If I Were Your Boyfriend (37 page)

felt sick to my stomach on Sunday morning. My stomach was doing continuous summersaults and refused to stop. I was stressed out beyond my wildest imagination. I was upset by what Wesley had done. I didn't understand why he'd do such a stupid thing at my house. Yes, I knew that he was upset about his mother, but still, drinking wasn't the answer to his problem. I refused to get out of bed because I was so ashamed and embarrassed by what had happened. The only thing I truly wanted to do was disappear into thin air so that I wouldn't have to face criticism from Jordan. Around 8:00 a.m. Mike knocked on my door.

  "Keysha, breakfast is ready," he said.

  "I'm not hungry, Mike," I answered.

  "Are you okay in there?" he asked.

  "Leave me alone, please. I don't want to be bothered."

  "Okay," he said, and actually left me alone. That was a shocker. Around 10:00 a.m. Jordan knocked on my door. By that time I had decided to sit at my desk and work on some extra-credit work for school.

  "I'm coming in, Keysha," he announced. I was about to tell him to leave me alone because I didn't feel like dealing with his brazenness.

  "I know that it hurts," he said to me as he sat on the edge of my bed. I had my back turned to him and my face buried in the page before me. "Sometimes people are not what they appear to be. What you see is not always what you get." Jordan's voice was surprisingly calm and soothing. He sounded as if he was just as remorseful about what had happened as I was.

  "I don't want to talk about it," I said, wanting him to leave my room so that I could wallow in my misery.

  "Keysha, I will admit that I don't care much for Wesley. But it's because I felt threatened by him."

  That comment caught my attention. I turned around in my seat and looked at him.

  "You felt threatened by him?" I was perplexed.

  "Yeah, I felt threatened by him."

  "But why?" I asked.

  "Because, as silly as it sounds I didn't want you to like him more than you liked me. You just arrived here, Keysha, and we're really starting to relate to each other and I didn't want anything or anyone to come between that. Wesley, in my mind, was a person who was going to take you away from me before we had a chance to really bond and I had an issue coping with that."

  "Wesley wasn't going to pull me away from you," I assured him. "He's my friend. I like him. We come from similar backgrounds. He has a mother from hell and so have I. He has a father who rescued him from a hopeless situation. Just like me. We just relate to each other well, that's all. It has nothing to do with him pulling me away from you."

  Jordan took a deep breath and then exhaled. "It's nice to hear you say that, Keysha."

  At that moment, I felt the strangest urge. I felt the urge to hug him but I felt kind of strange about making the first move. I captured his gaze and held it for a moment. Then I thought,
What the heck?
I stood up, walked over to him and gave him a gigantic hug. I held on to him tightly. He did the same and we rocked back and forth for a moment before I finally released him.

  "You know I still don't like him, don't you?" said Jordan.

  "But why?" I asked. "Trust me, what happened yesterday was a bad mistake that he made."

  "I'm your father. It's my job to dislike all of your boyfriends. Just like it's Barbara's job to dislike any girl who is brave enough to admit that she likes Mike," Jordan said jokingly. I laughed with him for a moment.

  "Keysha," Jordan paused. "Our court date has been set. We'll be appearing before the judge in three weeks."

  "Oh," I said. My good feelings suddenly plummeted into the dump.

  "It's okay, relax," he tried to assure me. "Asia will be coming by sometime this week to discuss the case and update the family."

  "I didn't do anything." I was frustrated again. "Liz Lloyd, this girl at school, set me up. I know she did," I said.

  "I know. Asia has already forwarded a summons for her to appear in court."

  "That girl has caused me so much drama." I exhaled a frustrating sigh. Jordan was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry," I said.

  "No need to apologize. I just wanted to let you know that we're getting down to the wire, okay?"

  "Okay," I answered.

  "Your food is still on the stove if you want to eat," Jordan said as he stood.

  "I'll be down in a little while. I just want to finish my extra-credit worksheet." Jordan exited my bedroom without saying anything more.

  On Monday morning during my walk to school with Mike, Wesley ran up on us.

  "Yo, Keysha and Mike, wait up," he said, slowing down as he approached. I almost started to tell Mike we should run away from him but I didn't. However, I did keep moving.

  "Yo, I said wait up," Wesley hollered out again. Mike and I didn't stop. We just kept moving. By the time Wesley caught up to us he was clearly out of breath.

  "Dang, why are ya'll tripping like that?" he asked.

