Some Day One Day

50.5

If he had then we wouldn't be looking at each other the way we were now...
"Who the fuck has prom on Sunday? No Bey seriously. Who the fuck does that?"
My cousin fumed from beside me and I rolled my eyes because this had been the umpteenth time I'd heard those words from her.
"Angie get over it," I muttered as I spruiced up my light brown curls, admiring the way it was finely made, "Quit complaining. It's here. We're here. Let's just enjoy it."
Clearly ignoring me, Angie went on with her tirade of what at injustice it was to have prom on a Sunday night. Yes, their school board was crazy, thinking that if they had prom on a Sunday night then less havoc would be caused and rowdy teenagers would calm down.
They were so wrong it wasn't even funny. I had a feeling people were showing out a lot more just to make the administration eat their own decisions, rules and regulations.
Although my parents had situated me in a different school, I'd threatened to kill myself if they didn't' let me go to prom with the people I truly cared about. To quell my threats, Daddy had passed down his ever so loved mustang as a graduation present. Still, that wasn't enough to me. When I thought of that car all I thought of all the places Shawn and I would go so it didn't even matter to me that I got a car that I had once begged my father on bended knee for.
Yes saying that I would kill myself had been stretching it saying that I would take my own life but they'd become so strict I was surprised they even allowed me the liberty of merely breathing. And anyway, Ojay, Angie and I had worked hard all year coaxing a certain someone to carry himself to this event as unlikely as it was for him to appear at. Slowly but surely we had broken him down, Ojay's father had beneficently bought him his tux no matter how razzed Shawn was about that, and he was coming. Hell I'll be damned if I wasn't going to see Shawn in a suit-my parents could kill me if I wanted to but I knew that that was something that I just had to see, no excuses. My threatening to my parents, however overzealous, had worked to my favor because here I was, at the day every highschool girl waits for. And it had all been worth it. Meeting Ojay and Shawn and Ojay's place had proved to be one of the most enthralling experiences of my life. I remember when I saw Shawn in his well-tailored tux-with an actual tie-I'd started screaming like I'd seen something close to a ghost.
Smiling at myself I admired my reflection in the mirror when I remembered whom I was here with.
Grabbing Angie's hand and leading her out from the congested livingroom to the gymnasium where the dance was being held, I let her rant on and on about how she wished this was happening on a Friday.
We'd gone into the restroom shortly to freshen up while our men waited for us outside. Our men. Saying that made me so giddy inside I felt foolish when the urge to giggle struck me.
The outskirts of the crowd was sparse but the heart of the party with a wild large crowd was located on the dancefloor under the rotating discoball. Angie and I navigated towards the tables situated on the side in search for our princes only to find Mr. Lonely sitting there, just watching the crowd. God he looked so good that night, sitting there with his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely intertwined. That watchful eye of his was so damn adorable it made me just want to hug the daylights out of him.
I couldn't believe that this had been the first time I'd ever seen him in a suit. I was always so used to seeing him in oversized clothes, a wifebeater, or on good days, just his gray sweats. Now he looked so edible that it was somewhat sinful to humanity.
"Hol' the fuck up!" Angie began as we approached. Upon hearing her loud voice over the music, Shawn looked up at us, making my heart flutter. Grinning widely, I rushed over to him and practically tackled him when I went to hug him tightly before sitting on his lap.
"Whoa. Someone's happy to see me." Shawn grinned up at me placing his hand on the small of my back.
Our gazing into each other's eyes didn't last long because Angie's vociferous voice interrupted us.
"Where the fuck is Ojay? Why isn't he sitting here like a good boy waiting for his woman like you Shawn?"
"Huh?" Shawn tried to act like he hadn't heard her, "What you say?"
"I said where is Ojay." She asked with a huff, looking out into the dance floor.
With an innocuous veneer Shawn looked up at me and pointed at me, "You seen O?" then he pointed at himself, "I ain' seen that nigga."
That's when I knew Shawn was up to his playful antics and laughed as my insides warmed up. Widning both arms around his neck, I craned my neck to kiss his jaw.
"You sexy bastard."
"Man, why I got to be a bastard? Ojay's the one missing." As he said the words his hands shifted downwards and settled on the curve of my ass, making me jump slightly.
"Shawn!" I chided him as he tried to appear blameless as he drew his brows together confusedly, chewing on his gum casually.
"Wha?" he tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about.
Loving this playful side of him, I smiled happily to myself and wrapped my arms around his neck again.
