Someone Like You (Jacquees)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

     Jacquees comes back to school today. I haven't talked to him since the break up so I was pretty nervous. We were still math partners in Mr. Charleston's class so we had to communicate in some way. But honestly, I was feeling better now that we were broken up. I was emotionally free and didn't feel so tied down. Although I loved the relationship Jacquees and I had, I realized that I really did need this more than I knew. He walked into the classroom with a smile on his face probably happy that he was back. The entire class rejoiced due to his return especially the girls. The guys came up to him patting him on the back and dapping him while the girl just gave him hugs.

"All right, all right. Everybody take your seats. Welcome back, Mr. Broadnax" Mr. Charleston said as he entered the room.

     Jacquees smiled and took his seat beside me. His entire face seemed to drain as soon as he sat down though. Was he seriously still mad at me for breaking up with him? I thought these past few weeks might give him some time to cool off but he seemed just as heated as he did the day of the incident. I looked the other way trying to hide my face from him. Mr. Charleston started his lesson and talked about finding the area of various irregular shapes. I already knew how to do it so I just tore a piece of paper out of my binder and doodled tiny and big tornadoes all over the page until he stopped talking. He finally did and gave us textbook pages to work on with our partners.

     My heart began to race. In order to work together, we had to communicate. How were we going to manage to do that without going at each other's throats? Jacquees dug through his binder for a piece of paper to do his work on. While he did so, I looked over at Lyric and she shrugged at me with a nervous look. I took a deep breath and saw a clean sheet of paper on my desk and I looked at him as he began too head his paper.

"Thanks" I said.

     He stopped writing and nodded at me. He went back to writing. When he finished, he sat back flipping through his textbook to the pages that Mr. Charleston assigned us to work on. When he made it to the page he looked at me.

"So how do you wanna do this? You wanna split up the work?"

"Uh...y-yeah. I can take the first 12 and you take the last 12 and then just copy each other's work when we're done"

"Aight" he said and got back to work. 

     For some reason, I was dying to talk to him but I don't know why. I just tried to keep my thoughts to myself and began to work.

                                                                                                 ***

     I made my way for my lunch table where Lyric was already waiting for me. Jacquees didn't sit with us today and I figured he wouldn't be for a while. I sat down and looked over at the table that he and Tre were sitting at. There was a girl sitting in Jacquees' lap with his arm around her. My cheeks suddenly started to get hot. I was hoping that Lyric didn't see. The girl had a short, black pixie cut and her make-up complimented her skin very well. She wore a sleeveless white blouse with dark, blue skinny jeans and tan colored pumps. I wasn't even afraid to admit that she was absolutely gorgeous! I suddenly saw Jacquees give her a peck on the lips and she smiled.

     I looked down at my tray and then up at Lyric. She had a sympathetic look on her face. Of course she knew that Jacquees and I had broken up, as I had told her while he was gone.

"Her name is Janay. Her and Que have been friends since the third grade" she said practically reading my mind.

     I had remembered Jacquees and Janay hugging a lot but I never would've thought that they were that close. When did Jacquees even find the time to start going out with her? He just came back today!

"He never mentioned her" I said swishing my applesauce around in circles with my spoon.

"So that you can get all protective and insecure? I wouldn't expect him to tell you, Nic"

     I tried my best to keep my eyes off of them. Suddenly, Keyana came over with a smug grin on her face. I rolled my eyes and took a bite out of my pizza.

"Don't worry, Nicole. I'm not here to beat you up about your boyfriend...well...your ex-boyfriend"

"The only person who is going to be beating up anybody is me when I beat your ass again if you keep talking to me like that"

"Bitch, please! To let you in on a little secret, I didn't fight you back that day because I wasn't trying to spend a week or more with Officer Asshole and his stalking ass. But trust and believe that I will hurt you this time" she said.

     I rolled my eyes again and went back to eating.

 "You know, I'm not even asking this to get under you skin but why do all of that stuff you did, fighting me because of him, just to break up with him?" she asked.

"He didn't tell you?" I asked keeping my head down.

"Nah, he just told us that you broke up with him. No details"

"I just...thought that a relationship was too much with all of the stuff we were going through" I said softly.

"You miss him?" she asked.

      I didn't answer.

"Well, I'm gonna eat with ya'll today" she said pulling a bag of chips and water out of her purse. "Those two make me want to throw up"

     Lyric and I giggled and continued eating. But jealousy still burned deep inside of me. Yes, I still had feelings for Jacquees. I had only gotten over our relationship, not my love for him. I looked back over at them and they were kissing again. All I wanted to do at that moment was rip her damn face off. I shouldn't be feeling that way though...so why do I?