I looked at her. She was telling me that since I’d taken her virginity years ago, she hadn’t been with anyone other than me.
“And I mean nobody,” she said. “Not one other person. Because nobody has ever had my heart the way you do and I think we both know that. I want you, we just live in two different worlds.”
“That means everything and nothing at the same time Bri. You can give me your whole heart and still not be able to give me the one thing I’m asking for. Which is to just be real about what this is and stand on business about what you want. We’re grown.”
“It’s complicated Street. My family—”
“Yo family? I’m so damn tired of hearing about them muthafuckas, man. Is it your life, or theirs that you living?” I stepped back slightly. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re twenty two years old. You’re a grown woman. And your family is still the reason you can’t be real with yo damn self.”
She looked at me and I could see her facial expression change. She was trying to hold together and I let her work through her emotions on her own because pushing her wasn’t going to get me anywhere that I hadn’t already been a hundred times before. I loved the fuck outta Bri, but I had to face the fact that she wasn’t mine, and probably never would be. Soon, I’d have to really move the fuck on. As I stood there, I had a flashback to senior year.
—
Prom night.
Four years ago.
It had taken everything, and I mean everything to get to this point. There was weeks of Bri working on her parents, conversations I wasn’t in the room for. Promises made and conditions set, just to get her father to allow us to go to the prom together. He had never liked me. From the first time Brielle brought me around her family there was something about the way her father looked at me.
His looks went beyond just not wanting a hood kid around his daughter. It was something more specific than that. Something that felt almost like recognition except we had never metbefore. Still, the nigga acted as if he knew me already and couldn’t stand anything about me. I couldn’t make sense of it so I ignored his ass left it alone. I wanted his daughter, not his ass.
The condition of us going together was that he’d chaperon the prom. That was some weird ass shit, but I had no choice other than to agree.
I didn’t care where his ass was gonna be honestly. I just wanted the night with my girl, who wasn’t really officially my girl yet.
Bri had been mine since the day I stepped foot into that private school. Although she didn’t know it, everything about her said that she wanted me to. You never saw her without me. We had most of the same classes, and we spent all our free time together, laughing and joking. With her, I didn’t have to be the hard ass nigga that I was when I was home. I could just be a regular kid.
Prom night had been a good night. Bri in a dress that I still thought about if I was being honest. She looked like ole girl in that Cinderella movie. She was definitely on some princess type shit. I had rented a corvette for us to take to prom, and her hoe ass pops objected til the last minute. Her moms had to force the nigga to agree. He wanted to control every aspect of Bri’s life like she wasn’t damn near grown. Still, we made the best of the night.
I remembered the pictures in the lobby, dancing together while I knew damn well that dancing wasn’t for me, just being two people who finally was about to be in the moment after years of playing around. Us finally getting to exist in the same space without all the complications sitting on top of it.
The night was so damn good, I didn’t even notice that her pops was there at all. Shit was damn near perfect a the highlight of my senior year. Right up until Clarence.
He was the most popular nigga at Westfield. He was the kind of popular that came with money. This nigga had the confidence of somebody who had never once been told no by anyone ever in his life. He had been looking at Brielle since freshman year the same way that niggas looked at girls that they felt entitled to. She had never given him the time of day which I knew bothered him even if he played it off. He was that nigga and he could have whatever he wanted around the school except for her.
He walked up in the middle of our dance and grabbed Brielle by the arm and pulled her toward him.
“Dance with me,” he demanded. Not a question. “You don’t need to be wasting your time with some poor ass nigga who shouldn’t even be here.”
Brielle pulled her arm back. “Clarence stop.”
“I’m serious. Come on.”
I but the inside of my jaw because this lame ass nigga had really tried me. I stepped forward. “She said stop and that she’s good. Get yo thirsty, unwanted ass on somewhere.”
He looked at me with that kind of look that people had when they felt like the person in front of them was beneath them. The look in his eyes let me know that he wanted a problem with me. He looked at me as just some lame ass nigga that he could beat or something. Then he grabbed her arm again tighter.
I told him one more time.
He spit in my face. I mean, the nigga actually hawked up some spit from his nasty ass mouth, and he spit on me.
I don’t remember making a decision after that. I just remember Clarence hitting the floor, then the crack of his nose under my fist and the screaming around us. The whole school was scared after I got on his ass and wouldn’t let up. Brielle’s father appearing out of nowhere grabbing her and pulling her toward the exit. He was looking back at me over his shoulder with an expression that wasn’t just anger.
It was something else. Something that looked almost like fear, and recognition again.
I called Gutta, ran down what I’d just done and his ass pulled up within minutes. I never had to beg him to do shit, he was just always gonna come through for me. We got out of there before the police came.
Three hours later Brielle called me from her mother’s car that she had taken without permission. She apologized repeatedly telling me she was sorry and that she needed to see me. We got a room at the Hilton and what happened that night was something I had carried with me every day since. She gave me something she had never given anybody else and I understood the weight of that even at eighteen years old and it had meant everything. Bri wasn’t my first, but I was hers. She was the first and only girl I allowed myself to love though.
