Some Day One Day

48.5

"Your mother was a great woman you know." I remarked, letting a mouthful of smoke abdicate from my mouth. The smoke floating from my lips imitated a swaying veil in front of the city lights that lay ahead of us.
Shawn remained silent, but he'd been that way since we got here but I didn't mind. I knew that he wasn't doing it to be purposely rude. He'd just received a call of his mother's death and to make it more dramatic it fell on the Lord's Day. Just the day before he'd been enjoying his surprise birthday party only to find out the next day his mother was gone.
The only thing that bothered me apart from the tragedy itself was Shawn's lack of a reaction to it. He was just painfully quiet and didn't give off a filament of any type of emotion. Then again I took it as he'd been through so much that brooding there was no more left in him.
"How did they say she died?"
"In her sleep." Was his automatic, dry response.
The words cut me deep, making me frown deeply. Looking over my shoulder at Shawn, I ignored the way the hem of my hoodie partially cut off the view from my right eye. We were both seated on the hood of my car, my feet resting on the jagged front bumper and my hands tucked the sleeves of the hoodie that I'd given him the first time we'd met four years ago. He was reclined against the windshield with his hands tucked behind his head, with one of his knees propped up. His face was to the heavens and as thoughtful as he appeared I wondered if he was imagining what it was like and if his parents were finally together again.
He was clothed in his sweats, a wifebeater and a hoodie-the one I got him for his present and hang in his closet. When I'd met with him downstairs after he'd gone up for a bit, I'd wanted to scream out loud in a strange kind of happiness when he came back down clad in it. Seeing him adorned in something I'd bought for him without me having to force it on him filled me with glee for some reason but I also acknowledged that he had something else in hand that I hadn't seen him go up with. As he handed me the jacket that I'd bought for him years go and damn near forced him to accept, I'd also wanted to ask him what possessed him to wear his gift but didn't have the guts to ask. It wasn't the right time to ask something that I convinced myself was trivial. The questions had been thrown out of the window when Shawn said we were going to go in my car.
The reason it hadn't been in his lot when I'd come home was because he'd spent his entire Sunday fixing it. When he'd informed me of that news my heart had fallen to my feet with the depressing assumption that he wanted me gone, but I didn't linger over the thought. Something more imperative was going on and I needed to push away my inborn trait of selfishness if only for a moment.
His reason for us taking my car was to test-drive it and see if it still worked and needed more work. Strangely I didn't mind if the car broke down in Nowhereville, leaving us no choice but to be alone. In the hot and cold of me and Shawn's temperamental relationship we'd now found ourselves in a lukewarm spot that I could stay in forever.
"Your sure it was in her sleep? She was pretty young."
"I don't know." All the while as Shawn spoke, he didn't look at me. His far away eyes were pasted to the silvery stars. In that odd angle his nose was akin to Marissa's and I found myself staring admirably because it's something I'd never noticed-he seemed to hold that same innocence of hers looking that way and it made my throat tighten for a reason I didn't know.
Sighing heavily, I dabbed the ashes off of my cigarette with the tip of my finger before placing it in between my lips again.
It was quiet for a long time, save the rippling of waves in the river beneath Brooklyn Bridge and the whispered rustling of fallen leaves.
I didn't know what to tell him. Though I knew Shawn loved his mother to the ends of this earth, his relationship with her had been rocky ever since they'd moved to the United States. Her inability to cope with not only the loss of her husband, but also her home, extended friends and family had driven her mad.
It had obviously been a painful process for Shawn to watch her mind go haywire right before his very eyes.
"I remember when all of this shit had started." Shawn blurted out suddenly and my attention span was at the highest it had ever been.
Amidst blowing a lane of smoke, I turned my flank until I was looking squarely at him. His expression was distant, as though he'd gotten lost in the past.
"When she lost herself...started going crazy." Shawn elaborated as though he'd felt my questioning glance. My heart plunged to my gut and I shifted, feeling a discomfort I didn't understand.
"At first I thought it was when she kept piling on them prescriptions and painkillers," Shawn snickered with rancor before shaking his head, "Shit wasn't it." gnawing at his inner bottom lip the way he always did when deep in thought, Shawn shook his head again, "Nah, that wasn't when that shit started. It began the day I found her at the hospital a few after the hurricane; I think I knew deep down inside that she had lost her mind. There was this real doped out look in her eyes. Like...like she was on some drugs or somethin'." Shawn curled his bottom lip with his tongue before biting it thoughtfully, and then he continued, "I'll never forget that look. I think at that moment I knew right when I was looking at her that something wasn't right, but...I ignored it."
