“No, I want to go out and have fun. I’ve watched from the sidelines for so long. I’m fine,” I lifted my shirt to dry my tears.
“Are you sure?” Essex wondered.
“I’m positive,” I reassured him.
“It’s a party then!” Victoria bubbled. “Go pack a bag, though. We are going to just stay the night there since we don’t have to be back until noon for the second part of orientation.”
“Okay. I’ll pack a quick bag.”
They trailed me back to my side of the dorm and we entered my room.
“Look at this bullshit, you don’t even like pink,” Essex grumbled. “We can go shopping tomorrow and redo this. I’ll donate this pink shit to somebody in need when we get back home. They know your favorite color is yellow, and you hate pink, but they still bought you all of this pink shit.”
“It’s okay, Essex. We don’t have to do that. You’ve already done enough,” I refuted.
“It’s never enough.”
I didn’t bother arguing. I’d already come to terms with the pink side of my room. My only focus was some fun.
“Go in that bag,” Rashawn suggested, interrupting my stare down with Essex.
My eyes lifted towards him for the second time. He looked good as always, his waves were spinning, clothes crisp, and white Forces fresh. Tattoos covered both of Rashawn’s arms, and a single chain with a Jesus piece rested on his neck. I prayed they couldn’t see the twinge of excitement I stifled after hearing Rashawn’s voice. When I opened the bag, there was a new phone, plus all of the medals I’d won in wrestling over the last two years, and a yellow picture frame with a picture of the four of us at my final wrestling match. As bad as I wanted to shed more tears, I fought them and rushed Essex, wrapping my arms around him again, incessantly pecking his cheek like a woodpecker.
“This will make the perfect addition to my room decor,” I admitted.
“Rashawn told me to bring the medals for you, so it’s him you need to be thanking,” he acknowledged. “Me and Victoria got you the picture frame, picture, and phone.”
“Thank you, Rashawn,” I chirped.
“You’re welcome.”
An hour later, we were headed to Trisha’s rental property. It was my first college party and I enjoyed myself. I didn’t drink, but everyone else did. Trisha kicked all the boys out except for Essex and Rashawn since they were family.
In the middle of the night, I left my room to grab a bottle of water. The house was dead silent, but a faint plume of smoke floated out of Rashawn’s room, leaving behind a trail of potent weed smoke. My feet veered off my original path back to the room I claimed, and I was in Rashawn’s room before I couldstop myself. His head whipped around in my direction, and he offered me a low, lazy smirk when he heard me enter the room.
“What you doing up?” He quizzed.
I padded into the room and plopped down on the foot of the bed beside Rashawn before I could stop myself. A part of me wasn’t sure what in the world I was doing in his room, but the newfound free part of me pushed those thoughts away. There was a massive window overlooking the pool, and Rashawn was staring out of it, observing the endless stretch of trees beyond the pool.
“I never went to sleep. I just had so much on my mind.”
“Oh yeah, you want to talk about it?” He questioned, glancing over at me.
“I was just mulling over my future. Nervous about the next few years in college up here.”
“Why you nervous? Yo ass been smart as hell since we were in elementary school. Always sitting in the front, ready to learn. What changed?” He queried, taking a long pull from the blunt.
“Nothing,” I refuted as Rashawn turned away from me to exhale the weed smoke. I admired his side profile while he emitted the endless trail of smoke. It actually smelled good to me. “I didn’t realize you noticed that in elementary school.”
“Of course. I couldn’t miss it. We were in the same class twice, third and fifth grade. It was hard not to notice the pretty smart girl at the front of the class. Then we got to middle school, and you skated on us, got placed in the advanced and honors classes, leaving us behind in gen pop. Weren’t you taking dual enrollment classes the last two years? Essex said that’s where you used to be after school on the days you didn’t have wrestling practice.”
Rashawn took another pull and allowed the silence to consume us.
“Essex be over there telling you all my business, huh?”
“That ain’t really shit to tell,” he uttered while exhaling.
“You look so relaxed while you do that. Let me try it,” I coaxed, extending my hand with my palm wide open.
