Casting Down Imaginations (9 page)

“Yeah.”

“Awh,
man, I had a little boy,” he beamed.

I felt
myself smiling. It was more like cheesing. “Yes you did.”

“But
wait a minute. I thought it takes months before the sex of a baby is known? How
do you know it was a boy if you were only pregnant for a few weeks?”

“It
takes the
doctors
months before
they
know what the sex of a baby
is. God knows us before we are even conceived. It says so in the bible. So I
guess God told me what it was, because I woke up one morning and I just knew
that my baby boy was in heaven with God.”

“That’s
deep,” he finally said after a few moments of thought. “Sounds like you’re
pretty close to God now.”

“Maybe.
But ain’t nobody perfect. I could always come up a step or two.”

“I heard
that,” he said. “I wonder what we would have named him? Would you have named
him Junior?”

“After
you? H to the
hell nawh,”
I said.

He
laughed. “Oh, that’s cold girl. Why not?”

“Because,
you didn’t even want him, remember?”

“Oh
yeah… about that. Karen, I’m sorry I did that to you. I was tripping on that
scholarship and everything, and I—”

“It’s
cool, don’t worry about it.” I fought the memories of the humiliation that were
trying to come to me. No use in going all the way back to that day. It was done
and over with.

“No, no,
I need to get this right,” he insisted. “I’m a man and I should have never ever
put my hands on you.”

I
listened to his apology. I felt that he was genuinely sincere.

“All is
forgiven, Terrance. I forgave and released you a long time ago.”

He
exhaled. That must have been hard for him to say.

“I call
him Jeremiah,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Why’d
you give him that name?”

I took
another swig from my hot cocoa. “Do you have a bible with you?”

“No,” he
said. “No actually, I don’t.”

“Well,
when you get time, find one and look up Jeremiah 1:5.”

“Okay. I
definitely will do that.”

“You
will?”

“Yeah,”
he answered. “I want to see where the mother of my child got the inspiration
for my son’s name.”

A warm
feeling came over me. I never would have imagined him saying our son’s name, or
him referring to me as the mother of his child. Shoot, I never thought I would
speak to him again. But I guess I really was the mother of his child. It almost
made me feel like he and I were… family. And for some reason that meant a lot
to me.

“I’m
going to go on ahead and go now Terrance, okay?” I said to him.

“Yeah,
that’s cool. I really need to get some stuff done anyway. When I called I
really didn’t think you were going to talk to me.”

I felt
so bad. This whole time I was avoiding his phone calls, thinking everything was
about me, when the boy was just trying to get some peace about the death of his
baby. Our baby. How could I have been so stupid?

“I’m
sorry for the way I been acting,” I apologized to him. “You know, it’s just
that I haven’t talked to you in so long, and the last time we spoke it wasn’t
good.”

“It’s
all good Karen. Don’t even sweat it. If I were you I wouldn’t want to have
nothing to do with me either. And I’m sorry about…. Everything I put you
through. You didn’t deserve any of it. You were a good girl to me, and I can
tell you have grown up to become a very strong woman.”

I began
to blush all over again. “Thank you.”

“Well, I
guess we’ll say goodbye for now.”

“Yeah,”
I said. “For now.”

“Can I
call you sometime?”

I
hesitated. “Yeah, I guess you can,” I told him, flirting a little bit.

“Cool.
Well I’ll talk to you later then.”

“Alright.”

“Bye,
Karen.”

“Bye.”

I hung
up the phone and stared at it, hugging myself. After all this time, all those
feelings about Terrance were still there. I just hadn’t realized that it could
actually turn out to be a good thing.

nine

ANAYA

I walked
out of class feeling pretty good about myself. Even though I was dressed in the
same grungy oversized T-shirt and pajama pants I slept in the night before, no
one could pull me away from the cloud I was on. The only way I was coming down
was if I wanted to, and that wasn’t going to be any time soon.

I
studied hard for all of my classes this semester and was averaging two As and
two Bs. I had to drop one of my classes because I couldn’t keep up with the
material, but I was doing just fine. Deacon was proud of me, which was enough
to keep spare change in my bank account, which was enough to keep me happy.

