over again.”

  I watched the wheels turn in those dark eyes. I watched him search for a way through that could include him. I knew he arrived at the same conclusion as I did when he sighed and looked down at our entwined hands. The hurt look on his face almost made me change my mind.

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “What do you need from me, Kira?”

  I took a deep breath and nearly choked on the words I knew needed to be said. “I need you to give me some space.”

  Owl put his forehead against mine, pressing our temples together. His fingertips dug into my sides. He shook his head from left to right. Then he took a deep breath and sighed again. He pulled away from me with great reluctance. His jaw was tense, but it relaxed as he opened it.

  “I love you.” The words were whispered on a choked breath. Owl let out a huff of breath and said those three little words again, firmer this time.

  My heart went into attack mode. It banged against my chest to get me back into his arms, but Owl held up his hands as though he knew what those words were doing to me.

  “I’m not saying that to try and win you back. Though you should be warned that I am going to try and win you back,” he grinned. “I’m telling you this because I always tell you the truth, and you’d probably figure it out eventually.”

  He’d finally gotten something wrong about me. I would have never believed in a million years that he loved me. I couldn�
��t have. Not in the state I’d lived most of my life in.

  “I’m going to give you your space,” he said. “But I’m probably gonna fuck up from time to time because… because I know that I want to be with you, and everything in me is telling me to stay and fight for you. But that’s not going to work, is it?”

  I shook my head no. I was shell-shocked that what I was pushing away from me was exactly what I would’ve killed for. It’s what I snuck around and hacked phones and manipulated GPS’s and blew guys for.

  Owl wanted to stick around.

  Owl wanted to fight for me.

  Owl loved me.

  And I was pushing him away.

  He reached out his hand. He cupped my chin and rubbed my bottom lip. I leaned into his touch. I grabbed his wrist and held him there. He brushed his lips lightly against mine, and then he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Hey, Kira.”

  I looked up from my packing box. “Hey, Ellie. What are you doing here?”

  Ellie stood in the open doorway of my dorm room. Well, my former dorm room. It was dorm move out day tomorrow. It had been a week since I’d broken up with Owl in an attempt to find myself.

  He’d kept his word, for the most part. He hadn’t stopped by. He hadn’t called. But he had sent a few texts just to check in and make sure I was okay.

  I hated to admit that I looked forward to those texts. I hadn’t deleted a single one of them. I spent many nights in my bed by myself just looking at them, my finger hovering over the Talk button. The fact that I’d never once hit the Talk button this week was my only claim at progress in my great Self Improvement work.

  Though, honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was supposed to go about strengthening myself into the independent, self-assured woman I wanted to be.

  I had no interest in dating other guys. We’d come to the end of the school year, so I didn’t have my studies to wrap myself up in. I had however landed a great summer job at the urban planning firm that I’d been part-timing for. I hoped that would keep me busy. But other than watching Oprah and Iyanla reruns, I didn’t know what else to do with myself.