That October Night

Chapter 40

📌Written: July, 23rd 2019 (For some reason, I always know the way I want to end my stories before I even know how to get there.)

              THAT NIGHT RAYMOND spent it next to me. This continued for every night, blurring out the reality that he was leaving in a day or two. I spent most of my nights tracing his features with my finger and woke up early doing the same thing. Even with my eyes closed, I knew where everything was, from the scar on his eyebrow to the birthmark on his neck to the small tattoo behind his right ear.

I knew him inside out.

I was startled when I got caught and quickly removed my hands off him. "Are you trying to get me in bed with you, Shorts?" he asked in that sexy morning voice of his. His eyes were still closed, but his smile was teasing as he put my hands where they were before.

"Well, aren't you already?"

"Smart mouth. Do you know how hard it is to control myself around you?"

"Then don't. I can feel your hardness poking on my knees. Don't look at me like that. Okay, dry hump me."

Raymond peeled his eyes open, giving me a sarcastic laugh. "Tempting but no." He kissed my cheek, getting ready to leave. My shoulders sagged. Soon I won't be seeing him at all. "Good morning, Shorts."

"Good morning, Raymond."

"Still no pet name or nickname?" He clicked his tongue at my stubbornness. "Fine as long as I get to keep calling you, Shorts."

Just when I was about to help him put his t-shirt on, I heard Chris' footsteps. When he remembered, he had a habit of knocking on my door before he barged into my room just to respect my privacy. That meant that I had about ten seconds to get rid of Raymond.

However, Raymond wasn't trying to be hidden. He crawled right back into my bed with his hands coolly behind his head.

"Why are you smiling? My brother is coming," I hissed, trying to shove him off my bed. Chris was now knocking. "Uhh...g-give me...uh one m-minute."

"Okay, Tweets but hurry. Remember I'm riding with Ray today and you know how he gets when I make him late. We have some last-minute things to do."

I frowned. Chris didn't have to remind me that he, Carlos, and Raymond were all leaving. The good thing was that they all got accepted to the same college. No surprise there since they had this planned out years ago, and always pushed one another to keep up their grades.

"He knows me so well," Raymond whispered in satisfaction. "And since when did you stutter? Just let him in."

"No, I told him we agreed to be friends and this looks all sorts of wrong." My eyes widened. "See, you're still...up."

Raymond remained unfazed. "The things you do to me, Shorts. Oh, the things. Are you still coming over for movie night tonight? It's my last night here and I want to spend it with all of my family. Please say yes."

His relationship with his father was still strained, but they'll be alright. I didn't miss the way he said all, meaning that he included me as his family.

Just a few months back I was the one who almost would've left. Now it was Raymond who really was leaving.

I cleared my throat, acting all tough. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now get your blue balls outta here."

I'm not even exaggerating when I say the second Raymond left my brother walked in. Phew, that was close.

It was after our day out together when I told my friends that I wasn't leaving anymore. I haven't told them the good news for months, afraid that I would jinx it. Everything was finally starting to fall into place.

"Really? We didn't notice," Bre sarcastically said. I chuckled, receiving all the hugs they were giving me except for Malik.

"Okay, that means that I can have my ring back," is what he chose to say with his hand open, ready to receive the ring that I was not going to give him.

"No, you may not! No backies. You can't take what you've already given away." I hid my hand under my shirt.

"Well, I can. I gave it to you so that you can remember me but clearly there's no need to remember me anymore since you'll be seeing this face almost everyday now." Malik rolled his eyes when he saw that I was seriously not going to return the ring. "Fine keep it."

Kat gave Malik a distasteful look. "Wow Malik, you're heartless."

He smirked. "Even better."

"So...madam I-don't-have-time-for-my-friends-anymore when's your boyfriend leaving?" Hakeem asked me with a gentle nudge.

"Oouuu. Someone's jealous," Lola teased.

"I've noticed," I giggled. "Don't worry, Keem. He's not stealing your best friend from you. But Raymond's leaving tomorrow. I'm not ready for him to leave just yet."

It was finally sinking in, and I had finally gotten rid of my tough girl facade.

Kat rubbed my back. "At least he's gone for a good cause. If it's meant to be, trust me you two will end up together for real for real."

"Now let the church say amen," Lola sang.

They all let out a terrible example of harmonizing 'amen'. I laughed as we all said our farewells, but I stayed back with Malik. "Do you still go to that group sessions for troubled teens?"

"Yes and I'm not taking you with me. The last time I did, you had a panic attack and took my role of lashing out on everybody."

"You're not that bad." I tugged on his arm and gave him a sick attempt of the puppy eye look with the curled bottom lip. "C'mon please, MJ. Don't hold me accountable for what happened months ago. This time I'm mentally ready to go."

Malik stared at me long and hard before he finally made up his mind and when he did, he tossed me a helmet. "Hold on tight, Mitchell."

We were at the place in no time. The first person my eyes caught sight of was the teacher. His smile reminded me of Hakeem's. It made you want to tell them everything. "I've created this group a few years back when I discovered that there are more people out there who've been hurt like me. Although you never truly get over what's happened, you learn to live with it. Talking about it helps too. I'm Simon and I'm a survivor."

Not again.

He barely started and my chest already felt congested with this sickening pain. I sniffled, blinking quickly to stop the tears from falling. I should've known better. Just because I was ready doesn't mean that this was going to be easy.

Here, I wasn't the girl who became popular overnight because of a dance video nor was I the girl who got raped. I was simply me.

A survivor.

A warrior amongst other warriors.

"I remember you," Simon said, looking directly at me. "You left before you introduced yourself. What's your story?"

My eyes skipped across the room and stopped on Malik who was beside me. He reached for my hand giving me a comforting squeeze. Ahhh, this boy who always played tough.

We really were more alike than I would like to admit.

There indeed was light at the end of the tunnel for me. I've been far better than I have when I first got here in Miami.

I still hadn't gone to see a shrink, but I pondered on it heavily.

Raymond was leaving and in a few weeks, I would be in the twelfth grade with my friends. I needed to focus on nothing but bettering myself, and I couldn't if I kept on holding to what happened to me that night.

A guy couldn't save me no matter how much he loved me. My friends or my parents couldn't save me. My now four-month-old baby brother who reminded me of new beginnings couldn't save. The music nor the dancing couldn't even save me.

My smile widened. "Hi, I'm Ray and I got raped nine months ago."

I needed to save myself.

📌THE END