My mind
drifted back to Deacon as I made my way back to my room. It had been a while
since I talked to my father. Every time I did he always asked if I was going to
church. I was in no rush to sit in front of anybody’s pulpit, so I made it a
point only to call when I needed something. But since I’d been cracking down
on the books, I really didn’t need anything else. Even still, I decided to give
the old man a call. He was really disappointed that I didn’t come home for
Thanksgiving, but oh well. I would be there for Christmas soon enough.

I
stopped walking, realizing that in all of my contemplating I’d missed the
shortcut to my dorm. I didn’t mind though. I was feeling good, and the extra
exercise wouldn’t hurt. That was my whole point for walking to class anyway
instead of driving my car. The only problem was that I would have to cross in
front of Reese’s dorm and run the risk of seeing him.

Or
worse… Adam. The thought of the two of them sent chills down my spine.

It’d
been weeks since the night of the concert. I hadn’t spoken to either one of
them and hadn’t tried to. Reese called me a week after it all happened, but
when I didn’t return his phone call he didn’t bother calling again. The sad
thing was that through all of it, I found myself missing him like crazy. The way
he used to make me laugh and the way he used do little sweet things, like meet
me outside of my classes so that we could spend a little time together. I
missed all of the “semi-sexual” times we had, too. He sure did know how to make
my body feel good. But most of all I missed having a man by my side. There was
something about being alone that just wasn’t appealing to me.

I never
thought he would put his hands on me, though. Not my Reese. But then again, he
probably never thought that I would jump on him the way I did. What was wrong
with me that night? I was so angry, but I didn’t remember why. Adam pissed me
off, that was for damn sure, but what did Reese do? I mean, yeah, he was all up
on some girl at the concert, but that was probably just a part of his act. I
shouldn’t have acted that way. And when he found out about Adam he did go
handle him. That was love, wasn’t it? He probably saw me as a little girl now,
though, acting childish like that. Who knew? I probably would be wearing his
chain around my neck right now if I hadn’t acted so stupid. I could kick
myself.

But even
though I hit him first, he still wasn’t supposed to hit me back. Deacon always
told me that a man had the right to restrain, but never hit. As big as Reese
was, he could have held me down without knocking me into the window. But then
again, every man ain’t Deacon. Maybe if I had one more chance with him, I would
know what buttons not to push. That would probably be the last time he hit me,
if he even still wanted me.

I was
about five minutes walking distance away from Reese’s dorm. Maybe I could go
inside and see what he was up to. Maybe he was there and had time to talk. It
wouldn’t hurt just to say hi.

I looked
down at my pajamas, wishing I would have fixed myself up before going to class
this morning. But he and Adam were the reasons why I didn’t dress up anymore. I
didn’t want to draw more attention to myself by wearing makeup and attractive
clothes. That was what got Adam looking at me and trying to take what didn’t
belong to him. And every since that night my hair has been slicked straight
back into a tight bun. My scalp was sore for two days from the two of them
pulling my hair. I took every avenue to make sure that it didn’t happen again.

I stood
there and thought, suddenly wanting to go see him. What was the worse that
could happen if I did? It wasn’t like he’d beat me in the
 
middle of the day. Besides,
I was sure he wasn’t mad at me anymore. Maybe things could be cool between us
again. I needed to go see him. I had to. I needed to know if things were really
over between us, or if we were just experiencing a little time off. There were
probably plenty of reasons why he hadn’t called. Maybe he was still waiting on
me to call him back.

So I
went.

When I
got to his room the door was open and music was coming from within. I poked my
head inside and saw him leaning against his desk. He was talking to two girls
and one of his friends. There were boxes all over the place, some taped shut
and others left open.

When he
saw me standing there he stopped what he was doing. Everyone followed his gaze
one by one until all of their eyes landed on me. I stood there speechless, not
knowing what to say.

“Baby,”
he uttered out sheepishly, almost cooing. He made his way over to me and
embraced me with a hug.

Was it
true? Was the man who I was so afraid of the last time I saw him now covering
me with love? I didn’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this.
He rocked me back and forth, squeezing me tighter, and kissed me on my cheek.

