Some Day One Day

5

Everything happened in the blink of an eye because in what seemed like a split second, my vision was cleared again, but I couldn't detect the dark figure hovering me. I couldn't see their features. They were all blurry and disoriented.
I felt someone shaking me vigorously and someone else yelling for them to stop. The shaking eventually stopped, but its effects still lingered because I was dizzier than before.
My heart, which had been racing, slowly descended, but never back to its normal rate. It was an irregular beat. The fogginess slowly cleared from my eyes until I deciphered that the unhinged figure was Angie standing above me with a frightened expression all over her face.
"Wha...what happened..." I stirred awake.
"We need to call the ambulance."
When I heard what I soon learned was Angie's voice say, I struggled with all the strength remaining within me to sit up right. I groaned in pain once movement brought a shooting pain through my head like an implacable blizzard and shook my head frantically.
"No! no..." weakly, I reached up and gripped her wrist, tightening my fingers around it to make my plea more urgent, "don't call anyone Angie-"
"What if you're having one of those attacks!"
"I'm not!" I stressed, having to use all my energy to do something so simple as speak, "I just have this real bad headache. I'll be fine with some more aspirin. It's only cause I'm really tired Angie. I'm fine..."
"Why didn't you say anything?!" Angie yelped, her voice incising into my thoughts like a sharp object ramming into an already open wound.
I moaned in the pain that Angie's cacophonous voice elicited. Covering my hurting forehead with the palm of my hand, I added pressure to it as if that would somehow ease the pain. Then I clutched my eyes tightly shut when another shoot of pain hit me.
"Here. Put this on her forehead." I heard a low murmur, but didn't see who had said it. All I know was that the voice was a deep one.
The next thing I saw was something white, soon to feel something cool and damp on my head, which felt like a burning furnace. The icy cold feel on my head made me feel ten times better and I finally regained the breath that had once seemed lost. My vision began to clear and I tried to get up. Before I knew it, I was levered to an upright sitting position by someone who seemed to have no problems with strength at all.
Trying to put a face to the helper, I saw that it was Shawn. My heart stopped and I reflexively flinched as if I'd been struck.
When he'd assisted me, our eyes locked and I thought that my mind was playing tricks on me, but he looked concerned...and confused. He released me slowly and stepped back, shoving his hands into his pockets indifferently-like they were retreating to safety.
The concern never left his eyes though.
I started to feel like he knew everything about me when I'd begged Ojay and Angie not to say anything about me. I'd been living on the other side of the country the entire time I was married because after my incident with Shawn, my parents moved me away to 'protect me from temptation'.
Nobody knew what had happened to me-unless Angie and Ojay had said something about it.
And it was only when Angie began speaking again that I realized my heart's erratic pounding.
"Here!" a glass of water was suddenly flashed in front of me, "Drink this. Drink it!"
Angie tipped the glass atop my bottom lip, holding the back of my head while she drained its contents into my mouth. The drink actually made me feel better and I imbibed it all up, not once taking a break for air. When I was done, Angie tried eased my head against the back of her couch and placed what I learned was a folded, white face towel along my burning forehead. I fluttered my eyes closed and tried to recollect myself but it was hard with the abrupt embarrassment that I began to feel.
I didn't want Shawn to see me as vulnerable and weak-even though that's how I truly felt.
"Girl why didn't you say anything-"
"Angie...just chill. Give her room to breath for a minute." I heard Shawn say with a coolness that seemed forced. I batted my eyes open when the sudden urge to see him filled me up. Though his image was still a bit hazy to me, I detected the peculiarity on his face. His expression was somewhere between worry and...I don't know...something else inscrutable to me. I wanted to decipher it as confusion but it wasn't completely that.
Maybe my disarrayed mind was playing tricks on me...
I felt Angie sit beside me and brush some careless strands of hair that had fallen from my ponytail away from my vision.
All of this began to feel familiar. Like the time when she was sitting beside me in the hospital when I'd nearly overdosed...and I was bedridden...helpless and unable to do much for myself.... wallowing in the shame of the position I'd caused for myself.
The thought made me dissolute.
I tried to move forward, but Angie held my arm and stilled me on the couch.
"Beyonce just relax for a while."
"No," I shook my head and feebly tried to push her hand away from my arm, "I have to leave now. I need to get rest because I have work early in the morning-"
"You can't go around driving when you're like this Beyonce. You're as good as a drunkard for all I know. Listen, you can stay here for the night-"
"No! Are you crazy?" I began to ramble in hysteria out of the prospect of losing the only job that would hire me, "The hotel is too far away from here. I'll be too tired to wake up in the morning and drive from here-"
"Which is exactly why you shouldn't drive. Please just stay here. And quit that job while you're at it if it's getting you like this-"
"Angie I am not a child!" I began to get really frustrated and angry, "I'm not going to quit just because I'm not feeling good. Wait, never mind that. I feel fine. I'm just really tired and I need to get some rest." I was about to say that I'd have been fine if she hadn't called me all the way here but I was somehow able to think functionally enough to hold my tongue.
"Fine," she conceded reluctantly with a huff and added, "Shawn why don't you drop her off then?"
