Some Day One Day

4

"So...anyone got any suggestions?" Angie broke the tension-filled air in the room when Ojay didn't respond to her question about the color scheme. I got the feeling he was slightly agitated at Angie for the machination she was trying to pull.
I was about to murmur that I suggest shoving my foot up her ass but I was way past childish, petty arguments and anyway, after a long day of work I didn't really have the energy. Sometimes I wish my parents were harder on me to have a. I'd never truly had a real because I never really needed to. I'd only done it shortly in highschool hobby with the luxury to quit at any given time—which I did when it got too hard for me.
There was nothing to catch me when I fell this time and my life basically depended on the job that I had right now.
Drowning in a river of stress, I kept my eyes downcast because of unavoidable shame. It's something that happened at a constant recently. I always felt some sort of chagrin whenever I was around people who knew about my past. That's the reason why I'd been so reluctant to be Angie's maid—not because Shawn was the best man because the thought hadn't even crossed my mind for some foolish reason—but because of the shame and anger towards myself that I felt whenever I saw family. Though it was going to be a small wedding, I don't think that would annihilate my mistake out of fear to turn to drugs when all had seemed lost.
Now with this new revelation that Shawn would be in the wedding, I was far more than reluctant and I was just spinning words in my head that I would later use to tell Angie that I was not going to be involved at any cost.
"Baby why don't you get everyone something to drink," I heard Angie instructing Ojay, "Shawn why don't you have a seat hun?"
The room recoiled into silence and this time I couldn't help but look up to see everyone's expressions—I even daringly glanced at Shawn.
Ojay had copious discomfort all over his face while Shawn's features were set in stone with nothing to give away of what he felt or thought. He was now leaning against the frame of the foyer, looking straight sightlessly ahead of him.
His leg was still slightly convulsing.
I turned to Angie whose bright attitude began to diffuse when the sourness in all of us became contagious to her.
"Oh come on." She groaned with expenditure, throwing the bridal catalogue she'd been showing me earlier onto the coffee table a few ways in front of her and surged to her feet with her hands defiantly on her hips.
"Don't tell me that the two of you still hate each other." She commented bluntly while piercing reproaching eyes at Shawn and I. Fidgeting uncomfortably, I kept my eyes everywhere but on anyone's face, focusing on my clasped hands.
"Angie." Ojay gritted her name sternly in a way that said he didn't like any of this at all.
"I can't believe this. Is that stuff in the past still getting to ya'll?"
I winced, wishing that I could staple Angie's lips together. How could she be so insensitive? She knew what the hell happened and how it had happened! Of course it was still getting to us because we'd left it unresolved.
All of those words I swallowed because I came to realize that I was too afraid to speak in front of Shawn. I wasn't ready to go through yet another streak of tears like the previous day due to his belittling words.
So I remained aphasic and detached from the conversation.
Apparently, so did Shawn.
"Come on now we were all kids then alright? We're grown-ups now. Everything's cool now."
A low scoff of what seemed like disagreement sounded and it didn't take a rocket scientist to know whom it had derived from.
"Um, you want anything to drink?" Ojay finally dissuaded the quiet air and I looked up to see if he was asking me, but saw that he was looking at Shawn. I flinched slightly when I saw that he'd been looking at me the entire time.
He slued away the instant our eyes came into contact with a shake of his head. Leaning it against the cream colored wall, with his chin hefted inquisitively, he averted his eyes between Ojay and Angie.
"Ya'll think you're really clever huh?" he asked quietly and my heart droned with an excitation and desolation that confused me. I remembered all the nights when I'd have to slip soundlessly out of bed to sit on the porch and cry silently because I hoped to hear his voice telling me that it was going to be okay. I'd always wanted to hear him but thought I would never again. Right now though, his voice was smooth and deep, and there was a slight inflection of rancor in it that trampled all over my heart. Just like when I'd met him earlier, he'd slipped up from trussing what was bottled up inside of him.
Ojay sighed heavily and oriented himself to depart from the room, "I ain' even gonna stick around for this—"
"No wait Ojay." Angie said crossly to Ojay who stopped at the covert command with a peeved expression on his face saying that he truly didn't want to be a part of this. Angie then glanced at Shawn with angry eyes, "I know what you're thinking...and oh yeah, just for your information, I do think I'm clever by the way, but not for whatever you're supposing. If you think I was trying to get the two of you back together then you must really not know me. I'm not forcing the two of you to be together if you don't want to. That's ya'lls business"
Her words seemed to force Shawn and I to look at each other, but only for a brief moment before we turned away from each other as if looking was too painful.
"This is my first wedding okay?" Angie went on, "Where I want the most important people in my life to be there. Shawn, you're like a brother to my fiancé and I. It's only natural to make you the best man. Beyonce is my cousin and bestfriend...even before Janaye. So it's only natural that I make her the maid of honor. Why can't the two of you just put away whatever animosity you have for each other and do this for Ojay and I?"
