Some Day One Day

10

"Brooklyn Bridge?" I asked him after we'd parked at the bottom of the bridge, licking meagerly on some ice cream that he'd kindly bought for me. I can't explain how special I felt when he bought it for me. He did it the same way he bought me a drink. All he asked me was 'what's your favorite ice cream?" and me thinking that he was just being convivial told him immediately what I liked. Next thing I knew we'd stopped at the after school hotspot and Shawn told me to wait inside the car, soon returning with an ice cream cone that I didn't know belonged to me.
'And this is your way of trying to get me not to like you?' I asked him after he handed it to me.
'Well you said you never ate lunch so I figured you might be hungry.' He had explained as he switched gears the car.
I smiled cheekily and cooed, a warm fuzziness flowering within me.
'Do you like taking care of me Shawn? Cause I'm starting to think you do.'
'Nah. I told you that growling be distracting a nigga.'
'You're lucky you're on my good side or I would've hit you by now.'
He laughed.
'What about you? You said you hadn't eaten anything.' I said, giving the chocolate sundae a generous lick and savoring the taste more than I normally would because of whom it came from.
'I'm straight.' Shawn murmured while reversing us from our parking space, glancing at the rearview mirror.
If I hadn't liked him before, then I certainly did now. It was all I could do not to smile during the car ride to a place I knew nothing of until now.
"Yeah." Shawn answered me, placing the car in park.
"Why here?" I asked, looking at the glistening waters ahead of us.
"Nobody else comes here." Shawn answered as he took off his seatbelt. I narrowed my eyes at him. We were parked next to the shores, beside the grandiose pillars that made up Brooklyn bridge. I saw nobody else doing this and became a bit worried.
"Is this even legal?" I asked fearsomely.
Shawn shrugged while opening his car door, "I ain' ever got caught."
"Oh." I said simply, following suit by opening my car door just like him.
Devoid of the black jacket he previously wore, Shawn sat on top of the hood of his car, his feet levered on the front bumper and his arms loosely around his knees.
Feeling shy all of a sudden, I walked up to him with timid steps. I arched my neck to look at the monsterous bridge only a few feet away from us. I'd driven across the bridge a million times but I'd never stood beside it like this.
"How did you find this place?"
Instead of getting on the bridge, Shawn had detoured down a slopping road that led us to park right in front of the seawater that looked so clear and picturesque up top, but up close was caliginous and dirty.
"I got lost one day coming home from school and ended up here. It was kind of quiet so I took a liking to it." Shawn explained and I laughed softly at the getting lost part.
Eventually I got over the initial shock of my whereabouts and focused on Shawn.
"Are you worried about skipping?" I asked and Shawn shook his head immediately with no trace of worry on him.
"I am," I confessed grimly, eyeing the chocolate mingle with the vanilla, "My parents are gonna kill me."
"Why make a choice if you're gonna worry about it?"
"Huh?" I glanced up at him.
"Don't worry about it."
There was no fear, restraint or hesitance to his features. Like he didn't feel the need to respond to anyone else.
And I admired that.
"And what if I get in trouble?" I asked him as if he were an oracle.
"Then you suffer the consequences. You made the choice to leave knowing the repercussions right?" his tone wasn't berating or chastising. It was casual, which for some reason made me much less wired up than before.
When I nodded, he continued.
"So stop worrying about it. We're already here anyway."
"Howcome you let me come with you?" I asked him and his dark eyes flung to me, setting themselves apart from that bright, sunny afternoon.
"You asked me if I ever wanted to get away right?" I nodded mutely, "Figured you wanted to get away too. So this is where I go."
"What are you getting away from?" I asked him impulsively, realizing then that I didn't know too much about Shawn.
His stare was enigmatic, but somehow I knew he was waging deep within him whether to give me an honest answer or not.
"Everything I guess." Shawn mumbled with a faint shrug.
But not me... I nearly added, but instead, I nodded my acquiescence. Strangely enough, I was able to absorb his brief words and understand them completely.