Silence suddenly rose from the dead and I felt even worse than before.
No one ever gets used to the feel of rejection no matter how many times it's happened.
It was obvious that merely breathing in the same room as I was killing him softly. Imagine what actually driving me home would do to him.
All that time, my eyes were downcast. I didn't even bother to look at Shawn as I tried to stand up. I didn't want to see the aversion on his face because I'd hate myself. When Angie tried to stop me, out of frustration, I wriggled her off of me roughly until she got the hint and stayed back. She looked hurt. Like all the times she begged me not to roam the streets at night and I'd tell her to leave me the fuck alone at the top of my lungs.
"I'll get you the aspirin you wanted." Angie said disconcertingly, getting up and leaving the room as she plowed her fingers through her shoulder length hair frustratingly.
Too preoccupied on standing on my own feet to care about hurting her feelings, I tried standing but a sharp pain drilled the side of my head as unexpected and as sudden as a lightning strike. Unwarrantedly, I stumbled when the axis of my world tilted.
Before I could slump, the next thing I felt was solidity, firmness, and strength. All things that inhered with assurance...
"I got you." I heard in a low murmur.
Shawn had caught me before I'd fallen.
Even in my dizzy state, I immediately noted his heady cologne. Too afraid to look up, I focused on the strong muscles of his collarbone and neck.
Being in his arms this way, him touching me this way rendered me weaker than before, but I refused to be swayed even though I felt unnatural...scared even...
With little to no energy, I compressed my hands on his chest and pushed, appalled by how sturdy he felt beneath my palms. My exertion only encouraged his hold around me to tighten.
"Just lean on me until we get to the car." He said instructively, no trace of any emotion in his voice although it was deep and resonant against my chest, echoing within me. So much that the hairs on the back of my neck sprinted.
The feeling frightened me. I felt like I didn't deserve to feel that way. Like I shouldn't feel that way because things between us were supposed to be bad.
"No." I shook my head pleadingly, feeling my eyes water up because I'd longed for all those years to be in his arms, but not under these circumstances.
Not under sympathy.
I wanted to be held by someone who wanted to hold me.
"No, I'll be fine." I beseeched below a whisper, my palms now on his arms as I pushed, only to feel his biceps bunch in resistance. My heart raced and beyond my control, I looked up into his eyes. Something hit me so hard and the impact brought too many memories at once that I couldn't remember where this had come from.
I immediately dropped my eyes from his.
The entire front of my body was lined against his, and through that I could feel the strength and masculine he embodied. We were so close that my toes, which poked from my sandals, stubbed on the rims to the soles of his shoes.
"Put your arm around me." Shawn opined, moving from my front to my side. The relief I felt was pint-sized since he was still so close to me. I was still too shocked and uncertain about him being so close, so dangerously close. And I was still wishy washy about him being kind to me.
When I didn't right away follow his order, he took my wrist and gently draped my arm along his shoulders. It was a bit uncomfortable with my arm up against him like that because he was so tall, but I couldn't complain because he was what was keeping me up and posted. His other hand quickly held my hip and waist stably.
I couldn't handle this but it was hard to fight with the way my head began to spin again.
"Shawn I'll be fine-"
"Look, I said I got you iight?" he asserted, and I froze. Shawn's body tensed up right after mine did, like my paralysis was efficacious.
My eyes shot up to his and his did the same.
I could've sworn he'd said those exact words before...
Angie Sashayed into the room with a glass and a furled up fist, which I guess, held the aspirin. She didn't seem to notice the awkwardness of the situation as she sullenly hand me the glass and the water. I started to feel bad for the way I'd brushed her off.
My hand visibly shook as I took the glass. The embarrassment of it had me mollified. I gulped down the pills hastily because I wanted to get away from this place. When I was through, Angie set the glass on the table and Shawn began our tentative steps to the door.
"I'll open the front door." Angie announced and walked ahead of us to the front with my purse in her hand.
Over the past few months, I'd lost so much weight that I could feel my sharp hipbone against Shawn's hard thigh.
We made it to Shawn's car and I began to panic when I could think clearly, my heart racing quickly. These were the prefacing signs of a panic attack.
"M-My car," I turned my head as far back as I could to spot my run down car, "How will I get to work in the morning?"
Thinking of catching the bus made my head hurt some more.
"I'll have Ojay get it there before morning. I don't think you should be going to work under these conditions though Beyonce." Angie cautioned.
"Under what conditions?!" I asked frustratingly. I started to realize that I was more agitated when we got to Shawn's car because the thought of being cooped up alone with him in a restricted space didn't seem so pleasant.
I think my panic attack was more about being beside Shawn than how I was going to get to work that morning. I didn't want a repeat of yesterday afternoon and for the life of me I don't know what had possessed me to think that things would go any other way than how they did.
He may not have the same outburst, but his silence was somewhat worse.
Truth be told, I feared Shawn-even though he hadn't really done anything to me.
"There's nothing wrong with me." I panted, breathing deeply now. I started to fear that I might actually need my inhaler. It was getting hard to behave civilized with both a deadly headache and the man who I'd hurt helping me to his damn car. I knew that I was overreacting but for some reason unbeknownst to me, I couldn't help it.
