The Way Love Changes You; Book One: Love's Firsts

27/XXVII: My Heavenly Distraction

~Jonni~

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Illvetta finally subdued her tears enough, then she went for something in her tote bag. It was a roll of tickets. She only ripped off two of them. For me and for her. She gave me one and opened her notebook to pages of two lists. One list that kept track of people's names of who bought tickets. The other was ticket numbers. She made it to a page that wasn't finished.

"Since the tickets are rolled up, they're in order when I give them out. That's why the numbers add up by one." She was sniffling as she was talking to me, but I paid all my attention to her. "I'm gonna write down our names and ticket numbers while I'm thinking about it."

She wrote her name down first and then her ticket number beside her name. Illvetta Sabrina Love.

Shiiiiit. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.

"What's your full name, Jonni?" she asked.

"Uh, Jonovia Ginez—that's G-I-N-E-Z—Covington-Crúz. My ma and pop had a hard time figurin' out if I was a boy or girl, especially when I was growin' up. Down there didn't even matter to them. I had practically the body and physique of a boy, but had a face and sorta a voice of a girl. Breasts included with the package." Illvetta snickered at that one.

"Yeah, but, like, that's why they gave up on genderin' me and decided to let me dress myself when I reached middle school. I've dressed masculine since. What really mattered to them was that I was livin' my best life the way I wanted with a smile on my face. They basically said 'fuck Jonovia's gender' at that point. They were excited but already aware when I told that I had a thing towards girls. They were the real goats for that and for the life I'm grateful to be livin' now. Bein' genderless and lovin' women and others like me."

Illvetta smiled but flushed a bit as she wrote my ticket number down and she returned the ticket back to me. "Would I be considered as a goat if I told you that I also love you just the way you are? It's amazing just seeing you like this: perfect."

She shot a look at me with a smirk attached. She kept darting her eyes at my lips, and that alone had me sweating...

Oh, shit...

To kinda wear off this feeling, I looked at Avellana and Indy beside me. They were sharing each other's pizzas with one another. It kinda distracted me because I was about to freak the fuck out over how smitten this woman was making me for her. Adding to the distraction, I looked at Redd, who looked like she didn't want to be here. Like she didn't want to talk to anybody. I wanted to ask her so badly what her damage was, but I didn't want to kill the mood or start drama.

"Hey excuse me again, but I'mma head to the restroom," Avellana said as she got up. She fast paced to the restroom like it was gonna lock up if she didn't make it in time.

"And then, she was never seen or heard from again..." Indy said, right when the door shut. Laughter bust out from the whole table. It was perfect timin'. Well...the only person who didn't laugh was Redd. She just kept eating her pizza like nobody was in the room.

Everybody else was talking about how excited they were about the ball, but as I was still getting my mack on with my pizza, I couldn't help but glance at Redd at times. She looked even sadder than she did before. She was just very reclusive, more than she was the last time we all went out together. It was so off-putting, but it was also concerning.

In fact, Redd was talking and singing in the truck not too long ago, but this sudden change of mood was very confusing to me. Again, I was the only one keeping tabs on Redd and her behavior. That, or Lotus might've noticed a bit by how she looked at me a moment ago. Redd being silent this whole time is kinda rubbing me the wrong way. Or I'm just over-analyzing shit.