Love is Blind

The Beginning

Aylonah

Damn! I wish the day was over, but no, I have to go last period. Aylonah thought as she pulled her gym clothes from her locker.

"What's wrong with you?" Briannah, her best friend asked.

Aylonah shook her head. "Nothing is wrong. I just feel really out of it," she explained.

"That time of the month?" Briannah asked, standing up to pull on her sweatpants.

"No, me and Brian had an argument this morning."

From the look of fear in her friend's eyes, Briannah surmised that it had to be more than just an argument. Aylonah didn't say any more because she knew how Briannah felt about her relationship with Brian.

Briannah sucked her teeth and said, "You could do a lot better than that dickhead."

Aylonah sighed heavily; she didn't want to have the same discussion with Briannah again.

"I'm serious, Lon, you are too young to be going through the shit you're going through with him. And the nigga is not worth it."

"Bri, he is your brother," Aylonah replied defending him.

"So? Fuck him, you're my best friend. And as a friend I want to remind for the umpteenth time that he treats you like shit and that he does not deserve you." If she was looking for comfort Briannah was not the one to give it. Briannah had already reached the peak of her tolerance level for both of them. The other girls in the aisle looked at them and started laughing.

"Mind y'all damn business," Briannah told the four girls huddled at the other end of the bench.

"He doesn't," Aylonah admitted quietly, and then cleared her throat.

Thoroughly disgusted, Briannah rolled her eyes. Aylonah was her best friend but she was ready to slap her ass just on the principle that you didn't let niggas hit on you. And that damn brother of hers was going to get an earful. She was already imaging ways to make him feel her wrath. "I guess you should tell him not to leave marks on you in places other people can see," Briannah suggested.

Aylonah touched the fingerprints that marked her bronzed colored chest. "Brian didn't put them there."

Briannah sucked her teeth. As a friend she refrained from saying precisely what she wanted to and replied by saying, "That's a first," even when she didn't believe a word her friend said.

Since holding her tongue had never been a strong point, Briannah looked at Aylonah and said, "I'll see you upstairs."

"A'ight." Aylonah responded not pressing for Briannah to remain with her. She saw the heat in her friend's eyes. If she kept defending Brian, Aylonah predicted that Briannah might go off on her. Of course as her friend she had the right to. She could imagine the sharp, 'If your friends couldn't tell you to get your shit together who could?', bursting out of her friends mouth. Aylonah felt like she could burst into tears right then and there but did not because she had entirely too much pride to disgrace herself that way.

Aylonah imagined that the girls down the aisle from her would just love that, she realized. They were still giggling amongst themselves about what Briannah had said to her.

As if my day isn't bad enough without people making it much worse.

"Is something funny?" she questioned the girls not wasting a moment's time feigning embarrassment. Their opinions were not of any importance to her.

"No," one of them answered with a smirk.

Aylonah shook her head. I don't feel like being bothered right now. I'm not going to gym. She pulled her shirt over her head and pushed the rest of her gym things into her locker.