  "Get away from us!" Mike snapped out at Wesley.

  "What?" Wesley wasn't the least bit intimidated by my brother.

  "She doesn't need you," Mike barked at him. Mike had become extremely protective of me and was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that I was safe.

  "Mike, hang on a second." I called off his attack. "Wesley, what you did is inexcusable. How could you do that to me? Do you have any idea of what I had to go through just to get permission for you to come over?"

  "Look, I know I messed up. I had a relapse but I'm going to go back to therapy for help. I spent all day with my dad yesterday. I told him about my setback and how I wanted to go back to therapy for it."

  "Dude, then come back once you've got your act together. Right now, Keysha just doesn't have time to babysit you, dog."

  "I don't need a babysitter," Wesley fired back. "I'm not perfect, okay? I'm human so cut me some slack."

  "Why should we?" I asked, even though I was happier than a bird soaring through the sky to see that he was okay. I just didn't want him to think that what he did was cool.

  "Because I've figured out a way to get the charges against you dropped." Wesley looked at both of us and awaited our reaction to his statement.

  "Come on, Keysha, this fool has been drinking again." Mike pulled my arm and I continued to walk with him.

  "Wait a minute!" Wesley placed himself directly in our path. "Come on, guys. I'm trying to help. And for the record I didn't drink this morning."

  "Wesley, what can you do that our lawyer can't do?" asked Mike.

  "Get a confession out of Liz," Wesley stated boldly.

  "And how are you going to do that? I can't even get her to spill her guts," I said.

  "Liz trusts me. Or at least the old me. She knows that I'm not a snitch. I can get her to talk about how she set you up."

  "Even if you could get a confession out of her, if you're called as a witness, your character is going to be called into question because of your record. This isn't a joke, Wesley, it's real," said Mike.

  "Don't you think that I know that, Sherlock?" Wesley snarled back. "Just hear me out for a moment."

  "Wesley, I'm really glad that you're—"

  "Keysha, please. Just hear me out. I'm trying to make things right." Wesley looked at me with sadness. His sincere expression went directly to my heart.

  "Okay, we'll hear you out," I said.

  "Good. Because we'll need Mike's help and connections, as well."

  "Oh, no, you're not including me in your scheme." Mike tried to remove himself from the plan.

  "Look, do you want to help her or not?" Wesley asked.

  Mike was silent for a moment before he answered yes.

  "Okay. The Tricked Out Nightclub has a surveillance camera at the door. We need to get a copy of the tape from the night Keysha and Liz were there. Mike, can you talk to your DJ buddy at the club to get access to it?"

  "Maybe, but how is that going to help?"

  "It's going to prove that Liz was there on the same night. Mike, I also need you to get some recording equipment from your DJ friend."

  "Dude, you're asking for a lot." Mike said.

  "No, I'm not. You're one of the most popular kids on campus. You know how to get people to work for you. Get me a small tape recorder and a microphone. I'm going to wire myself up so that when Liz gets to talking, I'll be recording her."

  "Yeah," Mike suddenly chimed in. "If you can get her to admit that she drugged Keysha at the nightclub, as well as supply the videotape placing her at the nightclub on the same night that the bad batch of Ecstasy came out, it would be easier for the police to at least consider Liz as a possible suspect."

  "But isn't this something Asia should be doing? I mean, why can't we just go to the police and tell them this?"

  "Because they want to nail someone and they're looking for a scapegoat. These guys found a smoking gun on you, Keysha. They're not going to waste man-hours searching for additional evidence. To them this is a slamdunk case," said Wesley.

  "That's true," said Mike.

  "So, what do you guys think?" asked Wesley.

"Do you really think you can pull this off?" I asked.

  "Yes!" Wesley said with absolute certainty. "We don't have anything to lose, but everything to gain."

  "He's got a point there," Mike said. "I can get you the recording stuff by tomorrow."

  "What about the access to the videotape?" Wesley asked.

  "That's going to take a little longer, but I think I can get it."

  "Good. I'm going to go catch up with Ed Daley so that I can find out what Liz is doing these days. I'm not going to hang around with you guys while at school because I don't want them to get suspicious."

  "Meet me at the community center tonight around 5:00 p.m.," said Mike. "I'll have the recording equipment by then."

  "Cool, I'll holla back," Wesley said, and was about to depart from us.

  "Hey, wait a minute," I said to him. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "Just let me be your hero." He kissed me on the cheek before continuing on.