Will You Stay? (Urban)

3

I checked the text Nique sent to me twenty minutes ago.

Nique
The park on West. Six.

I had a little time to spare so I took a quick shower, washing the smell of rubber and shoes off my body. I wrapped a towel around my waist and went out to the closet to choose something to wear.

"Nigga, chill. Y'all going to the park it ain't that serious," I spoke to myself. I picked something simple: a Nike hoodie with a pair of True's and all black Timberlands. The sun was out but it was fall. It gets cold during this season in Louisiana.

It was almost six. I unplugged my phone from the charger and shut off all the lights and locked the door. With only my phone and keys, I went to go meet up with Nique.

When I got there I could've sworn I got stood up. There were kids and mothers but nobody who looked my age. On a park bench was Nique, sitting with her legs crossed. Her hair was no longer in a messy bun but in a slicked back puff on the back of her head. She wore tights, ankle high boots and a long sleeved sweater.

Domonique seemed to notice me staring so she got up and walked my way. "I like coming here, being outside." I noticed her figure by what she was wearing. Her legs seemed to be muscular, like she worked out a lot or was an athlete herself.

"A simple hey woulda been cool. You already getting all poetic on me." She chuckled and pointed her head to a set of swings.

We sat next to each other on the swings and talked. "I been tutoring you for two weeks and still don't know nothing about you," she stated.

I'm guessing she wanted me to say things about myself, but I didn't have anything to really speak about. Plus, I didn't know if I was ready to share my sob story just yet.

"My name is Jaylen, but you can call me Jay. I play football. I like football. I eat Ramen a lot and I like to be super boujee with it and add an egg and some beef and change it up all kinds of ways," she laughed hard at my taste. "Uh what else? I got like three jobs and live by myself. I work at foot locker, I wash cars, I mow lawns."

"Why you live by yourself?" She was prying. I knew Nique was never going to give it up, so I just told her the whole thing. "My mother passed when I was young so I stayed with my Aunt. It was cool for a lil bit, shit happened, then she died." She looked at me and I felt like she was staring right through me. After expressing how sorry she was for my loss, I went on to tell her more about myself.

"I ain't got no friends. Well if you consider us friends then I got one friend." She smiled. "I guess you can be my friend."

I got up from the swing and stood behind her. "Well you've heard a little about me. Wassup with you?" I gently pushed her on the swing.

"I'm Domonique, but you knew that. I got a small family and I'm the only one who live down here. My brothers and mother live upstate so I don't get to see them a lot. I like fruit. I like pineapples and mangoes. Wings are good too. I don't got a job, but I tutor. I tutor you. I'm real smart if you didn't know."

The swing was gaining speed, but she wasn't going too fast that I couldn't hear her. "I barely sleep at night. I just stay up and think."

I felt like she no longer needed my assistance so I went over to my own swing and kicked my feet to get some motion going. "What about the rest of your family?" she asked.

My face dropped and she could tell she struck a nerve. "If you don't wanna-" I never even talked to anyone as much as I was doing right now. Why not just keep going?

Nique stopped her swing and so did I. Despite the emotions going through me, I continued. "When I was younger the house was always dead silent, except for Aunt Nila's talking. That woman stayed on the phone, and I ain't have nothing to do so I listened to her conversations all the time."

" I listened to it all. She would make shit up and tell the rest of the family all these lies. I remember one day she told her sister that I beat her, knowing damn well I did not. The next day I was getting an ass whooping and I didn't know why. Her sister must have pounded my shit that day. When she left it was a stack of cash on the counter."

I found out that Nila's motivation for her lies were just to get more money. And she thought it was funny to see me get my ass beat.

"She turned my own blood against me more and more everyday. Family events was pure hell, all that talking shit my cousins did. Even people who didn't even know Nila believed her. If I was really beating her ass like she said I was, wouldn't she just call the police or put me out? Didn't nobody realize that though." I shrugged. It felt good to get it off my chest because for years I had no one to talk to.

"You felt like you was alone?" I nodded. As a child I didn't really experience having friends or going to birthday parties. When I went to high school everyone knew I was fine. Everyone knew I was athletic. But no one really knew me. I didn't let nobody in but it was fine because no one wanted to know me anyways.

A pair of arms wrapped around my neck behind me.

"Well, you not alone now. You got me."