Incautiously, I'd started fidgeting against Shawn. There was this sudden need to get away from him.
Though I somewhat deserved it, that didn't mean I could handle it.
Unmindfully, I tried to push him off of me yet again, "I'm fine guys. I can get home on my own."
This time he let go of me and with a frustrated frown on his face. It reminded me of something so stirringly familiar. I remember that look on his face once when I'd told him I had to go immediately I'd seen my parents at the mall. At that time, I'd done it with the only thought of not wanting to cause a scene or at least get embarrassed in front of my parents for persistently going to see the boy-better yet, man-they'd told me not to.
He'd asked me if I was ashamed of him and as my parents got closer to me, the frustration and pressure arose so much to the point where I fulminated that yes, he actually did.
And he'd looked at me the way he was looking at me now.
I wished that I could tell him it was not for the reason that he was thinking. It's just that I didn't want him to think I was so receptive to receiving help because I was known-especially by him-to give up easily. There was just this tenacious exigency within me to try and prove to myself that I didn't need anyone's help.
Even in my reedy state, I still felt like I could do it on my own.
"Beyonce please stop being so damn difficult!" Angie said, "You can't drive under these circumstances. You might get into an accident."
I opened my mouth to protest but Shawn's quiet voice seemed loud enough to hush up everything that night.
"You might end up killing somebody else if you faint again while you're behind the wheel."
His words clumped my mouth tightly shut. I looked directly at his reluctant expression. He looked like he was dying to say something else, but it's almost like he noticed that I noticed he was giving himself away.
His expression became guarded again.
I knew that he didn't want to take me. It was written all over his face. He probably didn't want to be too cruel in front of Angie.
Of course his explanation was rational and it was one that I couldn't argue with. I turned to Angie, wishing that she could drive me but knowing the reality of it that she couldn't. In our last year of high school, Angie had endured a severe, savage beating from Derrick that had left her with a throng of injuries. Her most serious, long lasting one was the visual field defect on her left eye. Basically, the one half of her left eye was blinded permanently. That didn't mean her life stopped, but certain things she could never do again.
Like drive.
"Okay." I surrendered quietly.
Avoiding eye contact, Shawn opened the passenger's seat for me and I carefully sat myself inside. Immediately, I rested my head against the headrest and Shawn handed me my purse, which Angie had given him.
"Thank you." I murmured as I took it from him keeping my eyes detached. Angie told Shawn to leave the door open so that she could have a word with me.
"Call me as soon as you get there okay?" Angie told me and I nodded but she never closed the door. I finally looked at her to see the sorrowful look in her eyes. She swallowed hard before nodding stiffly and telling me she loved me and that I should take care. I knew what she was thinking and I wish I could tell her not to worry herself to death about it. Angie treated me like a little sister even if we were the same age. She'd always just had this mother figure to me. I was closer to her than I was to my own sister.
In an attempt to ward off the worries that she was probably having, I smiled faintly at her. She barely returned my smile before she shut the door.
It didn't take long for Shawn and I to make it to the main road...in nothing but silence. It wasn't completely silent because I could hear the voracious beating of my heart against my chest.
I was nervous.
My head was tilted against the windowpane and I watched the city we'd grown up in. my heart ached every time we came across a landmark that Shawn and I created history at. I was so engrossed in trying to master my anxiety and collecting my thoughts that I didn't hear Shawn right away when he spoke to me.
"Beyonce."
I turned to him and muttered a soft, 'yes', my heart flipping at the sound of my name on his lips.
Like many times before, I was awestruck by his side profile. He seemed so composed because his head was inclined comfortably against the headrest and his hands loosely held the south end of the leather steering wheel. I envied him at that moment because I was anything but composed.
"Where do you live at?" he asked, not once looking at me.
At first, I was slightly surprised that he didn't know, but I mentally praised Ojay and Angie for not mentioning anything about me. I don't know why they would though when he probably didn't want to know anyway.
Then right before I answered him, a pang of shame flooded me.
"Hunter's Chase apartments." I murmured softly, recoiling in shame as I said it.
Shawn's snapped his head at me, his eyebrows drawn together above his confused eyes.
"What?" he squinted and quickly looked back at the road again to maneuver the car before glancing back at me.
"Hunter's Chase." I reiterated, lifting my chin up with feigned dignity and eyeing him carefully.
He turned away from me and I spotted muscles bunching on his jaw as he shifted.
I don't know what possessed me to speak, but I did anyway.
"Is that okay with you?" I asked him next in a quiet voice, but loud enough for him to hear me.
Biting on the inside of his lip, Shawn ignored me and with his eyes unmoving from the road. Then he placed his elbow on the arm of the door with his thumb in the dent beneath his lip.
That was his thinking posture...


... "Damn it! I hate this piece of shit!!" I kicked the wheel lightly-not so hard because I was afraid of hurting myself-and whacked the roof of it with a loud cackle of my hand, "I hate you!"
I was screaming at my car in eighty-degree weather.
I was on my way back from work and my car decided to act up. I was beyond furious. I was livid.
