It was awkward. I just sat there,
waiting for Tito to say something. The moon glistened on the lake, almost
silver on the black of the water. “I’m sorry… Are we-?” He gave me a sideways look. “What do you think?” I felt
the apologetic look creep onto my face and replied in a whisper, “No.” A tear slid down my cheek when I realized what
this meant. My life was over. Without Tito, I had nothing. Absolutely nothing.
My whole family left me, and it’s not like I had friends. Nobody wanted to hang out with the girl
dating a famous person from a popular band. I guess they must be jealous.
”Can we still be… friends?” At
this, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “For as long as I am alive, I will
always love you. Whether as a friend, or as a spouse, I will always love you.” I was some-what
confused, but I nodded silently. He stood up and extended his hand. I stood up
slowly and grabbed it, wiping my tears away with my other hand.
The
only sound as we walked back to the car was the crunching of the rocks below
our feet. The air was icy, considerably awful in contrast to the warm day
earlier. A single star was visible in the pitch blackness that was the sky, but
it was a bright star. The moon was shining through the clouds, giving the
atmosphere a creepy tinge.
We
reached the car, and with one last glance at that one star, I opened the
passenger door and entered the ’77 Volkswagen. “Would you like to stay over
anyway? Michael and Randy and Jermaine and Jackie have all been wantin’ to see
you. It’s been a while you know.” All of them? That’s peculiar. I nodded
regardless. “Yeah, sure I guess.” He nodded in response.
After
strolling for a while, the VW creeped up the all-too-familiar winding path to
the Jackson household. The lights seemed to be on in most of the rooms. I
looked at Tito hoping for some explanation. “Family Night. I thought maybe you’d
wanna cheer up?” I nodded with a modest smile. Perhaps. I guess I haven’t seen
the family in a while. “So let’s go.” We walked up the steps leading to the
door where Tito extracted his keys from his jacket and inserted the correct one
into the keyhole. He rattled it around until it fit, twisted it, and turned the
knob. The door opened and he led me inside to the kitchen. Joe and Katherine
were sitting at the table watching television. “Teressa! How are you dear?”
Katherine greeted me politely. “I’m great! Thanks for asking. How are you
holding up? And Joe, how are things?” Katherine smiled warmly and Joe mumbled
something about, “Boys… Girls every night… re-issue curfew…” I raised a single
eyebrow. “That’s great? Ha.” Tito engaged in conversation with Joe about some
tune they heard on the radio, so I decided to leave them to it and check on the
boys. I peeked in from the doorway, and I saw a glimpse of the boys playing
Twister. I grinned somewhat cheekily and walked forward. “I could beat you and
you all know it…” Jermaine looked over and chuckled while the kids ran over
saying “ ‘Ressa!”. Michael remained on the mat staring at the blue dot between
his feet. Well, if you could call them kids. La Toya and Janet were nearly the
age I was when I started dating, and Randy… well he’s no baby. Jackie and
Jermaine were sitting on the arms of the loveseat laughing and drinking Budweiser’s.
“Michael?
You okay?” I asked. I gave Randy a tussle and made my way to the array of
colorful dots on the floor where Michael resided. “Great, whatever, how are
you?” He gave me such a nasty attitude that I wanted to slap him. “Uhh… well me
and Tito just broke up.” His nasty attitude was replaced with a look of detest.
“REALLY?” He manically shook his head and bobbed his head. He then reacted, “What, you want a birthday cake?” I poked his
tummy then said, “You know, you’re a
real ass.” I lowered myself onto the dot beside him. “yeah, I know.” I
rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
* * *
I
was pretty sure I fell asleep, because the next thing I know, birds are
tweetling while the sky has a white-ish/blue-ish tint, and the trees are a
pitch black. I had somehow made my way into a bed with satin sheets and a white
comforter. The presence of another was obvious, so I casually turned onto my
opposite side and peeked at the other person.
It was Tito. Well, I can’t say I’m
surprised. I carefully moved closer to him and got comfortable. However, my
internal parts didn’t feel the need to cooperate, special emphasis on my
bladder. I groaned quietly and slid to the end of the bed and rolled out. I
brushed myself off and travelled to the door and down the hall to the bathroom.
I opened the door and took a seat. The water
made the splish splash noise. I
pulled my undies up and sanitized my hands.
Using my foot, I flushed the commode and made my way back to Tito’s
room.
Until a noise in the kitchen caught
my attention. I got on my knees and crawled to the door pane. It was Michael. He was prancing around with
what appeared to be his iPod in his pocket, while he was drinking the orange
juice out of the jug. He was dressed in a blue sweatshirt and black basketball
shorts. The clock on the wall said 6:07 AM. He must’ve gone out for a jog or
something; or was about to. I quickly tip toed to Tito’s room and grabbed my
clothes. I guess I changed into a T-shirt last night. I put on my soccer pants
and tank – top. I hurried back to the door frame on my knees again, to find Tito
was still there. Actually, he was about to head out the door from what it
looked like. He swiftly changed the song on his iPod to (from what I could
hear,) “Fuck U Betta”, by Neon Hitch, and headed out the door. I grabbed my
iPhone from the counter, including my ear buds, and quietly followed him.
He
walked briskly down the driveway and once he hit the street, he started to jog.
I jogged too. It was pretty cold out, but for some reason, it was also very
sunny. I kept my distance for about the first five minutes, but my stride
gained more speed than I wanted. I stepped on his heel and we tumbled over onto
eachother. We practically rolled down the hill, and at the base, my knee was
gashed up pretty bad, and I had bruises all over. Thankfully, my phone was
safe, crack and scratch free. But I had a cut on my nose and two black eyes,
according to the reflection my screen showed.
Michael’s
leg looked horrible, it was covered in blood. “Michael, are you okay?” I
mumbled. “Does it look like I am
okay?” He added extra stress onto the word ‘okay’. I shook my head. “What the
hell were you doing following me anyway? Weren’t you entertained enough with Tito?”
I didn’t really know what he meant.
“Sure, because napping really pumps
my nads?” I said unsure, standing up. He gave me the evil eye and extended his
hand. “Are you gonna help me up or not?” I helped him up unenthusiastically and
pulled up my pants. “I wanted to see where you were going. No one else was
awake, and I was bored.” He rolled his eyes. “And isn’t that just the excuse of
the decade…”