I wondered what set me apart from everything else that he thought it appropriate to bring me along with him.
I didn't ask him though, but I felt good about it.
Contemplating deeply of my aunt's whereabouts with my eyes now latched to my melted ice cream, I licked on it with chaste. Ice cream wasn't something I usually allowed myself to have, but since Shawn offered it to me I took it without any qualms.
"What's got you running away from the world today?" Shawn asked, lifting his eyes to where I stood a few ways in front of him.
"Frustration." I responded laconically. Then out of habit for the past thirty minutes, I pulled out my phone and tried to call the number my auntie called from again. I received no answer.
"You lookin' for someone?" Shawn asked jutting his chin out faintly towards my hands, "You been messin' with your phone a whole lot."
"My auntie." I blurted out without much consent, frowning as I slid my phone into my jean pockets. I'd tried reaching my mother but like Aunt Meredith had said, she wouldn't answer. She worked in human resources, a past nurse. My father's secretary told me he'd stepped out for a meeting. He worked in a prestigious law firm.
"Sup with her?" Shawn asked and I shifted my gaze to his. He stared at me expectantly until we lapsed into one of those staring spells that we were so famous for having.
"You ain' gotta tell me." He said without any heat to his tone. I could tell he was just trying to be nice about it.
"I don't know what's wrong with her," I began, "She just...she isn't herself anymore."
"What happened?"
"It started when she met this guy..." all the while as I talked, I focused on my ice cream, only to taper off and glance back up at Shawn.
He was concentrating on me and only me as I spoke. His brows were drawn slightly together the way they always were whenever he was engrossed in something. And I knew this because I watched Shawn a lot. His generously full lips were set firmly. He was hunched forward, elbows atop spread apart knees, and hands clasped together.
It amazed me how each and everytime I looked at him, it was almost like I was looking at him for the first time because I was consistently reminded of how handsome Shawn was. I don't know what it was about this guy.
"You ain' got to tell me if you don't want to."
"But what if I want to." My eyes dropped to his virile neck.
"Then it's up to you."
I hesitated.
"Don't you come out here to think?" I asked, wiping off a melting drop of ice cream with a napkin.
"Yeah."
"Then I don't want to bother you."
"You started, so you might as well finish."
"Bothering you?" I asked in mortification and Shawn chuckled.
"No...talking."
"Are you sure?"
"If I wasn't then I wouldn't have told you to finish what you started."
And at that moment, for some strange reason unbeknownst to me, I recalled a lecture where my mother told me that I never ever finished what I started. That was when I dropped out of my piano classes-after a whole slew of things that I'd quit before finishing. I knew that had nothing to do with this, but that made me ruminate about that fractionally.
"Trust me, I don't mind." Shawn brought my eyes back to his.
"Unless you do." he said next and a faint smile settled on my lips.
Before I knew it, I was speaking fervently about my auntie as though Shawn were an old friend of mine. And it made me feel beyond good because I felt...natural. I'd pace a short distance in front of me as I talked, and I'd look up occasionally to find him looking at me and nowhere else-like I was the only thing that mattered. He was quiet from the time I began to the time I spoke with my last breath. When I was done, I my lungs whizzed like I'd just run a marathon.
Then I became slightly embarrassed for opening up so much to him. Before I could apologize, Shawn asked me a question I found kind of odd.
"You ever stopped to think maybe she's suffering from depression?" were his first words after my long speech.
My cantering stopped and I tilted my head at Shawn in bewilderment.
"Depression?"
He nodded.
"Everyone gets depressed."
"True. But some more than others." He explained.
"She's not depressed. She's just...she's just...stubborn. She doesn't want to let go."
"Depression is a disease. It needs to be treated before things get bad. From what you've told me, she sounds like she's suffering from depression."
After staring at him wordlessly for a while, Shawn shrugged.
"I've known someone who's had it...and all I'm sayin is, instead of making her feel like shit...ya'll need to be helping her figure herself out. She can't do it on her own."
"We always do! and I think that's the problem. She takes it for granted."