My lips were parted, and the hold on my cigarette was so lose that it could fall at any time. The moment Shawn had mentioned the word 'drugs' my insides whirred alarmingly but I'd ignored those uncomfortable feelings and focused solely on him. Shifting, I sat with my right leg folded on top of Shawn's, with my other foot resting length-wise on the bumper. He must've taken my switch in sitting positions as a listening posture because he continued.
"I ignored it because I was so happy to see her. She was the first person I'd found in the hospital I was stuck at for weeks. When I was able to get up, I couldn't really walk cause of my bad leg, but I was looking for someone, anyone cause I refused to believe that in a matter of one day...just one day, I was all alone," he scoffed, "I ain' finna lie, I was scared as fuck because of that shit. So I just started looking throughout this place, it was all crammed up. There were dead bodies lying everywhere, and each time I took a step I prayed to God anyone in my fam wasn't there. I came across a few people I knew," he snickered mirthlessly with an incredulous look on his face as though he couldn't believe all of that had happened to him, "I almost tripped over some nigga only to find out it was my bestfriend at that time. Real talk, he was lying there dead. It was all too fucking much man I was more determined to find someone that I knew. So I looked and looked until I found my mom.
"I was just glad to see her and she just started crying when she saw me. She had this messed up bandage on her neck, a few broken bones but as hard as it was to look at her that way, I was just glad she was alive, man. But it all ended when she asked me where my father was at."
Gulping hard at my burning throat, I lowered my head dolefully, remembering the heart-wrenching story of how Shawn and his father parted.
"I wonder what would've happened if I didn't tell her the truth because after I told her what really happened, she was never the same. She just kept on saying that we were going to find him someday. At first it was just sad and I thought she was depressed like the rest of us, but when she kept saying that shit even after we moved here, somehow I knew my Mom was gone but I didn't accept that shit."
I sighed at Shawn's words, letting the nicotine fill up my lungs, getting more and more distressed with every second that passed.
"She was really distraught Shawn. Anyone would've been had they been in her shoes. You all went through something terrible." I commiserated.
"You remember the time I started hustling?" Shawn asked me abruptly and my stomach became weightless. I shot my eyes at him to find him still staring pensively at the night sky. I knew his reason for asking me that was because it was around that time that his mother was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, but my reasons for looking at him that way were for a myriad of reasons.
"Yeah. I remember." My voice was husky and I cleared my throat, taking another pull at my cigarette.
Those had not been pleasant times. From the way Shawn went quiet, I knew he was thinking the same thing.
It had to have been one of the coldest winters when Shawn started selling drugs. We were going through those awkward times in a relationship where both participants wonder if one loves the other, but wont say it. I wanted to tell him that I loved him so much, but during that time, Shawn began to change. Winter wasn't the only cold thing that had come through town-Shawn had turned cold too. He was out of two jobs and desperate. He started showing up in school a lot less. He didn't hang around Angie, Ojay and I like he used to. His attitude began to change. I knew it had really started when he found out that Marissa had been taken advantage of but after those dramatic meeting sessions he'd had with my parents, it just went from bad to worse.
He hang out with his rowdy friends a lot more-the ones who kept on putting a lot of shit into his ears.
The day I had found out Shawn started selling drugs led us to one of our biggest fights because my parent's warnings of him that had once been nothing but lies had come true. I'd always pitied or looked down upon girls who dated guys that did what Shawn was doing. But like Shawn had told me himself, the one thing you fear is the same thing you will face one day.
That night that I confronted him had been terrible. I'd told him over and over that he wasn't like his friends no matter how hard he tried to be like them. He was trying to be a full-fledged thug but I knew it would never happen because Shawn didn't have that kind of hard heart. Had Marissa not been in his life, maybe he would've turned out that way but he wasn't like that. And I had told him about it to. I remember him just sitting in a composed fashion on his bed as I went off on him. He had looked like he was listening to me, but he said nothing.
