Bunny

54

I'd cleaned Pam's kitchen, and was finished washing the dishes and wiping down the counters and appliances. Now I was in the laundry room separating the clothes before putting them in the wash.

I heard a door slam open.
I froze.

"MA!" I heard someone shout.

Isaiah?

I thought about walking out to speak to him but I didn't want to. I was scared I'd make him feel bad for not responding to the idea of dinner with me and my dad.

"Good Lord, Isaiah. Why are you screaming?" Pam asked as she came downstairs.
"I got a problem."
"Is it that you left that poor girl without a response on dinner with her and her father?"

I almost ran out there to tell her not to say that but now I was embarrassed and stuck in place.
Why do parents insist on embarrassing younger generations?

"She told you that?" he asked.
I'm sorry I use your mom as a therapist, I thought to myself.

"Yes, she did. Sit down."
I heard the chair be pulled out and assumed he was taking a seat.
"You smell like sweat." Pam stated.
"I was at work. Just got off."
So he was working.
"Okay, do you wanna tell me why you hung up on my poor Willow?"
"You do know that I'm your son, right?"
"Which is why I'm scolding you. Answer."
I could hear him sigh.

I realized I'd stopped moving with a shirt in my hand so that I wouldn't make a sound and could hear them better.

"I don't know, man. That's too soon."
"It's too soon to meet the father of your girlfriend?"
"Yea."
"She's met me."
"That ain't the same. She works for you."
"Isaiah, she's met my entire side of the family almost. You can't meet her daddy?"
He let out a deep groan. "It's different, dude."
"How is it different?"

I waited for a response.

I didn't mean to stress him out. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. Like Pam said, I'd already met his family.

"I'm not a kind of person to bring around people's family." I heard him say.
"Isaiah, what?" Pam asked.
He sucked his teeth.
"How aren't you?" she questioned.
"You remember Nina and Bobbi?"
"Yea?"
"I never met either of their parents. They knew better than that. Why would you take me of all people to meet your parents? I can't meet her dad. That man is gonna hate me."
"Can I ask why you care about him hating you?"
"If he hates me then she's not gonna talk to me again. I know that for a fact. The minute he decides I'm somebody that ain't good enough for her, she's gonna walk away from me."
"So you like her so much that you're afraid to make a bad impression on her dad because you know it could make or break your relationship?"
"Who told you that?"
She laughed. "You did."
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did. You just said it in different words."

They were both silent.

I never thought about him being nervous. He always seemed so confident. I thought he'd just accept it. I would have never guessed that he'd be scared...

"That's not why I didn't meet Nina or Bobbi's parents," he continued.
"Why didn't you meet their parents?"
"I didn't care. Like...yea they were my girlfriends I guess, but...I never cared about meeting their parents. They ain't even meet Langston or Andre until like a month in."
"Has Willow met them?"
"She met Langston, Andre, Kareem, Kevin, and Mrs. Tran."
"Oh, she met Mrs. Tran. This is serious."
Both of them laughed. "Be for real!" Isaiah instructed.
"I am!" his mom laughed.

I smiled to myself at them.

"I would meet Bunny's dad. But because I already know what'll happen. I don't want to," Isaiah explained.
"It's only been a few weeks. You like her a lot."
He sucked his teeth. "Don't make me sound like a simp."
"I'm not! It's okay to like someone. It's okay to be a simp if you are one. You should like the person you're with. That's why you're with them. I hope she's a simp for you too."
"Yea..."
"Can I ask what's so different about her than Nina and Bobbi?"
"Everything." He scoffed.
"Everything?"
"Every. Single. Thing."
"Talk about it."

"She's shy."
"Well I could've told you that." Pam replied.

I really have to get my confidence up, all these people talk about is how shy I am.

"But like...shy in a cute way? Like...I'm used to being with outgoing women. Women who hit on me first and I just kinda accepted. And...ain't nothin' wrong with that but Bunny is completely different. I gotta make the first move and a lot of the time when I do, I can tell I embarrassed her and that's so funny to me because I'm used to being with women who liked that. They wanted me to kiss them in public and grope them or whatever. But I kiss Willow and she just stares at me with these wide eyes and I laugh at her. Not to make her feel bad but because I've never had that happen before and it's cute that she does it."
"Right..." Pam listened.
"She's not that confident. Don't get me wrong, I love confident women. Like the ones that know they're fine and carry themselves like they know. I love that. But Willow is stunned anytime I call her pretty. It's not like 'aww thank you', she's actually shocked and then tells me to shut up."
They both laughed.

Now I was embarrassed.

"But I like that too! Because she's mad fucking pretty. Like...like crazy pretty."
"Beautiful." Pam added.
"Exactly. And she doesn't know. I find that like...weird and really humble and I like that just as much as I like women the opposite that are confident. I don't like arrogance though. That shit pisses me off."
"No one likes arrogance." Pam agreed.
"Yo, and she's smart too!" Isaiah yelled when he remembered.
Pam snickered.
"Like...the girl went to college. And she ain't just go...she fuckin' got valedictorian. At a college!" he reiterated.

I tried to keep my laugh down and covered my mouth.

"Ma, you know how hard it is to get Valedictorian at a college?"
"Pretty hard."
"Pretty damn hard!" he agreed. "Man, she's smarter than me by a long shot."
"You could've gotten into college. Your grades were really good in school. You would've graduated too."
"Wasn't gonna get Valedictorian though."
"No, probably not."
"See."

They went quiet again like they were thinking.

"Nina and Bobbi weren't dumb. But they weren't valedictorian either. They weren't as sweet. Bobbi used to get in a fight like every other day and they'd call me sayin' 'Zay, your girl in a fight again' like damn, now I gotta go break that up before somebody call the cops." he remembered.
Pam laughed.

"She just different from what I'm used to but in a good way. I've never been with somebody so innocent. Like she's cute. Like a bunny." he stated. "At first, I only used to hit on her to fluster her because I liked the way she looked when she was nervous it was funny and I made it a game for myself."
"Isaiah!" Pam yelled. I heard a slap but it didn't sound like skin contact so I assumed it was his arm or his back through his shirt.
"Ow! I know it was a dick move, but still! After a while I like actually realized I was into her. Like I wasn't doin' it to make her nervous anymore. I was doin' it for me and sometimes it just happened and I ain't mean to." he explained. "Now she's my girlfriend. That was kind of quick wasn't it?"
"You call that quick? It took you forever to give her that title. You move slow as molasses."
Isaiah sucked his teeth.

"I wanna know why she has more confidence bringing you around her dad than you do in yourself." Pam stated.
Silence.

"She knows you and her father and still thinks you two would get along. Don't you think you should take her word for it? I've never seen you be nervous ever. This is kind of creeping me out," she snickered.
"I ain't nervous."
"Then what are you?"

Silence.