I closed
my eyes, enjoying our reunion. One of the girls in the room smacked her lips in
disgust. I could recognize the sound of jealousy from anywhere. She was hating,
but I didn’t care. I was finally back with my man. Even though he hadn’t said
it yet, I knew he wanted to be with me.

He stood
back so he could get a good look at me. The favor in his eyes made me feel like
I had been created by Picasso. And I was just for him. He hugged me again and
rocked me back and forth. I finally hugged him back, happy to be next to him.

“I
missed you so much, girl,” he told me.

One of
the girls cleared her throat. “Well, since y’all having y’all little Kodak
moment and everything, I’m about to be out.”

We both
ignored her and kept right on hugging. I hope she didn’t think that little weak
comment was going to mess up what we had going on. She must not have known
‘bout me. She muttered something under her breath and then walked out.

“Where
you been, girl?” he asked, finally pulling away.

I just
looked at him, not sure of how to explain my leave of absence, and shrugged.

“Don’t
give me that,” he said, kissing me on my forehead. “I know you ain’t mad about
what happened, are you?”

I
thought about the night he hit me so hard that my face remained swollen for
four days and he left a cut on the inside of my mouth. I could still see the
cuts that I put into his face, too, his countenance scarred from the slashes
that my fingernails brought.

I shook
my head no, wanting to forget it ever happened. I could have jumped up and
down, I was so happy. I never wanted to be alone like I had been the past few
weeks again.

Someone
cleared their throat. I looked up, surprised by the girl still standing there.
I’d forgotten two other people were still in the room.

“I’m
Tiffany,” she said to me, as if I should know.

I could
have cared less who she was. She had better watch out. In a minute I was about
to ask her what she was doing in my man’s room.

“Anaya,”
I introduced myself.

Reese’s
male friend just nodded his head, not saying a word. Most of Reese’s friends
did that. It was as if they were scared of him or something. But why would
anyone be scared of their friend? Reese might get mad sometimes, but that was
only when you made him. Besides, he was my man.

“I been
missing you so much, baby,” he told me.

I
smiled, enjoying the attention.

He
nodded. “You know I gotta take you out tonight, right? I been missing you, so
crazy.”

I kept
smiling, liking the idea.

“We got
a session tonight,” his friend reminded him.

Reese
winced. “Shoot,” he pouted. “That joint is already paid for too, ain’t it?”

The boy
nodded. “Non-refundable.”

“What
about tomorrow night?” he asked, turning to me. “There’s this new restaurant
that just opened up downtown. You wanna go?”

I let my
eyes roll to the top of my head, pretending to be deep in thought. I wanted him
to beg.

“I heard
it’s pretty nice. You gon’ have to wear your best outfit for this one,” he
continued.

I
decided to go ahead and nod before he realized I was in my sleep clothes.

He
hugged me again and gave me another kiss. “You want to sit down?”

I shook
my head. “No, I gotta be getting back to my room. I got another class.”

He
nodded. We both knew I could have stayed.

“Well,
just so you know, I’m moving.”

I looked
around at the boxes all over his room. I had forgotten they were there, too.
All of my focus was on Reese.

“Where
you going?” I asked. I had just gotten him back. He couldn’t be leaving me
already.

“I got
an apartment,” he said. “Finally saved up enough to pay for a place. You know
I’m too old to be staying in the dorms.”

I
smiled, remembering he was two years older than me.

“Where?”

“Heights Park,” he informed. “I already got the keys. After we go out tomorrow I’ll take you
over and show you around.”

Something
inside of me twisted. I knew what that meant. He wanted to hurry up and pick up
where we left off physically. I didn’t know what to say. Sure, my body missed
him while we were apart, but I hadn’t really thought about…

Adam’s
taunting came back to me. I wasn’t the little girl that he claimed I was. I was
a woman. And I loved Reese. If I had to prove it to him this way, then…

I
nodded, scared out of my mind at the thought of being with him.

“I’d
like that.”

He
smiled as I turned around to leave.

“I’ll
pick you up at seven,” he called after me.

“Don’t
forget to make the reservations.”

“I
won’t.”

I
flashed one more smile in his direction before walking out of the door. Ready
or not, my virginity was about to become history.