I went on this tirade telling him how it wasn't just me fearing that my parent's worst nightmares had come true, or that he was trying to be like his friends when he truly wasn't. From the stories I heard of girls dating guys from the 'streets' it was a real difficult thing to deal with, not knowing whether the guy you were in love with would ever come back through that door he walked out of. When I'd said those words, Shawn had looked up at me and the look in his eyes had made my heart twist with pain. For a long time we had stared at one another, the snow listlessly drifting down his window. Although I was laden with all the winter clothes to support the world, I was freezing myself off because of the lack of heat in Shawn's then apartment. Shawn, completely unperturbed by the glacial temperature of his room had stared right back at me unwaveringly. After talking his ears off for nearly an hour, Shawn only had two words for me in response.
'I'm tired.'
With that said he had gotten up and left me there, cold, in his room. Now Shawn used to tell me that he was tired all the time but something about the way he said it this time that was different. When my parents, who still forbid me from seeing him no matter what, found out that I had gone to his place I was prison guard lockdown-no going out, no phone. It didn't hit me until weeks later when he stopped answering the few risky calls I was able to make what those two words really meant.
He had broken up with me. I was reduced to asking his friends were he was, but they had remained tightlipped.
Christmastime rolled in and I still hadn't heard from Shawn. I began to worry that Shawn's fate had ended up the same as every pusher. I thought he'd been hurt or was locked somewhere in the prisons that might as well be called Hell but I had no way of knowing for sure. Finally on Christmas Day Marissa surprisingly called me out of the blue. At first I had been relieved to hear her from her but the fear lurking in her voice and the horror of what she was telling me warded that relief away. Shawn had been having a fever, bedridden, and in her own words, he wouldn't wake up.
"You know as soon as Marissa told me you wouldn't wake up, I was gone." I said in remembrance, staring straight ahead of me in a dream-like state.
"I didn't care that my parents had told me I couldn't see you. It didn't matter to me that it was Christmas Day and all my family from all over the world was there. I didn't even care that a blizzard was about to hit the town and that while I was driving I could barely see the road. All I wanted to do was to get to you. When I got to Hunter's chase and Marissa opened the door, I went straight to your room. And I saw you there."
Tears welded my eyes and my lips trembled at the vivid memory of him lying there with a lifeless yet peaceful aura to him that at that time made me let out a shriek of horror.
At that moment I felt Shawn's gaze on me and pursed my lips to stop them from shaking. When that didn't work, I brought the cigarette up to them and inhaled deeply and steamed off the smoke through my nostrils and mouth before commencing.
"I know I'd always told you to get some rest because you were always working and you were always so tense and tired. You never stayed still for too long without feeling guilty about it so even if you had the chance to rest you wouldn't," I paused when an image of Shawn abruptly getting up from the bed where we lay when he felt he was being too 'lazy' and smiled at the thought. Then when I remembered how he was on that day I went to see him, my melted away like snow on a sunny day.
"But looking at you like that in bed just laying there not doing anything made me feel guilty for some reason because I was the one who always wanted you to rest. I always wanted you to have some peace ...but not like that. I remember sitting by your side for the next couple of days. Even if we were snowed in by the blizzard and I couldn't go anywhere, I would've stayed if it were the prettiest day of Spring I swear," my voice had dropped to a whisper as I recalled, "I wasn't going to leave until you woke up and nothing in the world could make me leave at that point."
A part of me wondered what I would've done had he not woken up. The thought was too scary for me to even finish comprehending but I knew what I would've done had I not seen his deep brown eyes again.
Blinking the tears away so that he wouldn't see me cry for the millionth time, I inhaled deeply my cigarette and exhaled heavily. It had been crazy. For all those weeks prior I'd been sitting at home worried that he was either getting shot at or locked away when in truth he was nearly dying because of the cold that circulated the impoverished place he was supposed to call home. The house was chilly below safe temperatures and I was doing anything and everything to keep Shawn and Marissa warm. Friends of his who lived in the same duplex had stopped by see if he was okay even though most of them believed that he wouldn't make it. All that had been running through my mind when they said that was Shawn's words when he first took me to Brooklyn Bridge telling me not to give up on my auntie just because she was going through problems. I wasn't going to give up on him no matter what.
Nobody had known where his mother had gone, and she hadn't been able to call because the phone lines and electricity had gone out. I kept Marissa calm by cheating her that Shawn was just getting some much needed rest after working so hard. Jude was still staying with his uncle at that time.
"When you woke up-"
"You were the first person I saw."
At Shawn's cutting me off and filling up what I was going to say, I turned to him wide eyed and our eyes locked.
Wind had picked up by then and some strands flew recklessly across my sight, but even then Shawn's eyes were still the only things that I saw.
