When Love Hurts (3 page)

A few hours later, I wake up again and roll over trying not to rekindle the fire in my back and arms and legs. I hate it that I forgot to pack PJs when I was rushing to leave Chris’s place, but thankfully Jaylen loaned me his gigantic white shirt. I sit up and slide my legs one at a time onto the floor. My leg stings when I stand up, but I know the pain is worth it to get to Jaylen’s cooking.

I walk in the kitchen and see a white index card on Jaylen’s table. It reads, “Gone to work. Angela is coming over around six when I get off, so be in your bedroom for the night by then. Thanks. PS. Your eggs are in the fridge.”

I walk over to the stove and pull out the plate he left for me. It has two link sausages and two strips of bacon. I open the fridge to get the eggs and notice my favorite cheese and bacon omelet sitting on a paper plate.

After stuffing myself silly, I get up and wash the dishes. Jaylen doesn’t have a lot of dirty dishes—just a few plates and the pan he used for the eggs. I wash them quickly, then wipe the table off with a rag I find in one of his dish drawers.

I wash off the stove and clean the inside of the oven. It makes me feel productive and needed. I set out to clean the refrigerator, empting out its contents before scrubbing the shelves inside with soap and water. I restock the fridge in a nice order for Jaylen. I put the meat products on the bottom, butter and cheese at the top, and miscellaneous foods like leftovers in the middle.
 

I look around the kitchen for anything I had missed, and when I don’t see anything I stroll to the living room. I start straightening up in there before I bore myself with just sitting on the couch. I throw away some notable trash before hunting down the vacuum. I walk down the hallway and open the linen closet. All the shelves are full of towels and cleaning supplies but no vacuum. I search the laundry room and find the vacuum leaning against the wall. The laundry room is a nice touch for this apartment and holds a washer and dryer, a bunch of dirty clothes, and the vacuum.
 

I am about to walk out, when I see a pile of female clothes in the corner of the floor.
 

I leave the room but move at a slower pace. My mood has changed, and even though I hate to admit it, I know it’s true. I’m jealous. I’m jealous of the love Jaylen and Angela have. Angela and I aren’t the best of friends—acquaintances at most, really—but I know she’s good for Jaylen. The few times I interacted with her she acted irritated with me. She knows Jaylen and I practically grew up together, but I don’t think she really trusts him alone with me, but I’ve never given her a reason not to.

I start vacuuming the living room and move on to the hallways and my guest room. I’m about to shut the vacuum off and roll up the cord I have plugged in, when I think about cleaning Jaylen’s room. I shrug and open his door. The room is spacious and uncluttered. The floors are free of clothes, and the bed is already made up. The dresser is the only thing unorganized with watches, money, and a few other miscellaneous items scattered about.

Once I finish the floor, I shut the vacuum off. I turn to leave, when a picture on his dresser stops me. It’s a picture of his parents when they were still together, and it makes me smile. His parents divorced around the time Jaylen turned thirteen.
 

Neither Jaylen nor Malcolm took the divorce too hard. They still saw their father after the divorce, but not too much after they moved here to Chicago. The two of them stayed more in contact with their mom, Sheri, who was like a mother to me. I smile, looking into Sheri’s deep-brown eyes in the photo. That is really the only trait passed down to her children. I look to the man beside her, and he is the forty-five-year-old version of his sons. The males apparently have the dominant genes, and the man is definitely Jaylen’s father.

I look around the dresser and see another picture in its frame of Jaylen when he was around sixteen. He’s in his suit and standing next to his prom date, a girl from our graduating class named Kelly. They were together at the time, but he didn’t love her, and they only lasted about a month or so after the prom. Jaylen had to have been the most attractive and popular person in our senior class. I was a junior, and Malcolm had already graduated and was trying out college. Even though Jaylen gave me a ride home every day from school, I was never popular myself. People just knew me as the girl with the long hair or Jaylen’s friend, but I was never mistaken as his girlfriend.

