After Class (Janet and Aaliyah)

Chapter 29

Acacia

It was basically dark outside by the time we were making it out of the city limits, settling on a quaint diner that my grandfather always used to take me to. We were quiet, for the most part, but the low hum of the radio made it a comfortable silence.

  "Where are we going again?" Aaliyah asked from the passenger's side, her eyes burning into my temple.

  "Louie's," I responded. "You'll like it there."

  "How could you know that?" She grabbed the hand resting on the stick shift and put it on her thigh. I smiled. "You don't know me like that."

  "I know, but I'm trying to." I bit my lip as we came to a red light. She got quiet, but squeezed my hand as I rubbed her leg idly. "I know you well enough to know you'll like Louie's, how about that?"

  "And how you figure?"

  "Because you're like me. And I like Louie's." I shrugged.

  "Okay, fair."

  "Good. Because we are here." I whipped into a parking spot and turned the car off. Everything was exactly how I remembered it.

She held her hand out as we started for the door, and I gladly took it, interlacing our fingers. I held the door open for her, and as soon as she took her seat across from me in the vinyl booth, she hit the ground running with conversation.

  Aaliyah's eyes danced with infatuation as she sipped her milkshake and focused all of her attention on me. I couldn't help but to smile. "Acacia."

  "Aaliyah?"

  "I want to know.... Everything about you."

  I laughed and cocked my head to the side. "Everything? Like, how? That's 23 year's worth of content."

  "Well... Maybe just... Skip a few years. Start at middle school. Or just tell me a really interesting story."

  "What is this about?" I opened up my menu, although I already knew what I was going to get.

  "Nothing, I just--we don't talk about you. But I want to. So tell me something."

I sighed and looked around. "Uh... My full name is Acacia Lee King. I'm from Cali, I have three brothers, my dad was in the military, and... I hate being lonely."

  "Lonely?"

  "Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love quiet, peace, stillness... But it seems when I'm totally by myself sometimes, all forces in my mind work against me."

  "Like, how?" Her head cocked to the side on an innocent curiousity that made my stomach fill with butterflies.

  "Okay, like... Night time. Just before I fall asleep, alone, of course, a certain dread... Would you call it dread? I don't know, sadness, self-loathing..." I stirred my straw around the glass. "...Comes over my entire train of thought, and my spirit, really... And it doesn't go away until the morning."

  "Every night?"

  "I'd have to have had an exceptional day for it not to happen. Like that very first time you came over." I smiled to myself before meeting Aaliyah's bashful gaze. "That," I stated, "was exceptional."

  "Shut up."

  "Seriously. I had such a wonderful time with you, well, I always do."

  "Is the waitress coming back pretty soon? Dang, I'm hungry."

  I laughed. "She just brought out the drinks, honey."

  "Oh."
 
"Let's see, what else? I'm bisexual, as you may have guessed, but it's not 50/50. I'd say the divide is 65-35 in a woman's favor."