"And the first thing you said to me was that you loved me..." he smiled a little sad smile, "right?"
My heart rocketed to my throat and I swallowed hard and curled my lips when the urge to cry got too strong.
Smiling shakily, I lowered my eyes to the sad smile on his lips and gave a jerky nod.
"Yeah...the first words you said when you woke up were 'I love you too'..."
A fog filled up his eyes as I'm sure the memory was vividly clear to him as it was to me. When looking at him got to intense I ducked my head and let my eyes skitter away nervously, sucking in some smoke from the weathering away cigarette, "If I remember correctly that is."
Shawn chuckled softly, "Yeah. You on point."
At his words I looked up at him and smiled timidly.
We stared at each other for a while, remembering how we'd come to tell each other we loved one another for the very first time and the circumstances that had led us to that victory. Although I'd known that deep down I loved Shawn, I had been too afraid to say it. Despite my feelings for him my parent's forewarnings about puppy love and how it wasn't true love still influenced my mind and heart so I had refrained from telling him-also because Shawn had never said it to me other than that one time we'd got into an argument and he'd said it in a sardonic matter.
But the moment he opened his eyes from a near-death experience, I didn't give a damn about understanding love or listening to the discouraging chiding of everyone around us.
"I think that was the moment I learned it's never too late to tell someone you love them." I blurted out, not wanting to insinuate anything but from the way Shawn's jaw became harder than stone I knew I'd flayed a cord.
Wresting his eyes from mine and looked off to his side, giving me his handsome side profile in the dim lighting. Stuffing the hands that had been behind his head into his pockets, he spoke.
"You know why I broke up with you right?" Shawn asked and when I was too dumbfounded to answer he looked at me with a pensive tilted head that made my heart melt. Although we'd gotten back together the moment he'd woken up, Shawn always felt some sort of guilt for how he'd broken up with me at that point. Unable to hold his gaze I dropped my eyes to my shortening cigarette.
"I was a pain in the ass. To me as long as you sold drugs then I wanted nothing to do with you when I should've understood that you had no choice."
"Nah. I had a choice. I made a bad one," licking his lips, he looked off into the distance again, "Just when you was cussin' me out about the whole hustlin' thing, I realized how much you cared back then."
His words made me freeze.
"Shit was strange to me cause ain' nobody ever acted like they cared what the fuck I did with my life like that other than my father," he chortled sadly, "When I was real little I started getting rowdy in school cause I was hanging around the wrong folks. And one day my pops went off on me while whoopin' my ass and it was just mad ironic how he was tellin' me all the shit you told me back then. You sounded just like him when you was tellin' me over and over like I'm not like those other niggas and I'll never be because I was actually good for somethin'. That's when I realized how serious we were and...I never told you this shit but some of the things you have to do just to make it in that kind of world..."
His voice tapered off. All I wanted to do was reach to him and cradle him in my arms. I actually flinched a tad when the need got too pressing. To keep myself at bay I smoked.
"It was just foul, mad grimy...and you were right. The shit just wasn't me but Marissa was getting a cold back then, my uncle never asked me for nothin' but I just couldn't let him keep Jude as if he was his responsibility you know?" he looked as though he was truly pleading with me to understand. That was one factor of his life that he wasn't proud of. He'd always swore that he was going to make it out of poverty without breaking the law and once he did, he would never forgive himself of that.
"And my mom..."Shawn grimaced as though he was physically hurt while guilt rushed into his dark orbs, "I was just trying to do anything, anything to make her right you know?"
He looked as though he were trying to explain himself, as though he was still trying to reassure himself that he hadn't been at fault for her condition.
"You did the best that you could babe." I told him softly, my voice trembling slightly from the emotion I felt.
Swallowing hard, Shawn looked away.
"Nah. Doing my best should've meant not doing it at all. I knew how much your parents meant to you, and I'd become what they thought I was. I don't know man..." the wind picked up, ruffling our clothing.
Shawn chewed on his inner lip thoughtfully.
"I felt like I'd disappointed you somehow by turning into your worst nightmare. So I thought you'd be better off with someone who didn't end up like I had."
"Shawn you never disappointed me..." I croaked out emphatically wondering how he could ever think that and he looked at me, raising a brow.
"Didn't I..." he said rather than asked and when I shook my head adamantly, he looked off again as though he didn't believe me. I shouldn't have been surprised that he didn't but I was nonetheless.