I returned behind the wheel and tried to start the car again. It started, but the needle on the gauge soared to the red danger zone. It had been doing that for a good ten minutes and I stopped because I didn't want to do any more damage to its engine by daringly testing it.
"Fuck..." I rested my forehead against my hands on the steering wheel and counted to ten so that I wouldn't lose my cool.
Sighing heavily, I stepped out of the car and rounded up to the front to pop up the hood. When I did, I expected white smoke to float out of it tauntingly to my face. Alternatively, nothing but a bunch of machines stared back at me and I realized that I didn't know what the hell to do.
Slamming it down frustratingly with a loud thud, I folded my arms crossly and sat derriere at one front corner of the car. This car was a gift from my uncle but it didn't seem to really do much. My parents thought it would be a good idea for me to drive a second hand car in hopes that I would be humbled enough by it. I was humbled all right. Humble enough never to buy a second hand car again in my life.
Here I was, in the sweltering summer heat, beside the street road that was thirty minutes away. I worked as a lifeguard at the gym where my sister worked. I basically taught all the other little kids who wanted to participate how to swim. Since summertime gave me all the freedom that I needed, I went to work in the morning. This was one job I didn't quit when it got boring because I simply loved swimming.
And I loved children too.
It was only five minutes to twelve thirty and not only was I craving for food, I craved for some shelter. It was so damn hot. I could've retreated to the safety of only turning my car on wasn't a safety hazard in itself.
Cars whipped by me on the somewhat estranged road in the whirlwind of lunch hour. It was so hot that I could see the waves of heat in the distant end of the road. I had to get out of here fast before I melted under this heat.
I was about to call my father when a car slowed down beside me. The alarms within me went off and I prepared to run to my car for safety until I detected that the driver was Shawn. Self cautiously, I got off the car and stood straight, smoothing my hands over my skirt. Then I folded my arms when I realized I must have looked silly rubbing my thighs like that.
He rolled down his window.
He eyed me in more of curiosity than anything else. I found myself wishing he looked at me lustfully though. After surveying me, he then extracted the toothpick sticking out from the corner of his lips. I waited for him to laugh at me and drive off. Ever since the day Shawn had dropped me off we never talked again. We didn't even talk on Angie's birthday even though we'd somehow ended up having to sit beside each other the entire time.
Instead, he leaned towards the window and asked cordially.
"Need help?" his brows were high as he asked and I remained reluctant, still not understanding why he was being nice to me after our conversation.
Something strange had happened after that conversation. I'd begun to notice Shawn a lot more. He was pretty much a gregarious guy who was nice and fair to anyone when spoken to unless they gave him a reason to think otherwise. I also started to realize how strikingly handsome he was. What galled me for some reason was how he remained modest despite all the girls that dropped to his feet at school.
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I gained a secret affinity towards Shawn, but I was so set on denying it that I never once took the time to acknowledge it.
I always said that once he did something to fuck up, then the slight attraction would wear off.
I was certain that it would.
It had to.
He wasn't my type.
"No," I laughed forcefully while waving him off, "I'm fine."
He didn't believe me and it was detectable all over his face.
"Thanks though." I added when he said nothing else, feeling awkward from the knowing way that he looked at me-like he knew I was a pathetic, helpless teenage girl who obviously had no idea what she was doing.
Remaining mute, Shawn rolled up the window, separating us from each other and drove off.
It was only when he drove off that I realized I'd been restraining breath within me the entire time he was around.
What was happening to me? I never got nervous around guys. I was always overflowing with confidence because I had nothing to be ashamed of. But whenever I was around Shawn, he could do something as simple as look at me and my self-assurance would crumble within seconds.
"So what happened?"
The sound of a voice startled me so much that I gasped and flinched before spinning around.
Shawn was walking towards me, eyeing my car with inspective cautiousness. He was dressed in a white, sleeveless t-shirt and baggy, dark gray pants. When he was close enough and I was still ogling over how he looked so good in clothing I once saw as cumbersome and way too oversized, I noticed that the hems of his pants carried along the dirt with it as it dragged along the ground. They were that baggy...
And to my surprise, I didn't find it unattractive at all. In fact, what attracted me more was the fact that he could pull it off so effortlessly.
Embarrassed by the fact that I was staring too hard, I shifted my gaze to his face, only to find him staring at me expectantly.
My face grew hot.
"Oh! Um, the needle on the gauge keeps rising. Every time it does that, I know it's about to stop." I explained in a fluster, wiping my damp palms on my hips.
Shawn's eyes dropped to my hips briefly before he circled me and made his way to the front of the car.
"Pop the hood up." He instructed while nodding towards the car.
I stood motionless like my feet were fastened to the floor. Shawn twisted his mouth in what seemed like impatience while turning away, probably wondering why he was wasting his time helping someone like me.
I was inside that car quicker than the blink of an eye.
Once I did the deed inside the car, I was back out and stood behind Shawn as I watched him scrutinize the car.
I wasn't looking at what he was looking at though.
I was looking at him.
His sleeveless shirt left nothing to the imagination when it came to his arms. Most guys in our grade weren't as developed in their masculinity as Shawn was. His brawny muscles were so toned and well defined that every time he moved, a muscle would flex beneath the sheen of sweat that was his skin. The veins of his arms bulged and I could've sworn I could see the pumping in them as he moved.