We'd been together for more than a year now. After the incident that had taken place during Christmas, nothing could tear Shawn and I apart-well other than my parents. We still fought them day in day out, risking to get caught when we broke the rules because we knew how much we needed each other.
Even death tried to test us by nearly taking him away from me but it hadn't worked. And that had been the last straw for me.
Over the months I'd been doing a lot of thinking, realizing how much being with Shawn had changed my outlook on life. I no longer demeaned all those other girls who were down for their men and did the craziest shit if they had to. I'd become one of them and I wasn't ashamed of it because of how he made me feel. It seemed to me that because things between Shawn and I were better-just us two, not necessarily our lives-that he seemed to want to try more. He'd gotten back into school and was doing better than well. It hadn't taken him long to wake up and get himself on the right track with his studies and his grades. He'd had a little scare last year towards the end when he was so consumed with the drug dealing that he'd worried for a moment that he wouldn't pass the class. But his grades throughout most of the chapter had been well and he'd passed both the mid term and final with flying colors.
Despite still being in the drug game, Shawn was slowly and hopefully carefully easing his way out of it. He'd already applied to numerous colleges and was the main reason why I'd bothered to apply. Although Shawn, the love of my life, gave me encouragement to educate myself for the future, I was still lost when it came to me and what I wanted to do with myself and my life.
One thing was for sure though.
I couldn't see me living it without him.
Pressing my forehead against Shawn's, I simply stared into his eyes, savoring the moment, hoping that it would last forever...
"Sup with you?" he asked me for the millionth time and all I did was smile at him before puckering my lips to kiss him softly.
"I love you." I said the words, a great feeling I couldn't put into words infiltrating me.
"Love you too." He told me immediately, seriousness clouding his eyes as he bit on his bottom lip.
"Ugh ya'll make me sick!" we heard a thoroughly upset Angie but didn't take our eyes off of each other, "I'm going to find that monkey."
The sound clicking of Angie's heels as she stomped away did nothing to keep me riveted gaze off of Shawn's.
"You're beautiful." He told me after staring at me for such a long time and I blushed.
"You are too."
He reached up and pecked my lips, "And you're mine..."
There was a slight touch of question in his last words and the fact that he was questioning that I was his didn't sit well with him. He knew I was his. Ever since the first day.
And I was his too.
We belonged together.
"You're mine too..." I told him just to make this thing official for the umpteenth time.
Leaning closer I kissed the corner of his lips and pulled back to smile at him again.
"Man what has gotten into you tonight?" his eyes roved over me searchingly, a smirk riding his lips.
"Nothing. Let's just say cupid sprinkled me with some fairy dust."
"The fuck?"
Shawn's priceless reaction made peals of laughter escape me.
"Who the fuck you tryna be talkin' that? Shakespeare?"
"Stop." I chided him laughingly.
"Stop my ass. Girl that was lame where the hell you get that from? Shit I should be mad at the person who gave you permission to use that shit."
Right now I was laughing so hard lachrymose began to leak from my eyes and my stomach hurt from the way laughter tightened my muscles.
"Stop it-oh shit baby!" I gasped suddenly.
"What?" he asked, wrapping his arms around my waist firmly.
"Oh god I love this song! Oh this song is so sweet."
Shawn simply shook his head and briefly looked around, "Where did those monkeys go?"
I knew then that he was referring to Angie and Ojay but I shrugged it off and scaled one of Shawn's hands from behind my waist.
Biting my lip, I interlaced my fingers with Shawn's, "Come on baby let's dance."
At the word dance, Shawn's handsome features contorted but I ignored it, getting off of him and pulling with all my might until he stood to his feet.
"I don't dance." Shawn murmured uncomfortably as I led him to the dance floor.
"So you lied to me!" I turned around when we were at a good place, draping my hands over his shoulders.
"Lied to you about what? Okay what the fuck am I supposed to do?" Shawn asked in a clueless tone that made me laugh some more.
"Baby stop exaggerating!" ripping my hands from his shoulders I placed them on my stomach sides before returning my hands to his shoulder, "You know how to dance."
"No. Not this kind of dancing. Man...what the fuck?"
"Baby stop..." at that point I knew he was doing it just to be funny.
"Iight iight," he smiled knowingly, lowering his hands to my hips before sliding them sleekly to cover my ass. The grin on his face was longer than the Great Wall and he nodded surreptitiously, "That's more like it..."
"You are a mess Corey." I told him laughingly, staring at his deep brown eyes.
"You make a mess of me." he said what I always said as he drew me closer to him until my stomach felt his hardness through his pants.