"I disappointed her though," he continued and I knew he was referring to his mother, "Nothing I did would ever make her right. Yo I remember how niggas always thought I such a fucking fool always tryna get straight A's up in school. Yeah I cared about getting an education and getting the fuck up out of the place we were stuck in but I did that shit for her. I remember before this hurricane came and destroyed us she was always the one drilling into me how important education was. The shit stuck with me and when she started to lose it, I thought that hey if I keep myself right in the books maybe she'll see that I'm trying and than maybe things weren't so bad after all. Maybe she'll start trying too, you know?"
Shawn pursed his lips and a streak of rage glimmered in his eyes.
"She acted like she cared but forreal? Deep down inside? She didn't give a fuck," he laughed sardonically but I felt his pain, "You know when she started to tell me I was doing good? You know when she told me she was proud of me?"
Shawn furled his lips, an enclosure of anger hardening his face, "A few weeks before we broke up, I came home, found my mom in my room. I was just glad that she was home because I hadn't seen her for two weeks. Nobody knew where she had disappeared to. When she saw me, she was happy and she started crying, just like she did when we found each other after the hurricane. She was telling me how sorry she was and how everything was going to be okay. How we were all going to be happy again. How she was proud of me...When you hear that from the number one lady in your life," he shook his head faintly with a faint mirthless smile on his face, "Nothing else matters. Nothing. I didn't even care to be mad at her for all those years she'd fallen off. I just wanted to tell her I love her and tell her that it was all okay. I just wanted to tell hold her...just to know that hey although times are rough moms is still here. She could've left for good but she came back. You know what happened Bey? My mom and I actually sat down and talked. We hadn't done that in a long time. I was just glad I'd gotten my mother back." he said in a fervid tone I rarely heard from him.
He remained quiet for a little while, staring at his thumb as it dented the center of his other palm, "And just when I thought everything was all good, I was thinkin' damn we can start over. Like man, the day has finally come you know, my mom is finally saved. I wanted to call you to tell you but by then your parents wouldn't even let you talk on the phone but I was so fucking happy Bey, you were the first one I wanted to tell. But you know life still goes on. I had to get back on those streets and do what I had to do, you know, go handle some business," I saw the contrition as he said those words and when I nodded my understanding he continued, "But while I was getting ready to leave I noticed something. Shit I was slinging went missing." I stared at Shawn wondering what he was going to say next. He raised his brow a tad but he didn't look up, still molding his palm with his thumb, "Funny thing is...I had it with me when I stepped into that room."
"Oh god...." I frowned deeply, feeling the pain that radiated from him.
"I knew I had it because whenever I was near my mom and I had that thing on me, I just felt like dirt you know? I felt like, yo I don't need to be around moms when I'm carrying something that's probably killing someone else's mom you know? And I knew she'd never recover from that shit if she saw me with it, so whenever it was on me I just made sure its some place that can't be seen. But I guess it's true when they say nobody knows you better than your mom because she knew where it is and took it without me even knowing."
As though my frown couldn't deepen, it did, and my heart plunged lower and lower.
He'd never told me any of this. All of this was a first.
"I went to her room, door was locked...that's when I knew she was doin' it. All that time we'd been talkin', she got it from my pocket..." he laughed bitterly shaking his head dismally while still gazing at his hands, "Yo I didn't notice that shit. I tried to think when she might've gotten it from me I didn't even know. I'm supposed to be this nigga from the streets and I can't even tell when my moms is stealing from me? From me?" Shawn's face contorted and sucked his teeth, "How did I let that happen? A nigga ain' supposed to be blinded by shit like love and all of that? Feelings? Feelings ain' for niggas, especially niggas like me, but that's exactly why I couldn't see her taking from me, cause all I cared about was damn I love my mother and she's back. All I cared about was how much I'd missed my moms but what do I get in return? She straight jacks me Bey."
"...Corey..."
"Now I knew my mom took those prescriptions from the doctor...but cocaine?" he put so much stress on the last word that the hairs on the back of my neck spiked up.
"Nah not my moms," he shook his head as though he still couldn't believe it, "That's all I was thinkin'. She may have been sick, but she had a heart. I knew my mom wouldn't do that kind of shit. She had a career. She had an education you know? My mom didn't even grow up in the hood Bey...It still don't make no damn sense," Shawn's voice became quiet and thoughtful, but still powerful enough to seize my heart from beating, "Then one day all of a sudden she jackin' yay from me. Me. Her son. The nigga who was supposed to protect her from all the crazy shit this fucked up world has to offer."