When nobody spoke, Angie added sullenly, "After all that we've done for the both of ya'll?"
"Man Angie, don't even try to go there. It's not like they owe us anything." Ojay said.
"I know that, but come on now Ojay."
Ojay simply shook his head dismally at his fiancée.
"Look, it's not about them really. It's not like I'm doing this malignantly. I just thought that the two people who I really cared about the most could be involved in the most important day of my life. That's all. I didn't mean anything by it."
Still, no one was brave enough to say anything.
I couldn't bring myself to admittedly say that I wanted to partake in the wedding. Not with the knowledge that my favorite uncle and auntie would be there, trying to wean me back into the old Beyonce they knew as a child.
Not when Shawn would be around...
A whispered expletive followed by a heavy sigh brought my eyes up to the person responsible for them--Shawn.
He was focusing on the coffee table as he pushed himself off of the wall and heading for a couch in the far corner of the room, "Iight then...What do ya'll need help with?"
Angie's face suddenly lit up like a light bulb had been flicked on in her and Ojay appeared just as pleased as she. I, on the other hand, was the complete foil of that. I hadn't expected Shawn to succumb so easily, but Shawn had always been the type to stray away from drawing attention to himself. If it meant having to sit on pins and needles through his anger, he'd go through with it. That is, until he was either caught off guard or badgered about it until his outburst was long overdue.
Then, as if on cue, Ojay and Angie's eyes fell upon me with pressuring expectance. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I looked in Shawn's direction to find that he'd followed the majority. He too was staring at me from the dark corner where he sat hunched forward, elbows on knees, with one thumb kneading into the palm of the other—he had that habit whenever his mind was somewhere else. Someone could be speaking to him and he'd appear to be attentive but if he was molding his hand that way, chances were he was thinking of something other than what he was being talked about.
His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, giving me the tantalizing view of arms where veins bulged from beneath his skin.
Precariously, I trailed up his unbuttoned shirt, ingesting nervously when I stopped at the base of his neck. Shawn's neck had always had me intrigued for some reason. It gave him an air of maturity that all the other guys in highschool hadn't seemed to have. He still had that aura about him right now. My curious journey traversed all the way up to the brown pools of his eyes, but just as I arrived, he furled his lips and deserted his eyes away from me. Gangs of muscles worked along his jaw and I concluded that his left knee had still not given up its faint twitching.
"Beyonce..." Angie sung out my name in a way that made me want to twine my fingers around her neck and squeeze real, tightly.
"I'll help in any way that I can." I murmured softly, trying not to frown but failing miserably as I kept my eyes latched to the carpeted floor. It swayed in front of me and I nearly toppled over. As I rubbed my eyes with a painful grimace on my face, I mused grimly over how my earlier assumptions had come alive. The headache was a monster now, pounding away so viciously that I could barely hear Ojay when he asked me what I wanted to drink.
Off handedly, I muttered that I'd be okay with water even though my growling tummy told me that I wanted and very much needed more. He went on to ask Angie and Shawn what they wanted. Angie, some lemonade, Shawn, nothing. Before he left, I called him back to me and asked if he could give me some aspirin alongside the water. He gave me a strange look but before he could say anything, I told him that it was just a small headache and that I'd be fine even if they didn't have any. He said he'd get me some anyway.
"Man this is gonna be so much fun!" Angie chirped, but I refused to look at her because Lord knew that if I did, I might just slap the taste out of her mouth. I was trying not to be selfish, but it was getting really difficult.
"Everything's going to be great. Oh yeah, I hope ya'll don't have any kind of plans this coming weekend." She added out of what seemed like something spontaneous, like it had just popped into her mind.
Angie's announcement hung with no reaction from anyone. I didn't know what Shawn was doing but I was focusing solely on my Nails from my lap.
"Anyone wanna know why?" Angie prodded next and by the faltering in her tone I could tell she was discouraged by the silence.
"Anybody..." she said somewhere in between a threat and a demand.
"Why Angie." I said, more than asked with a sigh. I was losing my patience with this damn woman. I loved her to death but damn sometimes!
"Because Ojay's dad is hosting a prewedding party on Saturday night. This one is only for his coworkers and Ojay's coworkers though."
Ojay worked in his father's million-dollar, and still growing, real estate business. Shawn worked in the same company too.
By then Ojay returned and I thanked him with a smile when he handed me my glass of chilled water partnered with a paper towel with two aspirins within it. After sscarfing down the pills first, I watered down my hunger with few, but large gulps and set the glass on a coaster that Ojay had obediently placed on the table next to me. Subsequently, I continued the task of focusing on my Nails.
