Some Day One Day

15

Me latching onto his hand was so natural that Shawn didn't act shocked or taken aback as he closed his fingers around me. We were making our way there when the door Jude run into opened and a woman with cinnamon skin and a tattered nightgown emerged. Both Shawn and I stopped, me more nervous than he. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a fraction of Jude's head as he peeped at us from the bedroom with a slyness about him.
She was a breathtaking woman to say the least and now I knew where Marissa got her looks from. They had the same moss-colored eyes. The only resemblance I saw that Shawn had to her were her lips—and trust me, I knew every arch and lining of Shawn's lips. There was one thing that antagonized her immaculate skin I'd been trying to avoid but couldn't though. A jagged, dark scar ran along her neck. The moment I looked there, a hand came up over it as if to rub in casual exhaustion as she craned her neck over to one side before letting it join her other one at the hip. I stared into her overwrought eyes feeling guilty for acknowledging the scar. It was obvious that it was a symbol of something unpleasant.
"Hey son..." She said to him with her eyes focused on me.
"Hey Ma." Shawn said and I could hear the tightness in his voice.
His mother's eyes toured down my frame and back up to my face.
"Hi." I greeted her shyly. I'd never been one to fear meeting any of my boyfriend's parents because I simply felt that I had nothing to worry about and nothing to hide. Usually, their parents would be impressed and make my meeting of them flow smoothly. Now I was squeezing the daylights out of Shawn's hand to keep me from trembling too much.
"Hey..." She greeted me suspiciously, only making me feel even more nervous.
"Uh Ma, this is Beyonce." Shawn's introduction of me made a shiver go through me, but ironically, it was the introducing that made his mother's uneasiness wear off as she stared at me. She finally swung her gaze to Shawn.
"The one Jude claims you were kissing?" she asked Shawn, the corner of her lip curling into a smirk identical to the ones Shawn usually made. Her voice was very much reserved, with a tinge of a British accent to it. She sounded so sophisticated, then I railed myself for having such thoughts. Why wouldn't she be?
"Yeah." Shawn said with so much ease that I couldn't help but blush fortuitously. His mother's smile widened slowly as she looked back at me with much less apprehension.
"The famous Beyonce." His mother said observantly with an affable smile that cast my uneasiness away, "Thank god I finally meet you. You don't know how much Marissa and Shawn have been driving me crazy talking about you."
That was kind of strange because Shawn had barely ever talked about his mother to me.
"Beyonce?" Jude's head finally poked his entire head out of its hiding place, "Marissa's friend?"
"Isn't that the one?" Shawn's mother asked this Jude character and he shrugged before going back to his hiding place. I shook my head at him.
"Your lucky my daughter and son like you because that makes me like you already." She said smilingly and I blushed, looking at my feet. I knew she might've just been saying that. No mother wouldn't watch her back to see what strangers tramped into her house.
"Mom..." Shawn murmured plaintively and I laughed softly at him and so did his mom.
"Where's Rissa by the way?" Shawn occasionally called Marissa Rissa.
"She got tired of waiting for you so she went to sleep." She informed him.
"Iight. I'll check on her in a minute." Shawn said in that deep voice that made me tremble. I love the way he held my hand, stood by my side completely unashamed by me
An awkward silence fogged over us blew it away.
"So...They talk about me?" I asked curiously.
"Yes. A whole lot." His mother clarified and I grinned from ear to ear at that knowledge.
"What do they say—"
"Okay that's enough. Imma go get ready for work iight" Shawn interrupted as he pulled me with him away from his mother.
She nodded before smiling at me again.
"Alright hun, nice to meet you. I'll tell you what they say someday."
"Nice to meet you too and thanks I can't wait for that day." I told her with propriety before she left for her room.
"Your mom is pretty." I told him truthfully, beyond elated that my meeting her was anything but a disaster. She already seemed likable.
"Yeah, she is."
"Is that all of the Carters?" I asked curiously.
"Yep." He said brusquely as he led me to his room. I wasn't surprised that there was no father figure. In today's society, that was almost like a norm.
Shawn let go of my hand and slid his hands up to my upper arm, moving me with him one door away from his mother's and opened the door. A sound click seemed to produce light thus revealing his bedroom. It was small with not much in it, but so meticulously clean that I couldn't help but gape.
"Man I'm never going to let you see my room." I said as I awed his bedroom.
"I know..." Shawn mumbled gravely and I turned around to him with a frown, knowing that he got the wrong idea.
"I meant cause it's really dirty compared to yours." I found myself having to explain.
"Yeah. I'll be right back. I'm gonna go check up on Marissa for a little bit."
Not satisfied with his brushing my comment off the way he usually did at times, I told him 'okay' with a sigh before he left me in his room with the door slightly ajar.
I stood in the center of his room for an indeterminably long time just staring at it and taking it all in, all the while hearing Shawn and his mother talk. I focused on staring at the room so that I wouldn't listen to them even though I was dying to. It was hard to ignore though because they sounded like they were just sitting beside me. It made me feel depressed, even the cleanliness of it and I think it came from imagining that this was where Shawn had to come home to every night.
I doubted that I could ever do it.
The light that filtered the room was dull enough to ruin one's eyesight if they tried to carry affairs in it. My father always told me never to read in dim lighting because it wrecked havoc on one's eyesight but as silently as a thief in the night. I wondered if that's why Shawn regularly complained about his eyes hurting. I knew now why Shawn brushed me off when I told him to get glasses. He didn't have the means to, and the odd jobs he worked couldn't facilitate him substantial insurance.
Spinning on my loafers with the sudden need to sit, I came in contact with a metal object beside the desk over by the window which was far too small. It stood out much more than everything else in the room with its fine metal glistening in the semi-diffused lighting of the room. After inspecting it some, I made a note to ask him what it was and moved to Shawn's bed. As I sat there, I realized how easily one could hear the street and its three stories down. I couldn't imagine having to live with that noise ever single day. Home was the place where one was supposed to catch peace and silence.
I busied myself with pulling the garment I bought from the mall earlier that day from my shopping and spreading it proudly on my lap. Inside the bag was some of my writing material. That was what I planned to do as I waited for him. I knew I could've done the same thing at home, but the thought of waiting for him reasoned me to stay. I hoped we'd sit up and talk in the dark like we did under Brooklyn Bridge, if he wasn't too tired. And if he was, I didn't mind watching him sleep. That was one of my strange, favorite past times.
Shawn left longer than planned and I found that the toils of school from that morning were finally having their effects on me because I felt so tired. Sometimes I took naps after school to have me energized for my nights out on the town against my parent's wishes.
Aligning myself on Shawn's bed and mindlessly placing the jacket beside me, I felt the rocklike springs of his mattress digging into my sides. As I shut my eyes, I wondered how he was able to sleep on something that should've been viewed as human punishment. No wonder he constantly dozed off during school hours.
While waiting for Shawn, I heard soft murmurs from the next room but since I was so sleepy, my mind couldn't grasp what was truly being said. Eventually, I unintentionally drifted into one of those sleeps that were so deep that by the time one woke up, one could find it comparable to a blink of an eye. I'd had the strangest dream because I kept hearing Shawn's and a female's voices heatedly arguing over something incoherent to me. It was only when I woke up and took a few minutes to realize where I was and what was going on that I knew that bickering wasn't from a dream. The volume of the voices increased and fell, giving me no room to shut them out of my thoughts even if I wanted to.
What I heard next was something I wasn't expecting to hear.