Shawn was thoughtfully quiet for a while, lifting his chin a tad but keeping his gaze on his hands.
"When I broke down the door to her room, you know what she was doin' righ?" he snickered, "Of course she denied it at first even though I could see it with my very eyes. Then she said that was the first time she had done it and she would never do it again. When she knew I didn't believe her ass, this woman had the nerve to start cryin' talkin' bout how sorry she was. When I didn't say shit, she started to get mad and ask me how the hell she was supposed to carry on her life without my dad. How she missed my pops too much to go on and all of this bullshit."
"Shawn that's not bullshit. Your mother was hurting. She'd lost the love of her life. She was weak at that time." I found that the need to defend his mother's actions had turned into a really important task for me.
Shawn's eyes flew up to mine and he stared at me for a long time, expressionless, "So does that excuse her Bey? Weakness?"
When I didn't respond, Shawn continued unabated, "Or was she just really selfish?"
His eyes dropped to his hands again.
"Sometimes I think the difference between weakness and selfishness is so paper thin the differences are really slim. That's why people confuse them. A weak person will do what's best for them when things get too difficult because they're not strong enough. A selfish person does what's best for them because they're too lazy to get through that difficulty and use other people's strength to get to where they need to be. Weak people are usually weak because they have nothing to give them strength so they do whatever they have to do to make it. Selfish people have a lot and because they're used to having a lot, they don't give a damn about anyone else around them as long as they get what they want, no matter what. My mother didn't have nothing Bey, she had us," Shawn's voice became quiet but still potent enough to send a trickle down my spine, "So you tell me...was she weak or selfish?"
It had taken a while for Shawn's words to sink into my mind and for me to fully understand them.
"She..." I murmured, torn between the two, unable to pick one. My heart started beating rapidly as I questioned myself.
"Look I ain' blaming my mom, I love her," Shawn continued, completely unaware of how his words had affected me, "She was human, shit happened. But I've realized people use weakness as an excuse. At first yeah you think iight maybe she was just weak but when it keeps happening again and again, when they know that they're hurting you...the fuck is it gonna look like to you? She stayed doin' something to make herself feel good when she knows for you to see her that way just kills you inside...ain' that selfish to you?"
I kept my face averted from Shawn, looking at the city lights. I was miffed by his words for reasons I didn't know.
"You ever wonder whether you were selfish or weak Shawn?" I asked quietly, not accusing, but just wondering, "Do you think you were selfish for getting mad at your mother for not living her life the way you wanted her to?" I found myself asking, not really expecting an answer. With eyes that I was sure were glistening, I turned to Shawn who was looking at me thoughtfully, "Or were you just weak because you realized that you needed your mother in your life and couldn't handle her doing something you didn't want her to do."
Very rarely did I ever get Shawn stumped by my words but it was written all over his sienna brown face. There was a slight
"I think the weakest people don't ever admit that they're weak, because they want everyone to think they're strong. So they don't accept help and try to do everything on their own. Which makes them the most selfish out of all the weaklings out there..." I looked at him straight in the eye as I said that, remembering Shawn's rigid habit of refusing help.
I waited for him to bark at me and start yelling. Or ever worse hop off the car and insist that we go home with that stonewall face of his.
"Maybe you're right," he surprised me, "So I guess it's a good thing to be selfish then."
It became quiet, both of us ruminating over our theories of the world-me still shocked yet pleased that even after all these years That's why I broke up with you back then. After what happened with my mom I was just real tired of everything and I thought, if I had to go through that shit again, someone fuckin' with me like that..."
Shawn shook his head and I sighed deeply, trying to ignore the painful blaze in my heart.
"So," I swallowed hard and fought hard to look him in the eye "So you assumed I was going to hurt you someday huh? Is that why you broke it off with me?"
"When you trust someone who you never thought would turn their back on you and they do..." he tilted his chin inquisitively, "what you finna start thinking about the next person who you trust twice as much?" what was so awkward about Shawn's question is that he didn't ask it in an accusatory way. It was like he truly wanted an answer to explain the madness of it all.
I wanted to answer him, but my mouth couldn't function.
"And anyway," Shawn faltered the way he usually did when too much emotion was revealed, "you was really stressed out about the whole thing anyway, so I didn't want to keep you worrying about my ass the way you said you did."