It’s mostly because we never acted like boyfriend and girlfriend for people to assume we were. We acted more like family, and I swore people probably thought I was his cousin twice removed or something. Jaylen and I always got along, and we always understood each other. From the outside looking in it would make sense that we would go together, but, I don’t know—it just never happened. It’s not that I don’t think he is handsome, because Jaylen’s the most attractive person I know. Everyone has their taste of what they like, and Jaylen has everything I would want in a partner. He’s tall, smart, motivated, strong-muscled, but not too ripped that veins show on his neck, and has my favorite sexy face.

I smile for half a second. No one knows this but me and him, but Jaylen was my first time. I was thirteen years old, and Jaylen was fifteen and self-centered back then, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know what sex was like, and I didn’t trust anybody else but him.
 

It was the summer before my eighth-grade year, and I excused myself from the girls I was playing jump rope with to find Jaylen sitting on his porch. He knew what I wanted, but we couldn’t do it in the house. We went behind his house and behind the garden Jaylen’s mother kept in the backyard. We ducked down low past the open window, where his mother was preparing Southern fried chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes—a dinner I was always informally invited to if my grandmother had plans. We went behind the old red shed, which held a rusted sports car from Jaylen’s dad’s younger days, and other useless junk. It was there that we both had our first kiss. It was there that Jaylen saw me without my shirt on. I had no breasts at all, but Jaylen didn’t care. He told me he thought I was pretty, with my chubby cheeks and skinny body. His body was also forming out with deep abs and strong, thin arms that wrapped around me, and held me close as he lifted me up on his father’s car.
 

Our sex was interrupted by both a shout from a girl indicating it was my turn to jump rope and Jaylen’s mom calling him to eat, but we were somehow satisfied.

I’ve never had sex with Jaylen since that day, and the “what ifs” are now playing in my head. I rub my hand against Jaylen’s face in the photo, and then look away trying to get the thought of how I lost my virginity out of my head. I never really thought about the possibilities of me and him being together, but it seemed that whenever I was single he was taken, and vice versa. Even now Jaylen has started a relationship with Angela, whom he met four months ago, and it’s already serious. I sigh and look away.
 

I leave the room and grab the vacuum to take it back to the laundry room, when my phone starts ringing. I walk over to my room and am about to answer, until I see Chris’s name on the caller ID screen. I swallow hard and listen to it ring. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d come here to get me. When I left him after finding out about him cheating on me, I came here, and he probably thinks this time is no different. I look toward the door of the room and think about the front door. Did Jaylen lock it? I know I didn’t. My heart starts racing, and my head starts throbbing.

Finally, the phone stops ringing, but it starts again three seconds later. I drop my phone back on the bed and decide to go peek out the front window. Even if Chris knows there’s a high chance I’m here, there’s no way to actually prove it until he sees me, but that’s not going to happen.

I walk out of my room and peek out the window behind the couch. The window view looks out to the street, like Chris’s apartment. There are hardly any cars on the street, and none of the cars belongs to Chris. Not even the blue Accord I saw him in last night is outside. I close the blinds and take a deep breath. My phone in the room also stops ringing. I don’t know if he’s going to show up here or if he doesn’t care about me anymore, but I’m not stepping one foot out of this place with that asshole on the loose.
 

I look up at the digital clock above the TV that reads 3:12 p.m. I still have a lot of time before Jaylen comes home with Angela at six. I let out a breath and sink into the couch. As soon as my body meets the soft fabric, all the day’s labor finally catches up to me, and I feel a lot more tired than I thought I was.

I sit up for two minutes, and then move to leaning on the armrest, and somehow, two hours later, I wake up lying out flat on the whole couch with the armrest as my pillow. I look at the time and realize I have about forty-five minutes before Jaylen comes back. I spring up but regret it after it makes my head spin and the soreness of my body wakes up. I start heading to my room, when I hear my stomach growling. I grab a soda, bag of chips, and put together a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
 

I’m throwing my trash away when I hear the key turn in the front door. Jaylen and Angela are home. I didn’t know I could move so fast, but I make it to the hallway just as I hear a female voice that couldn’t belong to anyone but Angela boom through the room. I walk quickly and quietly the rest of the way to my room, which is thankfully blocked off from the living room entrance. I slide the door closed behind me and blow out a breath.
 