"Got damn." I slipped up and said out loud, and even after I said it I hadn't noticed until Shawn turned his head partially to look at me. His look was like an ironic bucket of ice-cold water yet I felt stigma anew with my face hotter than the boiling heat itself.
"Did you say something?" that was the first time I realized how deep Shawn's voice really was. It wasn't deep in an over-exaggerated, Barry White type of way. It was somewhere between something rough like sandpaper...and something smooth like silk.
I don't know...it was really strange.
But I was highly intrigued by it.
"Nah," I laughed blushingly, fingering the pendant of my chain with one hand and the other tucked at my side, "I just said got damn cause it's really hot."
"Oh." He nodded and faced forward again to continue his work. I nearly let out a loud 'whew' of relief because this time he looked like he believed me unlike all the other times when I spoke.
To try and stray away from the distraction his undeniably attractive body brought, I focused stepped up closer to actually watch what he was doing.
He pulled on the cap of something and smoke tunneled out. Shawn made a hissing sound before shaking his hand and holding it.
"Are you okay?" I stepped closer.
"Yeah," he answered distractedly while inspecting his thumb and then looked up at me, "I'm cool. Tell you what. The garage isn't too far from here. I can get some of my niggas to push it there and we can fix the problem."
"What's the problem?" I'm not sure how I managed to ask the question because I was busy trying not to marvel over how his eyelashes curled-but not exaggeratingly so. I envied him. I had to use mascara for that shit!
I was far too busy staring at the stream of sweat that trickled down his forehead, rubbing off the itch to swipe it off.
"Beyonce."
I finally heard him.
"Hmm?"
"I said there might be some overheating."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
The two of us stood awkwardly before one another. When his features got a little bit uncomfortable and he shifted, I realized that I was staring yet again.
"So..." Shawn began.
"Hmm?" I hummed dazedly.
"You wanna try taking it to the shop?"
"Sure." I answered without thinking. Before I could backtrack and say I was fine and would call Triple A and have my father pick me up, Shawn asked me something else.
I would've shooed him off if he didn't look like the cutest thing on earth.
He was blushing slightly.
Shawn was blushing!
"Um, could I use your phone?" his lips rose in the first smile, no matter how faint, of the day.
"I don't have one." He added bashfully in a low murmur, as if that was something he had to be ashamed about.
A slow smile crept on my lips. I never really pictured Shawn as the blushing type...
"Yeah sure," I said, still half smiling in amusement as I made my way back to the car, "Let me get it from my purse."
It didn't take long for us to get to the garage. At first, I was a little bit hesitant when we got to there because apart from a girl working as a cashier, I was the only girl there. But as reluctant and nervous as I was, I was a little bit excited.
Shawn had some fairly good-looking co-workers.
Some even tried to get my number, leaving me highly flattered.
With my purse, I sat at a bench located just next to the entrance and watched the men work. I knew I could've called someone to come and get me, but I had an entire Wednesday afternoon to waste and I was suddenly in no hurry to leave.
I liked this environment with men in their work gear, dirt smudged on their faces and sweat glistening against their bodies.
Ever since I'd arrived, Shawn had stepped in the back for reasons that remained unknown to me. When he did finally return, I nearly choked on shock.
The top half of his dark gray overalls hung neglected on his sides. I'm not even sure how he held up the pants because I could see the waistband with all its logos of his underwear.
Inattentively, one thigh crossed over the other as I gaped at what I saw. His sinewy muscles-most importantly his torso-bulged with the strength and power that I'm sure was instilled within him. There were tiny rivulets trailing down his skin, and by the dark stains on his pants, I assumed that he'd poured water on himself while he was in the back.
The thought quickened my breaths.
He was laughing at something one of his coworkers said, and that to me was a Kodak moment. A man with a warm, inviting smile but a body dangerous enough to induce a girl into a coma.
I watched with owl-like tendencies as Shawn worked on my car. Every damn time he moved, his lusty back muscles contracted. I was watching so closely that I even caught sight of a bead of sweat gliding down the smooth glaze of his back. I started to wonder if that's what his back looked like during...
Shawn suddenly turned around and I felt like I'd been caught with my cookie in the jar. He didn't seem to notice me staring, or at least if he did, he had no time to pay attention since he was mid-sentence in the conversation with his friend. He'd turned around to get some useful tool from a toolbox a few ways from him.
I knew I should have stopped looking, but I couldn't.
Eventually his friend left his side, and I had this sudden urge to go get a close up of him. My hesitation didn't last long because I was standing behind him, peeking from his side at what he was doing. I didn't know anything about machines so I had no idea what he was doing.
He turned around suddenly and mistakably bumped into me.
"Whoa..."
"My bad." I apologized with an abashed laugh. I was still mind boggled over how he felt hard against me when we had bodily contact.
Shawn stared at me awkwardly before hunching over to pick up something.
"You need something?" he asked.
"Nope," I smiled with feigned sweetness, "Just looking."
When he stood up again, I could've swore that the look he gave me told me he knew what I was really looking at.
