The Art of Harmonization

34

The holiday season was officially over, and there were no more breaks until Spring Break. I didn't realize how draining college was until I had to come back. We were now well over with January, and heading into the middle of February. Basketball was back in session and now was when things normally began to pick up. The last couple of games were away games, and this next game was the first break we had from traveling in a hot second. This Saturday we were playing against Alabama State University—another HBCU. Despite the fact that Howard was an HBCU itself, our basketball games were rarely played against other HBCUs, and when they were, the Bisonettes were expected to come hard.

It was easy to show up and show out against the PWI's dance teams, but HBCUs knew what to expect, and Coach Liz hated to be one upped.

I knew how busy it could get balancing dance practice and performances and other college work so I normally refrained from doing unnecessarily long practices, but with Coach Liz being adamant about our performances being perfect, it was necessary that practice was extended a bit longer. A lot of things were being added and changed along the way too; we weren't performing in our usual line up. I needed the strongest dancers in the front to showcase our talents. It was actually more stressful than I had anticipated it to be, and I hated staying up late to work on Bisonette stuff, but it seemed as if I had been doing that more often nowadays.

Which was why when my alarm rang at seven o'clock in the morning I couldn't help but let out a sigh. Every one I knew was one hundred percent against eight a.m. college classes, but this semester there was one class that was only available on Wednesday mornings. So here I was, waking up bright and early to attend this class. There was a strong urge for me to drop the class, but it was one of the few classes I actually needed in order to be on track to graduate, and dropping the class just because I was tired would be a dumb move on my behalf. On top of that, I had spent last night talking to my mom on FaceTime. She and I were catching up on life, and she was telling me all about Tavian who had recently started working with my dad just as he had promised on Christmas Day. He told my dad he was good with his hands, so he hooked him up with some construction company. It wasn't much, but it was a big deal in my eyes. Tavian had so much potential besides just selling drugs or doing whatever it was that he was doing in New York. I was proud of him, and I was meaning to tell him, but him and I hadn't spoken since our little argument on Christmas. I needed to find the time to pick up the phone and talk to him again...

Groaning, I picked my head up off the pillow, glancing down at my phone as I swiped the off button on the alarm. I picked my phone off the charger, rolling over. I knew I should probably have been getting ready at this point, but it had become a habit to scroll through my feed and check whatever text messages I had missed while asleep.

Nowadays, most of my messages were between Mike and I. I didn't think him and I could possibly get any closer, but some way somehow, we had. I think it had a lot to do with all the time I spent with him during Christmas break. If I wasn't at home with my family, I was in New York with Mike. There was something about being around him that just felt so relaxing. It was almost like he could sense whatever stress I was feeling and ensured that whenever him and I were together, I was doing only what I wanted to do. I appreciated him for that, and I always made it my duty to thank him in many ways. I wanted to do something nice for him as well, though. He recently opened up to me about his lack of enjoyment when it came to playing on the Kings basketball team. After their terrible loss on Christmas Day, the team manage to bounce back, but it was obvious that there was a lot of hidden cracks hidden beneath the foundation. Part of me felt guilty; as much as Mike tried to deny it, I knew that I was the reason why there were all these issues within the team. If Mike and I had never started how we did, the team would be back to the way it was before.