"Shawn!" I gasped when I felt him.
"What?"
"You're hard."
"Really?!" he imitated the shocked expression that I was sure was on my face.
"Don't make me bite you Carter." I warned, trying my hardest not to laugh at his imitation of me.
"Bite me," he goaded with a nod before gnawing his bottom lip sexily and lifting his chin slightly, "Bite me babygirl...I fucking dare you..."
As soon as the words were said Shawn's head had ducked to the small of my neck and he was nipping at it. Although he was only being playful it still felt heavenly, placing me on a cloud higher than cloud nine.
"Stop it!" I laughed as we tipped backwards when he dove into my neck.
Moving to stand straight up, Shawn captured my lips with his before allowing the very well acquainted friends that were our tongues to meet. Not questioning the abrupt kiss, I returned it instantly enjoying the ride that having his wonderful kisses took me on.
It took a whole lot to pull away from the kiss that made my heart feel whole. It left me benumbed and astounded that only a few months ago the depressing space in my heart and soul had nearly consumed me as a whole.
And here I was now. Filled with so much life and love that I could barely contain myself. I used to think all that sadness and emptiness would kill me but with the extremities of happiness Shawn took me on I wondered if the happiness he gave me would be the death of me.
"Hmm baby..." I mewled when he reluctantly pulled away from me before pecking my lips one last time.
"Sup..." Shawn said, still fogged up by the heady kiss.
Just to know that I was the one who got him like that filled me with this unexplainable feeling...
"You love me...?" I asked him breathlessly, my lips moist with his nectar.
No hesitation in tact, Shawn nodded.
"Say you love me..."
"You know I love you Bey."
The words filled me with so much warmth that I smiled at him. Hearing him say them as that touching song floated around us made my heart ache.
God this felt so right...so right...why were they against it? They almost always supported me with everything I did in my life. Why didn't they approve of something I felt to be the best thing in my life?
"I love you too." I told Shawn, meaning the words with every fiber of my being. That came straight from my heart...from the deep corners of my soul.
It scared me almost, but for the first time in my life, I liked this kind of fear.
Shawn's expression had turned serious as he hardened the hold around my waist and drew me closer to him.
"I'll always love you girl...forever."
Shawn had never sounded so sure about something. He was always uncertain about certain people and things in his life but now he seemed pretty confident in what he was saying.
As I looked into his eyes I thought of all the things we'd been through from day one and felt tears afflicting my eyes.
"You promise that?" I asked him in a whisper, realizing now that I was leaning my entire weight on him.
For a while Shawn studied my features pensively as though he knew something was capturing me inside, he asked me suspiciously but still with worry, "What's up Bey?"
Biting my lip prudishly, I wondered shortly what was taking over me but didn't stop it.
"Swear it. Promise me."
"I love you girl." He stressed emphatically. Smiling with eyes swimming with tears, I tiptoed on my legs but didn't have to for too long because he knew what I really wanted to do was kiss him so he leaned in and met me halfway.
When we pulled apart and I stared into Shawn's eyes, I felt that bravery, that thrill that nobody else had ever made me feel except for him.
From there onwards the words I spoke came from my heart and I was no longer even thinking functionally.
"Let's get out of here..." I told him and Shawn wiggled his brow at me before smiling at me strangely.
"And go where?" he asked laughingly.
"To forever."
Shawn laughed at my words but when I didn't return it and continued to stare at him the same way, his smile faded and he became serious.
"Wait...What?"
"If we go there, just imagine what it would be like baby. We won't have to fight anyone no more..."
Listening keenly to what I said, Shawn lifted his chin slightly as he stared at me through introspective eyes. His eyes then seemed to ask me what I was getting at.
So I went for it.
"Let's get married."
For a couple more seconds Shawn's expression remained unchanged until when my words finally hit him his eyes widened in a way I'd never seen them. Shawn was rarely impressed by anything but it was clear that this ruptured him.
Then he lowered his eyes, drawing his brows together the way he did whenever he didn't trust someone and thought they were playing with him.
"You drink some shit? Angie spiked your drink or something?"
"I'm perfectly well aware of what's going on and I'm asking you to marry me."
Once again my words left Shawn speechless and he stared at me incredulously. Slowly but surely I began to feel nervous and laughed tremulously. What the hell was I doing? I seemed to ask myself but couldn't seem to stop.
"What? You gonna make me get on one knee and ask?"
Finally Shawn blinked out of his daze and the uncertainty crept back into his eyes, making me thoroughly discouraged.