Shawn had very faint facial hair, something that some of the other guys in school only dreamed about having. His features were marked my concentration. I loved the way his eyebrows always drew closely together whenever he was focused on something-he was even like that in class sometimes. The way his skin shimmered in reference to the heat gave him this countenance that he'd been through a long day of hard work. A dark smudge on his cheekbone gave him this rough edge, like he was willing to get down and dirty if anyone dared to test his abilities.
Abilities at what? I thought for a moment before chastising myself for being so lewd.
"Oh okay..." Shawn said slowly and went back to bending over the engine. My mouth watered at his broad shoulder muscles.
Suddenly, I found myself thinking that whoever his girlfriend was, or whomever he had a crush, was one lucky bitch.
Slumping my hip against my car, I folded my arms and watched him, impressed.
He'd look up at me in what surprised me as self-cautiousness. The thought of Shawn being self-cautious seemed so out of his character that I'd found it laughable at one point, but now, I found it more than endearing.
I guess because him being self-aware of himself was something that had never crossed my mind. I mean, his typedon't usually care what others think of them right?
There were times I'd catch him looking at me from the corner of his eyes, trying to conceal the fact that he was very much alert of my being there.
It made me grin like the Grinch.
"So...Shawn?"
"Sup?"
There went his smooth voice again...
"How long have you been working at the garage?"
"Umm..." he hummed thoughtfully, heaving his weight on the engine with the heels of his hands, "about three years."
"Three years? I thought you came to the US a year ago?"
"Nuh uh." Shawn shook his head, and then he did one of the sexiest things I'd ever seen in my got damn life. His lip darted out shortly over his bottom lip before his teeth sunk down on it and his startlingly brown eyes roved all over the engine. His eyebrows were doing that 'thing' again. He looked like nothing would deter him until he figured out what the problem was a corrected it.
The fact that he didn't know how seductive and sexual his expression was cemented my arousal much more.
Gosh, I was only sixteen. What the hell did I know about arousal?
"So where did you live for the first two years?" I managed to ask, my eyes languidly touring his body, stopping atspecial landmarks.
"Um..." Shawn scratched the side of his head distractedly before he dipped forward until his face was only inches away from the engine and he picked and chose-hell I didn't know what the hell he was doing. All I was concerned with were the fluent movements of his body.
His back muscles flexed. My knees buckled. And it happened all over again. It was a cycle. If only I knew that would be an ongoing circle for a while.
My stomach growled loudly with hunger and I excused myself because it was loud enough for Shawn to hear-and for a second I felt like the hunger wasn't necessarily in connection to food.
"Don't you think it's dangerous to be so close to the engine?" I asked, sidetracked by his lower back.
"Nah it's cool. And umm," he finally stood up straight, grabbing a murky hand towel and wiping his hands with it. I took the chance to awe over the dynamism of his torso. Shawn's eyes followed mine for a brief moment and I could've sworn I saw a hint of meekness in his eyes.
Tell me why that was one of the sexiest things I'd ever seen?
"Umm," he continued with a strange look on his face, "I've been here for those two years."
"Hmm? What?" I suddenly didn't know what he was talking about.
"You asked where I lived the two years before going to your highschool."
"Oh."
"Yeah," he stepped forward a bit, "'Scuse me."
I galvanized from where I stood and watched as he detoured the car. He opened the car door and was about to slide inside before coming to a stop.
"You don't mind if I sit inside your car do you?" he asked, having to wrest his eyes from the mess that was my car. To make comparisons simple and short, Shawn's car was heaven and mine was hell.
I was yet to get it cleaned. I was supposed to start doing things on my own instead of waiting for the maid to come to my aid. Mother is the one who made that idea.
"Why would I mind?" I asked with a slight frown, stopping from getting my pack of gum from my purse. Since I was hungry as hell that would have to do for a while.
Shawn narrowed his eyes at the question I asked.
"What?" I asked in confusion.
"I'm not too dirty for you?" he asked innocently, his hands gesticulating his appearance as he looked down at himself and back at me.
My frown deepened. The question hadn't been sarcastic and wasn't meant to intentionally provoke me.
It was a matter-of-fact question.
"No," I answers emphatically, "I don't mind. And anyway do you see how dirty that car is? Nothing can be dirtier than my car."
"Amen to that." Shawn murmured and laughed softly when I gasped at him.
He sat behind the wheel with one leg sprawled out. I'd just stuck a stick of gum into my mouth.
"Hey," I called him over the door that separated us, "want some gum?"
"Yeah." Shawn said distractedly and I handed one to him. When he took it from me, our fingers brushed. My forearms quivered at how rough they felt. Shawn on the other hand went on with his business and before I knew it, the car had revved to life.
"Yes!" I yelped out in elation and grinned and Shawn when he stepped out of the car. He only laughed softly and shook his head at me and turned it off again.
"Gimme a minute to make sure everything's working iight. Aye, what's your favorite drink?" Shawn asked me conversationally, all the while focusing on the engine when he'd returned to the front. Though it was an off the wall question, I answered regardless.
"Sprite."
He nodded and yelled out to one of his coworkers, "Aye Dillon!"
"What!"
"Get me a sprite real quick from the vending machine. Imma pay you back."
