After Class (Janet and Aaliyah)

Chapter 13

Acacia

  I had a half a mind to go to the grocery store and pretend like I needed something, just to see Aaliyah. She was slowly becoming my world. It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't live alone; my house was so quiet and empty and it forced me to be in my head all the time. I had finished grading all of my assignments and tests, and I truly had absolutely nothing to do but to think about her.

  I went upstairs to my music room and sat on the couch where I had once laid her down. I could feel her in here still, on my piano bench, her slender fingers pressed unsurely against the keys as I taught her my song. That would always be her song now. It would always remind me of her.  I remembered the way she was so afraid of the intimacy, of the way I made her feel, how innocent she was. She didn't know what to do with herself or what to do with me. And I wanted to show her the way so badly. I wanted her to touch me back.

  I found myself thinking about this for a good while, because before I knew it my doorbell was being rung and it was completely dark outside now. I ran to get it, and when I saw Aaliyah's slim silhouette in the moonlight, my body began to feel hot. It was only Wednesday, why was she here?

  "Hey, teach--Acacia, um..." she held a short stack of neatly folded clothes in her arms. My clothes.

  "Hey, come in. What's up?" I stepped out of the way.

  "I just, your clothes from the other night, I washed them... I thought about just waiting until... but I wasn't sure if..." she stumbled, gripping them tightly and staring down at the floor. I wondered why she was so nervous. She was never like this.

  "Yeah, thank you."

She handed them to me, and I set them down on the kitchen table. They smelled like her still. It must have been the detergent she uses that made my eyes roll backward whenever we embraced.

  "Can you... can you stay for a while?" I asked bashfully as she stood at the front door, messing with the buttons on her work uniform. I wanted to take it off of her. "I'm kind of lonely... you don't have to stay the night or anything, but..."

  I saw something in her face brighten. "Yeah. Sure."

  "Take your shoes off, come in," I urged quietly.

  "Thank you."

  "We can go back upstairs if you want, I can, um... show you my room."

She finally peeled her eyes from the floor and stuck them onto my own, and I immediately regretted my offer. Was it too much? I just wanted to talk. And if it led to something more than that...

Then so be it.

  "That's cool." She stepped aside so I could lead the way.

The stairs creaked with every step we took, making the trip feel like a thousand miles. She was so awkwardly quiet and I hated it. Maybe once she got comfortable, she would open up again.

  "Take a seat on the bed if you want. I just--I just want to talk."

  Aaliyah sat gingerly on the edge, crunched up in a ball so she took up as little space as she possibly could.

  "Aaliyah, what's wrong? You're acting kind of strange." I finally posed. It was painful. We were not about to sit here and do this.

  "Nothing, I'm sorry. Just a long day."

  "Can we talk about it? Let me talk to you. Come on. Settle in a little, you should know by now that I'm not going to hurt you."

I crawled up behind her and pulled her by the shoulders deeper into my bed. She obliged, finally getting comfortable with an embarrassed smile playing her lips that she tried to hide.