"But...we're young, your family...I dont have--" Shawn's words were silenced when my index finger shushed him and I shook my head.
"I'm sick of all of that...of all of it. I love you, and I dont want to fight the world for you anymore. I don't want you to fight for me."
The more I talked, the more the confusion and insecurity began to leave Shawn's features bit by bit. He knew what I was talking about. Nobody else knew but he knew because he was the one I had gone through this walk of life with. He was the one who held me those nights when I'd defied my father's word by leaving the house just so that I could have him hold me if only for a few minutes. My parents had been threatening lately that they would have Shawn arrested on dating an underage girl but I'd not too long ago turned eighteen. There wasn't anything they could tell me now about what I wanted to do with my life and who I chose to spend it with.
"I'm tired Shawn," I confessed truthfully when a tear slid from one eye before I whispered huskily, "Why can't we just be together?"
Using his thumb Shawn wiped off the tear that had escaped but to no avail because the dam had been broken when I was touched that he was so quick to erase my tears when they fell.
"We can babygirl just...damn. This isn't all too soon?"
Immediately I shook my head, "Every second is a second too late. You should know that by now."
And from the way his eyes flickered I knew that he knew. He had once lost his home, his father, and nearly his life in the blink of an eye.
I wasn't going to waste my time worrying whether what I was doing was right or wrong. Something told me I'd regret it if I didn't go with what my heart was urging me to do.
When consideration was etched all over Shawn's face, I held his head in my hands and pulled him to me until our lips met again. Strongly, I kissed him the same way I did the very first time we kissed-I infused my entire life, heart and soul into that kiss that I almost felt my life seeping out of me as I breathed into him. With my head cupped by his hands, Shawn didn't take long in reciprocating the passionate kiss. The kiss seemed to have a message of its own, a message that wrote itself in my heart. A message that seemed to say yes, I'm in this with you...forever.
When we pulled back it was almost too unbearable which was probably why we pressed our foreheads together as we stared at each other deeply. Streams of joy and love so strong that it hurt run down my face.
"I love you." I told him what I felt going through my senses then smiling faintly through a river of tears I added, "We'll be alright Shawn."
Shawn's eyes searched mine for any mendacity and when he found none, he pressed his lips gently against mine.
"Promise?"
Biting my lip to stifle a sob, I nodded, promising from the depths of my heart.
"Swear it." he said, his voice gruff and thick.
"I swear..." I told him tearfully, thanking God for leading me to such an amazing person so early in my life.
Smiling faintly, Shawn pulled back and looked over the top of my head as though he didn't want anyone to see us and grabbed my hand with one of his.
"Iight then. Imma hold you to that..." then after looking at me one last time as though to make sure, Shawn pulled me with him, "Let's go."
Smiling back at him, I couldn't think of a more perfect future as I left with him to start our lives together...

We had left the dance without telling anyone that we had left or informing them where we were headed. Like reckless fools in love we had run out of there taken the car that was a graduation present from my parents to spend the night together at the hotel where I worked right now. For the first time Shawn didn't care that I was the one who had paid for the room, I didn't care that in the frenzy to get my five hundred dollar dress off of me he'd ripped the side apart.
We didn't care that we were too young, that we supposedly didn't know what true love was, that he didn't have money or that I did, that his people and my people didn't agree.
It didn't matter to me.
I was going to spend my life with the man God had destined for me to be with.
The love we had made that night was so heated and passionate because we knew we were going to have a future together. We were so sure of it that nothing else in the world was relevant other than what we were about to do.
We were both so filled up with each other's spirit that we weren't able to fall asleep. Naked, Shawn and I were wrapped in a blanket, him sitting behind me and kissing on my neck and shoulder on various instances as we watched the sun rise from the hotel window, looking down at our spot a few ways by.
In occasional instances Shawn still voiced his lingering worries about us marrying but all I'd have to do was kiss him or touch him just to remind him that this thing was real and not a fabrication of what we thought love was.
Before long Shawn and I had dressed in our prom clothing and got ready to leave without a care in the world other than us. We were each other's world.
Knowing that Angie was covering for me, I had no worries and I felt that if my parents had a problem with my bold decision then they . Soon as this thing was sealed anyway, I figured my parents couldn't stop me. I Since I was the one who knew where we were headed, I was the driver while Shawn sat on the passenger's seat. In the posh mustang that my father had given to me, we had escaped to the reception hall all the way in Queens.