"Iight son. Oh yeah nigga what you doin' here on your day off?!"
With wide eyes I averted my gaze from Dillon to Shawn, who didn't seem to notice my shock.
"I just came in for a bit," he answered as he twisted something with his fingers, "No biggie."
A warmth filled me up and I bit my lip to sustain a smile as I watched him work. He must've felt my eyes on him because he looked up at me and raised his brow.
"What?" he asked and I stared at his jaw as he chewed with subtlety on the gum I'd given him.
Mutely, I shook my head, unable repress my smile.
He gave me that look that said he didn't believe me and went back to work.
I went back to my work of watching him. It was hard work too because it's that type of job where you can look at all the goodies, but you can't touch them. My fingers hurt from curling them so tightly at a safe distance.
"So you moved here three years ago?" I made idle conversation.
"Yep."
"Shawn!" one of his co-workers called him.
"Sup!" Shawn and I both turned to see a bottle of sprite flying. Shawn moved quickly, snatching the bottle from the hair with both hands. Grabbing a clean towel from a stack beside him, Shawn wiped off the neck of the drink before handing it to me, with the towel still around it.
I didn't understand what he was doing that for, but I thanked him with a big smile as I took it from him..
"No problem." He put the towel beside the stack he'd pilfered it from
He rounded me and knelt beside the toolbox and pulled out a couple of pliers-or whatever those things are called.
"Do you like America?" I asked him while uncapping my drink.
"It's iight." He answered unconvincingly and this time it was my turn to give him a look that said I didn't believe me.
I scoffed and said dryly, "Damn Shawn. You sound like you just love it here."
Shawn smirked while sorting through the toolbox and a spiral of warmth spun within me.
He then aligned his entire back along a ramp with wheels on all for corners. With his tools, he disappeared beneath the vehicle.
When I took the first sip of my drink, I savored it like it was the first drink I'd ever tasted.
"I like your accent by the way." I said as an afterthought when I remembered earlier that I'd made a note to tell him about it. Shawn's laugh echoed from beneath the car.
"Thanks ma."
"Do ya'll speak other languages other than english?"
"Yeah."
"Like what?"
"Umm," he said thoughtfully, "Bajan. But it's not really a different language. It's a dialect."
"Ba-what?"
"Bajan."
"Bajan?"
"Yeah."
"That's so cool! Man I wish I could speak another language other than English."
Shawn laughed again, "Weren't you in my French class?"
"Boy, French doesn't matter. I wanna learn something exotic like...I don't know...something different."
Shawn simply laughed. I took a few moments to relish my drink, thankful that my hunger was reduced just a tad.
"So...why did you move here?" I asked him out of curiosity. This wasn't just idle talk for me anymore. I suddenly wanted to know everything about him.
He was unlike most guys from here.
"Well...remember a few years back when a hurricane came through the island?" he asked.
"Yeah." I said even though I couldn't remember.
"Well, that's the reason why we came here." He hedged and that's when it finally dawned on me what he was trying to say.
A frown dimmed the warmth inside of me. If he was saying what I thought he was saying, I couldn't imagine what he must have been through.
"Have you been back since?" I asked quietly.
"No."
"Why not?"
"No money." He said simply.
I gnawed at my lip for a while before muttering a pitiful, 'Oh'.
I drank from my bottle periodically as I waited for him, my proclivity in conversation suddenly side-tracked.
"So Shawn, where do you live?" I asked before emptying the last contents of the bottle into my mouth.
"Hunter's Chase apartments."
I nearly choked at what he said but by the grace of God managed to swallow properly.
"What?" I uttered in horror before I could zip my mouth shut.
Shawn suddenly rolled his ramp until I could see his face.
"Hunter's Chase."
Hunter's Chase apartments were one of the most ill fated, most poverty stricken living spaces of our area. My mother and I always passed it on our way to the super market and everytime we went by it, I'd feel sympathy for anyone who had to live in what looked like a hellhole.
I swore and promised up and down that I would never end up in a place like that.
Even if my life depended on it.
"Is that okay with you?" he asked with a shrewdly raised brow. I stiffened upon his question. His eyes were saying he knew exactly why I reacted the way that I did. I felt horrible, but it was an innate, honest reaction.
I opened my mouth to answer but sound had suddenly disowned me. Shaking his head, Shawn hide himself beneath the car and continued his task.
Feeling bad and not really knowing how to apologize for my blatant ignorance, I returned to the bench and waited. I knew that I might have hurt his feelings and I felt bad for it.
Shawn was wiping his hands as he walked back to me. Standing up to my feet, I chaffed my hands against my thighs nervously.
He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off.
"Are you mad at me?" I asked, realizing as I waited on baited breath that his answer really mattered to me.
Shawn's gnawing at his gum slowed and so did the vigorous wiping of his hands, "Mad?"
I nodded.
"What should I be mad at?" he asked as he inclined forward. My heart raced. It was only when he stepped back and folded his arms that I realized he was placing his towel on the bench. I damned myself for getting all hot and bothered just because he was close to me.
My lips parted to explain myself but Shawn beat me to it.