"It didn't stop. It still hasn't stopped. I still worry about you Shawn."
"Why are you worried? I'm alive and breathing ain' I." He said it blandly as if to say him being alive or breathing wasn't important.
"That's not enough to live Shawn. You don't truly live until you feel something." I told him quietly and after staring at me for a while, his features softened as though he actually considered my negation. I knew it by the way he chewed on the corner of his lip.
He nodded slowly as he looked away, his voice distant and sad all in the same breath, "You right...you right. Cause...Moms was alive and breathing but," I heard him pause but for some reason was too afraid to look, "she was as good as a dead to me ever since that day."
When I shot my eyes at him, I saw that he was still looking off to his side. It got so quiet I wondered if nature and everything else from the moon to the stars were trying to hear him too because it was Shawn-he had that thing about him. That thing about him that made one make listening to him a duty; a must.
"She been dead. Ever since she sold her soul to that shit," he paused as though to reflect, his voice much quieter when he continued, "She been dead to me."
And that was why he didn't react this entire time...
He'd already cried for her years ago.
For a long time I stared blankly at Shawn, unable to chart what I was truly feeling deep within to his words. All I knew was that my heart had stopped beating when he'd said them. There was a sorrowful, almost blameful look to his eyes now that made me ache all over.
Then I began to feel distressed. I began to feel like four walls were closing on me. air began to get elusive when what he said sunk into the marrow of my bones and the core of my heart.
Suddenly I felt naked and unworthy in a sense. Self-cautiously, I shifted until my leg didn't touch Shawn's no more. Bothersome, I ended up shifting until I no longer sat on the car. I swiped my sweaty palms over my hips and when I did it once, I folded my arms while turning away from Shawn and facing the city lights that showcased the world that we were away from.
"What do you feel?"
Shawn's voice had caught me off guard and my heart's erratic beating quickened as I turned to look at him, closing his jacket tighter around me so that he wouldn't see me convulse like the leaves rattling against the wind's blow.
Licking his lips out of occasional habit, Shawn reclined backwards until his back was realigned with the windshield and hitched his chin at me.

"What do you feel right now?" he repeated, detached yet curious all at once.
I felt a lot of things that I couldn't put into words, but I knew one thing. Focusing on his lips, I answered as my eyes fell away to the fallen leaves pitifully.
Swallowing hard, I breathed deeply and looked up again to stare into the eyes of the one and only man that I had ever loved.
Shawn's mien was no longer apathetic but intense as though my answer truly mattered to him. as he awaited my response, his head up against the glass pane, he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. A flare went through me because for a moment from the way the moonlight struck him, he looked like the boy who had stopped to help me when my car broke down, on that hot summer day...
"I'm tired." I croaked out.
The way Shawn's expression softened even as he looked at me from that angle seemed to say that he was tired too.
Then from the way his attractive neck kept shifting it was as though he were swallowing a thousand and one words.
Instead, sitting upright and looking off to his side briefly, Shawn hoped off of the car mumbling under his breath
"We'll be iight."
His words were so muffled and unexpected that I thought I'd misheard.
"Huh?" I inclined closer but felt too afraid to step towards him.
"Let's go ma," he opened the door to the passenger's seat, "it's getting mad late. We need to get some rest before goin' back out there."
And he was right. I needed to rest my exhaustion before we faced the world and our problems once again, but even then I felt another problem creeping up in me.
At first I'd been hesitant, suddenly feeling I didn't deserve to be in Shawn's presence. But when he looked at me expectantly, on unsteady feet, I made my way over to the door.
The ride to his place had been quiet and though I knew on Shawn's part it wasn't because he was being hostile. He was in his thoughtful phase. I on the other hand was a volcano deep down inside. Eruptions of that yearning fire struck me at the most inopportune of times, which made me feel worse. Why had the urge come to me then after having such a candid, open, emotionally infused conversation? What the hell did that mean?
When we got to his place, I nearly stepped out of the car before he'd cut the engine off then told myself to stop being so skittish and obvious. While we were both getting into the house quietly, him ahead of me because I felt thoroughly insecure with him looking at me from behind, I waged a war with myself whether to tell him or not. Walking up to my room, my hands shook the way they did whenever the urge struck me hard and at that moment I felt a pair of eyes on me.