Courageously and with a somewhat rebellious heart, I had bribed and lulled someone who we knew nothing about and had found loitering outside the building to be our whiteness. A part of me had thought we should've gotten Marissa to do it, but at that point I didn't want to waste a minute. With enough money to cajole the bystander to do this for us, a nervous Shawn and I had gone into the building with one mission in mind-to come out together.
Once we presented the clerk with our information and proved that we were of age, we did it.
We had tied the knot.
In our disheveled clothes, with our different pasts, with paths that had finally crossed, we had exchanged vows-for better, for worse, for richer, for poor, through sickness and through health, till death did us part-we promised each other on that day to love each other until the end of time and even beyond the end of time.
I had graciously, openly taken his last name and he had proudly bestowed it unto me.
I had demanded that the clerk administer the marriage on the same day we were in the office and he did. The license said we were to officially get married on that day and we had...so it was valid.
It was real.
We had gotten married.
We had done something we probably thought we'd never do...at least so soon.
We had left that place not looking back but only forward at a future we planned on building together, later, much much later on Shawn had bought me a ring that I didn't have anymore, but he'd bought me one and gave it to me with a promise...but little did we know that such clandestine, fruitful happiness doesn't always last forever.
Ours had come to an end before it had even began...and like making us get married had been my fault, making us fall apart had been my fault too.
It wasn't so much the marriage that had destroyed us. It was actually the method of how the spontaneous marriage crumbled before our eyes that truly destructed everything we had built up to that point. The aftermath of it, and the ugly way it had come to be, is what we were still dealing with to this day.
And tonight had been the first time we'd made any reference to it because it was a decision that had led to the tragedy of two hearts breaking. I knew very well why we never talked about it or were afraid to-because the wounds were still too fresh and too painful.
We didn't talk about it probably because we didn't believe the extreme we had gone just to cement our love despite all odds that faced us.
And despite all of that I'd still gone against my own words. I'd lied to him...I said we would be fine...but look at us now.
In the twilight, Shawn stared right back at me as the last parts of the song were being sang. Though his eyes were writhing with flames of suppressed anger, a blizzard of cold rank hurt still managed to linger in them. His hands no longer held my face but they were indifferently in his pockets as he watched me trying to find the words but not really knowing what I wanted to say. I could say I'm sorry, but what would that do now?
Unable to look him in the eye, I lowered mine from his and kept them on his chest, chaffing my trembling hands against my hips.
Abjectly, I stood there before him, crying over milk that I'd spilled with my own hands. I waited for him to start screaming at me and yelling at me, asking me why I'd made us do something so rash no matter how good and right it had felt back then.
When I felt something warm against my cheek wiping tears away, I looked up at Shawn inquisitively, still convulsing from head to toe I saw all the exhaustion in his eyes as he wiped off my tears with his thumb and the back of his fingers.
"It's too late for those iight." He murmured and it had taken me a while to realize what he meant, but from the way he continued to rub off my tears it dawned on me partially what he truly meant. It was too late to cry over things that had already happened, but that didn't mean it still didn't hurt.
"Ayeeee if it isn't my most favorite, most dysfunctional couple ever." A heavy hand had swung over Shawn's shoulder, jerking us roughly out of our trance to find Ojay averting his confused gaze from me to Shawn with a champagne glass in his hand.
"Damn nigga you made her cry again?" He asked Shawn putting emphasis on the word 'again', but he didn't say anything and neither did I.
"What happened now?" Ojay asked both of us and when nothing was said he frowned, "Come on not this 'thing' again. Not on my wedding. Come on now guys. I thought we got over this."
The situation wouldn't have been so absurd if no one else but Shawn and I knew about the marriage.
Nobody else who was alive and breathing knew.
Not Ojay.
Not Angie.
Not Marissa.
As far as everyone else thought, we'd simply just had a big dramatic break up with me shattering his heart into a million, damaged pieces.
But they didn't know the depth of our story like we knew.
Only we had known and kept it a secret...but my parents had found out and that's when it all went tumbling down....
Not wanting to ruin the wonderful scene of Ojay and Angie's wedding, I immediately excused myself from everyone else when I knew I could no longer pretend. As I brushed passed Shawn who had stood there motionless the entire time since Ojay had stumbled upon us, I couldn't help but think of the irony how four years ago we had left together as one, and how four years later we were separated, leaving as individuals and almost as strangers.
Bunching my skirt appropriately, I'd scuttled out of there as though the demons of my past were right on my tail catching up with me, reminding me of what I had done to me.
To him. 

To us.