I stroll over to the bed and glance at my phone. No text messages—only the two missed calls from Chris earlier. I send Jaylen a text telling him I am in my room and he can lock the door from the outside in case Angela gets snoopy, when I feel a familiar pressure in my lower abdomen telling me I have to go to the bathroom. Of course, I can’t go now with Angela laughing in the living room with her man, thinking the two of them are alone.
 

The phone doesn’t alert me to any new text messages, and I decide I can try to hold my bladder. What choice do I have? They’ll probably go to bed soon anyway. After ten minutes I can hear the sound of a comedy show playing in the living room and figure they are going to be there for a while. I can probably sneak to the bathroom without either of them knowing; they just have to stay in the living room.
 

I walk to my door and twist the knob. Thankfully it doesn’t creak. I peek out and see that the hallway’s clear. I step out and take long, soft steps like I’m Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits. The door to the bathroom squeaks, and I check over my shoulder to see if anybody is going to respond. I only see the armrest of the couch and their shadows from the glare of the TV. I walk into the bathroom and handle my business.
 

I lower the lid down and debate how much noise flushing the toilet would be, when I hear footsteps approaching the door. I think about jumping in the shower and pulling the curtain back to hide, but I can’t act fast enough. The knob turns and it’s too late.

Jaylen comes in the bathroom and shuts the door. I let out a heavy sigh and smile. “Oh, Jay. You gave me a heart attack. Your phone must be dead or something.” My words are in hushed whispers.
 

He nods, then leans back against the door. “Yeah, I wanted to text you to see if you got my note, but yeah.” He’s smiling too.

I’m lost in his smile, when I remember he only has a certain amount of time in the bathroom before Angela will get suspicious. “You better go ahead and use the bathroom then,” I mutter, stepping aside.

“I don’t have to go. I just wanted an excuse to come check on you. When I saw you wasn’t in your room, I figured you’d be in here,” he says in a low voice.

“Oh.”

“Do you need anything?” he asks, turning around with one hand on the knob. When I shake my head, he nods. “Okay. You can wash your hands on full blast. She’ll think it’s me.”

I flush the toilet and wash my hands, and when I get back to my room I feel refreshed. I lie flat on the bed looking up at the ceiling. I close my eyes and try to block images of Chris and the girl from the car making love. I wish I can shut my mind off and be somewhere else at the snap of a finger.
 

I turn over in the bed, and the words of my grandmother come to my mind saying that true love takes work, and if it’s too easy to get it’s not worth getting. I think about those wise words and her memory, and I actually smile.
 

I wake up the next morning to the sound of two men talking. My door’s closed so I can’t see, but I can tell the two deep voices belong to men. Suddenly, I start hearing only one male voice, and I can tell it’s Jaylen’s. He’s talking in a calm but in a firm, dominant voice. I can’t make out his sentences, but I catch a few words, and it sounds like he’s talking about me. But why?
 

I force myself to roll over until I’m leaning halfway off the mattress. I use my hands to crawl until my legs land on the floor. The soreness I felt from Chris’s fists is present but is getting better and becoming less noticeable. As soon as I think about Chris, my mind goes to the two phone calls last night. Why did he call me? What if he just decided to show up here and is here right now? I have to find out.

Once I get to my feet, I open the door and peek to see who’s here. I see Jaylen’s back, and I can tell the other man is in the kitchen, but Jaylen’s blocking my view. I can’t see Angela, but I know she’s probably around somewhere. Then I see something that catches my eye. It goes by fast, but I see the strand of hair tied in a braid belonging to the man Jaylen was talking to and know immediately it isn’t Chris. I swing the door all the way open. Jaylen turns around and smiles. There is Malcolm standing at the entrance of the kitchen. He smiles briefly, showing his pearly whites, and says, “Good morning, princess. You can come out. Ang’s gone.”

I come out of the room smiling hard, and all fears of Chris showing up are out the window. I give Malcolm a hug, then I stand next to Jaylen, who also gives me a hug. He squeezes my side and it hurts, but I keep smiling. “Where did she go? And why did you come back? You’re early,” I tell Malcolm.