Jaleah didn't have much growing up. For as long as she's known, her family lived paycheck to paycheck, making ends meet with what they had. But, Jaleah always wanted to get out of that life. She always knew that one day, she would make it out.
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jaleah's perspective.
"Are we almost there?" I ask Izzy as he holds his hands over my eyes and leads me somewhere. He said he had another special surprise for me, but I couldn't see it until we got there.
"Yeah, a couple more steps." He says.
We walk for about another minute, then we finally stop. He removes his hands to reveal a skating rink, filled with my friends and some of his, of course. "Surprise!" They all yell.
Me being the crybaby I am, I get all teary eyed and turn around to hug Izzy. I told him a while ago that I've never been skating and I always wanted to go, so he rented out an entire skating rink just for me. Is this what love is really like?
"I got you something else too." Izzy says. His friend Toosii brings a box over and I thank him. When I open it, there's a pair of custom skates inside with my name in bubble letters on them. They remind me of the early 2000's.
"I love them. I love all of this. Thank you so much baby." Izzy and I kiss.
Everyone goes off to have fun, skating and enjoying each other's company. I sit down beside Izzy on a bench to put my skates on when someone taps me on my shoulder. I look up to see Tory standing there. A part of me wants to just roll my eyes and walk away from her, but I'm in such a good mood, I'll be nice today.
I move over a little so she can sit beside me. She does so, and for a few seconds we're both quiet. I just honestly don't know how to start the conversation off. We haven't spoken in so long it feels like and I'm not sure if our relationship will ever be the same. I kind of do miss her, though.
"Hey." She says in a low tone.
"Hi."
"Happy birthday."
"Thanks."
Again, we fall silent. We've never fought this bad before.
"Look, Jaleah, I fucking miss you okay? Like I know we both fucked up and probably talked shit behind each other's backs, but I miss you, especially in the midst of all of this. I lost her too, and even though we might not have made the best decisions together, Amaiya was my other half. And I don't want to lose you too, Jay."
"I miss you too Tory. And I'm so sorry for how I treated you. I never honestly thought about how you must've felt in all of this and I was wrong for that. You know you're like a sister to me and I love you. Let's just move past this all. Truce?" I hold out my pinkie.
"Truce." Tory intertwines her pinkie with mine, like we did back in elementary school. We really used to be the best of friends and honestly, our friendship started dwindling in high school. We tried our best to stay close, but I wanted to be apart of the church and she wanted more freedom from it all, so we drifted apart a little. I'm so happy I stopped really being religious.
"I'm gonna go skate but come find me later, ok?" Izzy says, getting up.
"Ok." I respond. We quickly kiss before he skates off.
"Wait, are y'all like a thing now?" Tory asks.
"He asked me to be his girlfriend yesterday and told me he loves me."
"I'm so happy for you." Tory and I hug.
—
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tory's perspective.
My mind is racing as I skate around the skating rink, watching Izzy teach Jaleah how to skate. They're laughing and kissing and super lovey dovey, and it makes me kind of uncomfortable. It's not like I'm jealous of them or anything, I just know something Jaleah doesn't. And I can't tell her about it.
Izzy isn't all he's piped up to be. He does treat her well, and he's clearly a nice guy to her, but he's a typical hood nigga. Just a couple of days ago, he was fucking on my roommate's friend. And I know Jaleah didn't give it up yet, so he's still probably gonna be fucking around until she does and I don't want to see her hurt.
It's a real dilemma, though, because I don't want to ruin our relationship that we just rebuilt by telling her about her man. She'll probably be defensive and cut me off again and I just can't risk that. But what if she's not defensive? What if she believes me and breaks up with him? Then I'm the one responsible for ruining her relationship. Her first relationship with her first love at that. I'm stuck at a crossroads with this one.
"You jealous?" Toosii asks, coming up behind me, scaring the shit out of me.
I roll my eyes. I dislike this nigga. "Jealous of what?" I ask, giving him a stank face.
"Bye girl I been seeing you looking at them. Just say you want me and we can be just like them." He tries to flirt.
"Nau'jour, if you don't leave me the hell alone I promise Ima knock ya head off ya shoulders." I mug him before skating off as fast as I could, laughing ridiculously hard.