"Oh, at that? At your honesty?" he shook his head and said firmly, "Nah. I'm never mad at honesty whether its something I like to hear or not."
I amassed his features meticulously until I was proven that he wasn't being sarcastic.
"What if it's something that'll hurt your feelings?"
A slow smile softened Shawn's lips, "Rather get my feelings hurt than be lied to."
I smiled back at Shawn and simply just stared at him.
"Well I just wanted to tell you that you're ready to go," He uncrossed his arms and began stepping back, "Imma bring your car up front in a sec."
"Oh yeah," he added before walking off, "You can wait outside."
I nodded, but stayed until his back was out of my line of vision.
I smiled with glee when he brought my car up front.
"Damn Shawn, I was missing you already." I blurted out jokingly and he smiled faintly with a shake of his head, dying down my engine and stepping out.
"Well, here's your keys." He dangled them on his fingers as he walked up to me and I offered him my palm so that he could drop them there.
"I'll see you later." He stated his farewell and began to walk off, leaving me in confusion.
"How much is it gonna cost?" I asked him and he turned around.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?!"
he nodded and I laughed.
"Um, Shawn nothing costs nothing in this world. Everything costs something."
"Not everything." He said with an amused smirk as he ambled back towards me.
"Yes everything."
"No."
"Yes," I asserted and habitually folded my arms, "It's a take and take world. I can't just leave here without paying you for doing this."
"So you're saying that absolutely everything should cost something?"
"That's what I'm saying. It's a two way street."
Tilting his head at me, Shawn crossed his arms just like I had. For a second I thought he was annoyed but after some inspection I realized the look on his face was a pensive one, not a perturbed one.
"So if a child receives love from a parent you're saying that they owe them something in return?"
"Yep, they do. Love and respect."
"Okay then," Shawn said drolly, rocking back and forth on his heels as he eyed me speculatively, "Since everything has a price, what's the cost for respect?"
"Pride." I answered without hesitation. I don't know where it came from but it came so quickly to me that I wasn't even sure that it made sense until I thought about it afterwards.
Shawn's brows raised in what seemed like genuine amusement. His smirk slowly widened and he looked at me squarely with smiling eyes.
"Okay then, what's the cost of love?"
I pondered over that one for a moment.
"Pain."
"What?" he craned his neck as though he hadn't heard me.
A simper of my own widened.
"Pain is the price you pay for love." I explained.
Shawn was staring at me thoughtfully and I began to wonder how in the hell we'd gone from talking about me paying for his good deeds to how love and pain were connected.
"How the fuck did we end up talkin' about this?" Shawn said with an easy-going laugh, obliviously reading my mind.
The irony of it struck me so hard that I burst out into peals of hearty laughter.
"I don't know Shawn. But I'm gonna pay you back for this. I have to."
"You don't." he insisted.
"I will." I persisted.
"Iight then." He said with a defeated sigh and made to leave.
"Stop!" I halted him and he froze, turning back to me slowly.
Reaching up, I used my thumb to rub off the smudge on his cheekbone that had been bothering me all day. It had started as an innocent movement, until I felt the smoothness of his skin met mine. Shawn was looking at me as awkwardly as I felt...but as weird as I felt...I felt...good.
When I pulled back, butterflies were flapping their wings happily, making my stomach feel both light and heavy at the same time.
"Sorry," I said with a sudden coyness as I stepped back, "That thing has been bugging me all day."
Shawn's liquid browns were staring at me so deeply-like he was trying to singe flood his way into my soul-that I stepped back again.
"I'll see you around Shawn."
"Later Bey."
I scrunched my face up at the name he called me and he laughed before making to walk off.
He blessed me with his masculine back and I felt like I couldn't leave any longer.
"Hey Shawn!" I called out to him, having to yell so that he could hear me.
He turned around, eyes wide with inquiry.
"Thanks for the drink! I'll pay you back for that too."
"Oh no no no," Shawn shook his head, "Don't even bother. I had to buy you one because the way your stomach was growling all loud was distracting me," he smirked widened, "Think of it as you doing me a favor iight?"
I gave him the evil eye and he laughed, "Bye Bey..."
"Bye." I told him with a shy wave and meandered to my car with a huge grin.
Of course, I had to look at his back one last time before I left...
We sat in the car in pin drop silence once we'd gotten to my place.
The silence between us magnified the peculiarity of the situation.
I now lived in the place that Shawn used to.
By the remains of shock loitering all over his face I knew that Shawn didn't know about this. He probably knew nothing of my drug addiction either.
I felt a bittersweet sense of relief.
"I know you didn't really want to do this." I told him quietly.
Fishing through my purse, I pulled out the only money that I had-a five dollar bill-and placed it gently on his dashboard.
"Thanks for the ride."
I felt the pellets that were his eyes shoot to me, but I was out of that car quicker than he could even think. My movements were so vast that my head began to spin once I was out, but I didn't want to risk hearing whatever he had to say-if he had anything to say at all.
Paranoia had me so anxious and nervous that I could've swore I heard him get out of his car and call my name. But paranoia also had its advantages because it had me dashing to the tutelage of my home. Not sparing any time to look back, I deftly got my key from the little side pocket of my purse and was soon in my apartment safely.