"You taken her to the doctor for this? Therapy maybe?"
Usually one to always have an answer, my mouth dropped to respond, but I remained stuck. I couldn't remember Mom or Daddy talking about getting her some treatment. Well, Daddy had mentioned it once but we'd never truly done anything about it.
"No...but I mean...we've tried Shawn. I just think she needs to be on her own so that maybe that can be her wake up call."
"See that's the problem with people these days."
"What?"
"The value of family is just gone. Where I come from, you stick with your family till the end. Good or bad. They're your responsibility no matter how many mistakes they've made."
Our eyes held for a moment before I downcast mine contritely. I recalled how many times I belittled and castigated Aunt Meredith for how she'd turned out. Even though I'd never openly told her, I'd harbored such repulsive thoughts.
"But you can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves." I told him quietly, watching my weathering away ice cream with a frown.
"Yes you can." Shawn insisted.
"How Shawn?" I sighed, looking up at him.
"Not giving up on them." Shawn answered simply and my eyes widened for an anon moment. I said nothing else because I was clearly at a loss of words.
"I mean, I ain' tryna be Dr. Phil or nothin' but imagine if you were in your auntie's shoes. You know, you can't really know what she's going through unless you've been there. What if someone who you thought loved you to death, suddenly gave up on you."
Shawn's words were beyond surprising. I'm not sure what surprised me more, how hard they hit me, or the fact that they were coming from him.
"But aye...that's just how I see it. I just think it's kinda fucked up how it's like...what's that sayin' again? Oh yeah, Every man for himself. I guess that's just the way it goes around here."
The guilt I felt from Shawn's words hit me full force. I started to feel hypocritical. Here I was, always claiming my love for my immediate family, then turning my back on my auntie and shunning her when she needed me most.
Then as if a little bit embarrassed that he'd revealed much more than he should have, the guarded expression took over his features again.
"That ice cream is gonna be done before you actually eat it Bey. Better get busy before it melts away."
I knew then that the topic was closed. And even so, I didn't mind because my heart was at my throat, restricting my ability to speak. And my mind was cluttered so I couldn't even think properly.
"Want some?" I asked him suddenly, obtruding the ice cream towards him.
Shawn simply shook his head before focusing ahead of me and I found it strangely endearing that he didn't care for trivialities like ice cream.
"You sure you don't want any?" I joined him on the hood of his car, sitting at such a close distance that I surprised not only him, but myself too.
"I'm sure."
I lapped up one slopping end of the cold mound.
"Mmm. Nobody never wants any ice cream."
"I'm not everybody." Shawn explained with a faint smirk, his face turned to me. He was so close...so dangerously close.
"What?" I asked, trying to stay on track.
"You said nobody never wants ice cream. Which means everybody always wants it...man how the fuck do we always end up talking about random shit like this Beyonce."
His last, spontaneous comment made me burst out into hearty laughter.
"Shawn, you're a trip." I said when I came down from my euphoria high, whipping the wet creases of my eyes with the heel of my hand.
"Me? Yo ass steady has me talking about some off the wall shit that I don't even know comes from where."
"Stop putting the blame on me." I defied laughingly, sucking off some melted ice cream from my fingertip.
I looked up to find Shawn thoughtfully roving my features while habitually gnawing on his inner lip.
"Are you sure you don't want some? You didn't eat lunch either."
"I'm good. It's yours anyway."
"It can be yours too. Especially with all that growling I hear from your stomach. It's distracting me..."
Shawn smiled faintly with a shake of his head just as faint at me using his words against him.
"You think you slick." He murmured while facing forward.
I followed his gaze to the glistening waters, thair waves dancing with the encouragement of the wind that placated the hot air that afternoon.
"Shawn?"
"Sup."
"Thank you."
"What for?"
I couldn't remember the last time I felt so comfortable and at ease with myself even when the world outside me was anything but.
When I couldn't find the proper words to tell him what I was really thanking him for, I summed it all up in one word that hopefully explained it all.
"Everything."