Wylan's Laws of Emotion

Chapter Twenty Three- Wylan

It was the day of the game, and I was sitting at my computer calculating college expenses. I was dressed in our school colors of purple and gold with two stripes on my cheeks.

That get up was none of my doing. Farah had barged into my room that morning, with face paint and school colors. I had no choice. She had even gone as far as to force my hair up into two little Afro puffs on each side of my head and tied ribbons down.

I needed to start fighting my friend. This look definitely didn't suite me. "You look adorable!" she squealed when she walked into our Art II class. I scowled at her and she grinned, whispering lowly. "I could've forced you into some lipstick as well, so be happy I stopped with ribbons."

Oh, my mother had been so excited when she saw the contraption. I was coming down the front stairs and she did a ninja roll while holding her Canon Rebel. "Wesley, block the door!" she screamed, and sure enough, my dad ran to the front door blocking my way out.

We did have a backdoor, but it was just my luck that Tyra, Poppet, and her league of puppies were there waiting for me. Had it just been Tyra I probably could've carried her away, but I couldn't take them all at once.

I did a B-line and there was my mother smiling at me. "Say cheese! Oh my goodness, we did so well, Wesley!" she exclaimed, and then a reddish tint colored her cheeks when she saw my sister.

I gave a bright smile and kept walking after she got her picture. One of the perquisites of having a daughter with backwards emotions is that you can annoy her, but still get a great smile for family pictures.

You'd never know how close she was to hurling a puppy at you until it happened. "Bye mom." I groaned as I kept walking.

"Bye sweetheart! Have a good day!" Surely, I would have the best day ever.

"Hey, I'm going to be getting home a little late. I'm going to the football game." I said and my dad laughed, fixing his cup of coffee.

"You and Okra have fun then, Wy," he chuckled as Tyra ran towards me, holding a piece of paper.

"I never even mentioned Kwame, so how'd you figure I was going with him?"

"Well, nobody else could get you to have legitimate fun," he replied.

"Tell Me-me that I said hello!" I heard Ty screaming as she approached me and handed me a piece of paper for Kwame. "Give him this."

I lazily made my way out the door.

Kwame sauntered into our first period about ten minutes before the bell rung, and went to kidding and chuckling with his friends.

I was preoccupied in my copy of Pride and Prejudice as I usually paid little to no attention in this class. My teacher put up a good fight though. I sat in the very back of the classroom with Kwame beside me, but I won the battle to stay awake in that comfortable little corner sorely. I woke up to the sound of paper rustling beside me, so I peeked over at Kwame. He was holding a note from Lorelei. He scanned it and shook his head.

She mouthed, "Why?" to him, and he nodded in my direction.

Her response was a look of distaste in my direction before she turned around and looked at the teacher. He wordlessly handed me the note from Lorelei as if that would explain. The bell ring and I was able to escape the throbbing sensation in my ears. Kwame made his way beside me, and took to fiddling around with the ribbons in my hair.

"Do you want me to just meet you by the field house? Or will you be sitting in the student section?" I asked him as he tried unraveling a knot he'd made. "Okari, this is why I don't let people play in my hair." I whined as he gave up.

"Sorry, it just looked so cute. I've never seen you wear ribbons," he complimented.

"I guess guy friends are for getting ribbons stuck in your hair." I shook my head and handed him the paper from Ty. He raised an eyebrow and opened it. "I know, pretty fancy for a simple hello. That rhymed," I remarked.

"Nerd, maybe you should write poetry." Now, that was a laughable epidemic. I couldn't rap or dance, but I could write a poem. Anything else requiring rhythm? Count me out.

"What's the point in writing one when you can't recite it?" I inquired.

"I would listen," he stated earnestly as we rounded a corner. He looked straight ahead, as I rammed into someone else.

"What if I don't do it right?" I asked him. He sighed and his brow furrowed. He began to speak, but I was not paying his words any attention.

I was in love with reciting the minute details about him, visualizing him. I wasn't sure what love was, but I knew I was infatuated to a degree. I didn't have those fantasies of kissing him or anything. I was the type of girl who wanted artistic memories. Standing in a big room, wearing an oversized t-shirt and various paint stains while I laughed at the wild things he said was a frequent daydream of mine.

Sitting at a small table in our studio apartment, writing about him while he watched from a corner, unsuspected by me was my favorite. I never told him those things. I just joked around and kept my own secrets locked inside my brain.

"I think you'd be fine Wy. You worry too much. You create the standard for what constitutes as doing it right. I told you all the time to stop worrying about what you're doing right or wrong. You're great at what you love and fine at what you don't. Just dance to your own beat, and beat your own drum."

It was moments like these where his attentive nature showed. He was very quiet and thoughtful when separated from the crowd, and I realized I liked the Kwame that nobody else saw. I didn't want anyone else to have him. They couldn't have what we had.

He could put everyone else through those grievous antics of his, but me, I was his friend. I was something different—something important. I could stay away from the pack if I got these things in return.

Kwame was a somber person, and because of that, I appreciated the moments in which he commended my goofiness. He was a great person to be around, but an even better one to remember. I loved his smile, but memories of it were priceless. If I could remember him, the boy behind the screen, the boy no one had ever seen, forever, I would be the happiest person on earth.

He locked that boy away for his entourage, and I was just figuring out how to unlock it—how to make him stay full time. I was good at being there, and in that moment, it occurred to me that all I might ever need to do was that. "Just meet me by the field house," I requested.

Law 8:

In high school, you're bound to the people around you. I remember someone telling me that your last chance at an escape was graduation, so you had better choose your home wisely. You could go hundreds of thousands miles away from home and start over. You could make new memories. They could be painful, they could be sanguine, but they're still your memories and they reside in your mind. They help you to avoid getting hurt again.

Leaving doesn't mean forgetting. Leaving isn't ridding yourself of a situation, leaving is just distancing yourself from the inconvenience of it, and I wanted to leave so badly. I wanted to go as far as I possibly could and stay there because staying would've been too inconvenient and as much as I dreamed of hating the town that I had lived in for such a long time, I was finding reasons to stay. I was finding caged birds who I could teach to sing.

Sometimes you run from one situation, only dragging shackles to another. Don't give up happiness for success. If you are a caged bird, keep on singing, maybe another will remember how to sing too.