ONE ON ONE || D.SWING

1. Just A Fling.

Katrina

August 20, 1987

4:37pm

'If you have no critics, you'll likely have no success.' Malcolm X

I situated my body against the bleachers behind me before resting my elbows on it. I gazed up at the bright, blue sky thinking about what transpired in my life this past week. Most of the summer it felt like I've been on a constant roller coaster that I didn't want to get off of, all the ups, downs and sharp turns exhilarated me to the fullest. That feeling of being on a high just by having fun and not giving a care in the world is electrifying, and to think that a boy caused that happiness is somewhat laughable to me.

"You've been quiet since we came back from the icy man, what's on your mind?" my eyes and thoughts left the attention of the sky and focused on Karmen still munching on her coconut icy that she got ten minutes ago. "Nothing really, just thinking about this summer and-"

"Oh god, please don't tell me you got your mind on Michael, because if you do I'm gonna reach in that dome of yours and pull out all of your memories of him, on the real." Karmen expressed before finishing her icy and placing the white paper cone on the bleacher below us. I rolled my eyes, "Nobody thinking about that boy," she have me a look before I sighed, "okay, maybe a little bit." I admitted, "I'm only thinking about how crazy I was over him and we weren't even in a real relationship." I leaned down to fix my ankle bracelet.

"You said you wanted to have fun the last summer of high school, but I didn't think that you would be running all over the neighborhood with him getting in trouble every chance y'all got, and you continued to deny having anything for him, by the end of the summer, you have feelings for him." she stated, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

"I had feelings for him. That all changed even before he left to go back home to New Jersey. He was only staying in Bensonhusrt to take care of his grandma for the summer, I obviously knew that we weren't going to establish a relationship. It was just a fling." I affirmed before my eyes trained on the pick up game on the court.

It was the last day of summer and a day before school started for the year. That meant that people tried to have as much fun as they could before they dreadful school year came along, little children playing tag at the park across the street or hop scotch on the side walk, teenagers chilling along the bleachers rapping to each other, blasting their boom box of the hottest rap song at the moment or just being entertained by the ball game that the boys were currently playing, like me and Karmen.

"Do you have your outfit set for tomorrow? If you don't, I think you should wear a dress." I giggled knowing Karmen wouldn't like that suggestion, "Now you know I own not one dress in my closet, you said that trying to be funny. And no, I don't, I have an idea of what I want to wear, I just have to put it together. You?''

"Remember those light blue high waisted shorts I bought from the mall a few weeks back?" she nodded, "I got this tye dye shirt that will go with my white converse that my dad gifted me that I never wore. So yeah, I don't want to be over the top."

"Okay. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"Can you explain to me how your dad, brother and uncle didn't find out about you and Michael? I mean, you and him worked for your uncle Sonny this whole summer and he didn't catch y'all doing anything. He was either not paying attention to yall that much or you and Michael keep things on the real dl." Karmen wandered. Before I could answer, the sound of the bleachers rattled as someone was walking to us. We both looked up to see our friend Kendall holding his basketball on his hip.