He caught his balance and growled, “Who got your back if I’m not there? Smoothing it over with the teachers and the principal when you run at the mouth. Helping you finish fights you started all these years.”
“Oh, okay. Like, you don’t get something out of having my back? Looking like the good one, when you were scheming like me. Half of those fights, I was defending you and your stupid actions.” I huffed. “You got my back when it’s something you want, but not when it’s something I want. You want to be my friend, then be there for me even if it doesn’t make sense to you.”
Kody’s light brown skin reddened. “You want to make a fool out of yourself and be the Black Garth Brooks, then go for it.” He tucked the ball under his arm and stalked in the direction of his house, down the street from the rundown apartments where I lived.
“Fuck,” I yelled. How did we end up fighting?
We’d been friends since the sixth grade, when we were the tallest boys in our class, and the teacher sat us together. At first, he hated me. He would say slick shit under his breath and try to start fights with me over nothing. And I can admit I was jealous because he had a mom and would talk about his dad. I’d just lost my mother in the fifth grade and stayed mad at the world because my father forced my brother and me to live with him in Dallas instead of with my granny in Houston. Kody was also better at hiding his dirt than I was. I was too outspokenand defiant. Ready to stand on my shit even when I was wrong. Then one day during PE, he tripped me, and I punched him, and we ended up fighting. In the principal’s office, we sat for hours because neither of our parents could be contacted. Finally, the annoyed principal drove us home to even more annoyed parents. When we realized how close we lived to each other and that we had neglectful parents, something clicked, and we became best friends.
I also knew that the sixth-grade boy who hated me still lived inside Kody.
Although we remained friends and still kicked it the rest of our senior year, something shifted. I couldn’t put my finger on it, except he started saying slick shit about my guitar and singing. Or that he teased me for waiting by Jamaica’s locker every morning to talk to her and chasing after a girl who was out of my league. He told me he couldn’t see what I saw in her anyway and that her father would never accept me. I ignored him, chalking it up to his immaturity and unwillingness to admit that I no longer needed him like I used to. I realized I wanted to be different and break the cycle of alcoholism, aggression, and poverty that ran rampant in my family. I wanted to be someone adults would be proud of.
Even if it was only to attract the attention of a girl who had already captured my heart.
PRESENT DAY
While I sang, I searched the audience for Jamaica. I hope sheremembered what this song meant to me and to us. I hope that she remembered how happy I made her and not the pain she eventually felt for loving me. I hope she understood that I planned to fight for her this time. It was our time to be a family.
Maybe if she’d married another man, or didn’t tremble when I kissed her neck. Maybe if she didn’t look at me with such longing and need when our eyes connected again. Maybe if she didn’t have a piece of me. Maybe if she told me she no longer loved me, I could walk away and never look back.
Whether she meant to or not, Jamaica had given me a sign that she would be mine again.
The crowd yelled when I finished singing, and Jamaica was nowhere to be found. Probably hiding again. I smiled at her understandable cowardice. She’d been the same in high school when I first pursued her. She hated conflict and confrontation as much as she hated dealing with her deep emotions for me. “Thank y’all so much. It’s been a blessing to be able to do what I do every single day, and I don’t want to ever take this life for granted. But before I sing a couple more tunes, I have a favor.”
“Anything.” Several women chimed in, and the audience chuckled.
“Some of you may remember I didn’t make it to my prom. Got myself into some trouble.” I playfully wiped my perspiring brow. “Whew…so glad all of that is in the past. But what I want to do…bear with me for a little while longer, and I promise to give you a mini concert…I need to ask this one lady to dance with me.
The women started yelling and bouncing around trying to get my attention, and I laughed. “I already got her picked out. I owe her a dance since my black ass messed up and didn’t take her to the prom like I promised.” Still searching the audience, I caught Lori’s bright smile. She stood near the back of the hall. “That’sher best friend, right there. Lori, wave to our classmates and go get your friend for me if she’s still here.”
Lori raised her hands high and jumped up and down excitedly before she rushed out of the hall, followed by a few other women. I whispered the song to the DJ that I wanted him to play once Jamaica returned. She would be pissed with me for showing off like this. She didn’t like this kind of attention, and yet, I couldn’t think of any other way to get her to dance with me, except to be out in the open.
Two cheesing women pulled a reluctant Jamaica back into the hall as the crowd parted for me to step down from the small stage and meet her in the middle. “She so mad with me, y’all. Jamaica never liked the spotlight, though I see she still loves being in charge.”
Her eyes rolled hard, but I saw the smile she tried to keep hidden as she was pushed toward me by Lori and two other women. She frowned as I placed my hat on her head, and I picked up her trembling left hand. “I know she married and who she’s married to, so stop trying to start shit. Just want to give her the dance she deserved all those years ago.”
The audience oohed and awed asThere Goes My Babyby Usher blasted through the banquet hall. She narrowed her eyes. “You’re so wrong. You know that was my song in high school.”
“Can I have this dance?” I asked, and she nodded with an exasperated expression. “Now, all y’all dance and stop staring at us so she can loosen up. It’s a party, right?”
People fell in line around us in the darkened room, though I knew eyes and cameras were zoned in on the hometown star dancing with his high school sweetheart.
Up close, I could see the pale white telltale spots on her cheeks. She’d been crying. My gut twisted. I pulled her close enough so she could hear me, but still respectable because she did have a husband. My arms went around her waist, and herscircled my neck. “I had no choice. I thought you might have run again.”
“Iwasheaded out the door before you started singing, and suddenly I couldn’t move. I haven’t heard you sing in years.” Jamaica looked at me long enough for me to see that I had affected her deeply.
“You were my motivation.” I clasped my hands tighter around her waist. “Don’t be mad with me for wanting to spend a little more time with you.
“I’m trying not to be. Everyone’s staring. It’s going to get back to Kody, and I’ll have to hear his mouth.”
I glanced around the room at the watchful faces, probably reading our lips. “Yeah, Kodyisgoing to be pissed. Just not enough to turn down the contract to build my homestead and the studio downtown. He always did love money.”
“What did you say?” Her doe eyes narrowed.
“Kody agreed to the terms of a contract that my lawyer drew up.” I tilted my head, assessing her. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “You must have used an alias.”
