Jessie's Boy [boyxboy]

twentyone | guilt trip

T W E N T Y O N E |  G U I L T  T R I P

Jamal didn't say anything else.

As soon as he asked, I couldn't figure out what tone he said it in. My ankles almost broke dashing up the stairs and my mama yelled out about running in her house.

And I couldn't make myself stop. Instantly, I'd shut the door to my room, plastered myself against it like he was chasing me. My eyes were blurry so I screwed them shut, not knowing what to do next. My heart was pounding, tears building behind my eyelids.

My heart was beating out of my chest and I didn't know what to do. I genuinely had absolutely no idea what to do.

I could feel myself shaking, face pressed into the cool comforter, body curling in on itself and I kept replaying it over and over and over in my head. It felt like it wasn't real, like a nightmare and I was struggling to catch my breath.

This you?

And it was me, it was definitely fucking me. It was me and he knew it was. He knew it was me and I couldn't fucking breathe.

Jamal didn't bother me for the rest of the night, I laid there awake for hours fucking terrified, until the exhaustion of the day drug me to sleep.

-

It had been three days, three days of waiting for the nigga to say something, anything... he didn't. And every single day I woke up with dread in my chest, lids low from tossing and turning all night, I'd dash out the door.

Avoiding Jamal all day wasn't hard until I got home and before anyone could say anything, I locked myself up in my room, fear sitting on my chest.

This cycled over the course of three days.

I wondered if he knew how easily that question would throw me into a panic? I'd been on high alert, worried that he'd say something at school, worried that he'd say something at home... wondering how many people knew.

He got the pictures from someone, they had to know, and in that case, it probably would trickle down to people who knew me by face eventually.

Jessie was beside me on a Tuesday afternoon, spoon between parted lips.

She kept her eyes on the road, lashes fanned out. The rain beat down on her windshield, both our bodies nearly drenched. Jessie had caught me after my last class, said she'd been looking for me, and dragged me to get fro-yo.

Her hair was soaked and sticking to her pretty face, we parked in some lot next door to a Catholic church. It reminded me of something out of those cheesy flicks Nas liked to watch.

Jessie had a look on her face that read disgust and I almost laughed.

She hated this weather, could never hide it no matter how often it rained in Savannah. High, rambling Jessie would talk about college in Atlanta, how she was gonna be some celebrity stylist.

Here she sat, fox eyes trained on the rain. My eyes lingered in the bottom of a 6 oz cup, yogurt melted, the radio was tuned to some random hip hop station that was all static and Migos. She turned it all the way down.

Silence was almost awkward now but Jessie said nothing. She simply sighed and pulled one of her legs up on the seat spooning frozen yogurt into her mouth periodically. How long had her aux been broken?

"You need a new aux?"

She decided then to spring into action, like I'd propelled her into conversation. Jessie was always funny like that, she'd sit there in her own head, lost until I talked, but when conversation started, she would install fall all in.