"So why should I go?" I asked after Angie quelled from ranting about the party, trying desperately to find a way to get myself out of this tangled web.
"Because the only others allowed to come are the bride's only maid and the best man."
Her explanation forced me to glare at her. She really thought that lame excuse was a valid one and what pissed me off some more is that she had the nerve to smile at me after she said it.
Angie was such a trip sometimes.
She ignored my accusatory glance and turned to Shawn, who was currently reclined in the club chair. With both arms on the arm of the chair, one hand hovered his mouth, giving more volume to the nonchalant look on his face. The image made me shift uncomfortably and turn away with burning cheeks. I guess I was remembering how he looked so unfairly good at everything he did.
"Shawn that means you would've come even if you weren't Ojay's best man." She turned to me again, "And since most of the people there will be Ojay's work mates, I won't really be familiar with anyone and I don't want to get all lonely and shit. So it would be nice for you to come."
I wanted to curse her out and say that she couldn't have everything her way all the time and that I wouldn't show up for the reception, much less this dumb wedding!
"Okay." I answered succinctly instead with a depleted sigh, resting my elbow on the arm of the chair and rubbing my head in hopes that to dispel my headache which grew more outrageous by the minute.
"Oh yeah, ya'll could bring dates if ya'll want." Angie suggested, obliviously added more fuel to the fire as she picked up her magazine and thumbed through the pages.
If I was supposed to be there to keep her company, why did I need to have a date?
The thought of dating made me sick to my stomach. I hadn't dated since...well...since Lee in college. At that point in my life I was always so tired that I didn't really care at all about meeting any new people or dating someone at that. I was devoid of any energy. And also, every guy that I met, I kept comparing to Shawn.
So, in a way, I was held fully responsible for my own loneliness.
"Ooookay," Angie drawled out when the room got too quiet for her liking and turned to Ojay who was seated on the couch adjacent to Shawn's, "So um now that that's settled. Have ya'll seen the tailor for your suits yet?"
"Nope." Ojay answered dryly.
Angie remained quiet a moment.
I smiled faintly for the first time that evening because I knew what was about to take place.
"Why not Ojay?"
"Been busy I guess." he answered callously.
"Busy? You know what Ojay I'm starting to think you don't want to get married. Cause you never do anything!" Angie said fitfully.
Ojay smiled a little sheepish smile and I turned to Angie who was glowering at him.
"Oh so it's like that huh? You don't want to get married?"
Still smirking, Ojay shrugged.
"That's real fucked up Ojay." Angie began her tirade while Ojay continuously simpered at her with an amused glint in his eyes.
I shook my head in dismay as I heaved my forehead onto my palm.
Some things just never change.
When I looked up again to view the one-sided argument taking place between Angie and Ojay, my eyes incidentally collided with another pair—Shawn's.
They weren't angry or disgusted like I'd expected.
They were sad...and thoughtful.
I waited for him to turn away immediately, but he didn't. Instead, he held mine for a while, frowning pensively. My heart lurched and twisted in hurt, longing to know what he his exact thoughts were.
Then the serene moment was up. He blinked away, and the look of sorrow on his face had suddenly vanished.
Now there was...nothing there.
Frowning, I kept my eyes downcast and for a moment thought again at the irony of how some things were still the same, like Ojay and Angie...but others were so different...like Shawn and I.
The night wasn't pleasant for me in any type of way. Not only because the man who still gave me chills just from beingthere was in the same room as I, but also because my headache hadn't eased even with the medication I'd taken.
Everything before me started to fluctuate and wobble, like I was loosing my balance. People's voices seemed loud and distant all at once. The lamplight's luminescence beside me felt too blinding and bright on my enervated eyes.
My temples throbbed with an ache so striking, that it disavowed from sitting upright and attention to everything around me. Answering to an important call from his mother, Ojay stepped out shortly, leaving Shawn, Angie and I to continue her wedding preparations even if we weren't really preparing for a wedding. The look in Shawn's eye said that he wanted to leave and had no business at all being there even though Ojay had asked him to remain until he got back. Angie relentlessly tried to include him into what we were talking about until he got the point and stayed.
Inadvertently, Angie had strayed away from the initial topic of wedding preparations to the gossip about the ongoing drama taking place in the bank of which she worked. Noting after some time that Shawn was bored to death by this, she turned the TV on to a sports channel for Shawn to spare him from listening to her. At some point, Angie had brought in sandwiches but they had remained untouched. My hunger had evolved into something else because the mere sight of food made it clench uncomfortably before bile trickled up my throat with the threat to make me hurl.
Suddenly, everything blurred out in front of me until my eyesight resorted to pitch darkness and I couldn't see. Then my head felt like it weighed a ton and I careened. The last thing I heard was my name screamed out alarmingly.