Panicky, I glanced up at Shawn and temporarily forgot my own woes when I saw the look on his face that normally wasn't him. Oh god. Here I was worrying about myself, being selfish as usual when it was he who had suffered the harsh blow today. The look on his face immediately washed away all of my issues and I focused solely on him. He seemed a little bit uncomfortable with his hands in his pockets, sort of lost and...almost pleading...
Turning away from my room, I walked up to him and cupped his cheek.
"You okay honey?" I asked him tenderly, remembering that tonight had been a tough blow for him.
As though the band that had been restricting him snapped, Shawn grabbed my hand and pulled it over his shoulder until I was inseparably snuggled up against him. Instantly his hands went around my waist as though to solidify my existence and his face buried into the hollow of my neck.
"I miss her." He muttered quietly yet the anguish was massively thick in his tone.
"I know you do baby. And it's okay. It's okay to feel that way. She's fine now. She ain got to be tired no more. She can finally rest," I told him softly as I held him tight, "You're going to be just fine. All these painful days aren't gonna be here no more. Trust me..."
We stayed that way for a long time, rocking slightly from one foot to the other as we held each other strongly never to let go. But as Shawn held me so, the burn inside of me got hotter and hotter, more and more unbearable. It made me feel so hypocritical that I began to feel weak and my hold on him started to lessen in its strength...
As though he felt it, Shawn slowly let go of me, planting his hands on my hips as he stepped back. His eyes roved over my face and there was an amount of trust that I hadn't seen since that fated prom night. My heart skipped a beat and the flames augmented. A part of me prayed to God that he wouldn't ask me to go into his room because I don't think I could handle it.
Backing up slowly, Shawn held an appreciative look in his eyes as he nodded with a sad yet surprisingly hopeful smile, "Trust you?"
He still held my gaze as he backed up and I presumed he expected an answer. Swallowing hard, I bravely nodded and waited for Shawn to explode and burn me with acidic words.
Instead, with tightly pursed lips he stared at me with a tilted head as though giving it some consideration, "Imma hold you to that babygirl."
With that said Shawn entered his room and I was left standing there in his hallway, still wondering how it was possible for me to love him more and more than I did each day.
Breathing deeply, I stood there and glanced at his bedroom and mine. I went to mine.
Taking a quick cold shower in hopes to quell the yearning, dambable flames in me, I got ready for bed, pulling the jacket I'd bought for him over the t-shirt I'd taken from him that morning and his basketball shorts. Slipping into my bed, I lay there, a legion of thoughts streaming through my mind. As much as I wanted to be with him, I knew that it would be so hard because I'd become his worst nightmare. He wouldn't want to be with me, and it was also difficult on my psyche.
Regradless, guilt had grown wilder and I knew the safest thing to do would be to stay here, but I felt obligated to check up on him for some reason.
Without letting my torn decisions take over me, I rushed to Shawn's bedroom to find that he was already dressed for bed-shirtless in a pair of fresh gray sweats, his hands tucked beneath his head with his face towards the ceiling. He didn't move or stir when I came in but I knew his eyes were open. Standing at the doorway, I battled with myself on whether to leave or not. Still I just needed to touch him before I left. As much as I was the enemy i...I needed him.
Nervously, I made my way to his bed. He was looking at me now and our eyes locked. He seemed a little bit surprised by my being there. I suddenly didn't know what to do, but before my conscience could talk me out of it, I crawled onto his bed and lay beside him. Closing my eyes, I snuggled nearer to his warmth, resting my head on his firm shoulder. I hadn't known his body had been tense up until the moment I felt him relax against me.
Diffidently, I snaked one hand underneath his waist and the other over. For a long time Shawn had been unresponsive, and when I lay my head on his chest I heard his heart beating wildly.
Then as though he couldn't help himself any longer, Shawn wrapped his arms around me and rolled both of us until lay on our side, facing one another,
"I didn't think you'd come." He murmured in a whisper above me, making me tilt my head back to find him glancing at me in slight confusion...and relief.
He may have been talking about me coming into his room, but as deeply as we'd gone that night it could've meant anything.
Staring deep into his eyes, no matter how hard that had been for me to do and no matter how sacrificial being around the person I'd hurt was, I found myself not promising, but simply stating the truth.
"I'll always come back to you," reposing my head in the crook of his neck and clutching my eyes tight so that I wouldn't cry, I held him tighter as though pressing his strong body to my feeble one would strengthen me, "I can't stay away for too long. At least not forever. I'll always come back."