If I Were Your Boyfriend (16 page)

  I grumbled. I did not want to be lab partners with William Baker, whose body funk was strong enough to wake the dead at a morgue. I swore that boy had no idea of what soap and water is.

  "Oh, and you need to see me after class to discuss how you plan to make up the assignments you missed."

  I grumbled once again as I caught Liz glaring at me. She placed a silly smirk on her face. It was as if she was laughing at me, and I didn't like it. The more I looked at her, the more I wanted to strangle her.

  I didn't get a chance to confront Liz right away because all of my teachers kept me after class to talk about all the assignments I had to make up. I knew I'd get my chance to talk to Liz during lunch, so I wasn't too upset. As I was making my way to the cafeteria, Mr. Sanders spotted me in the hallway and asked me to step inside his office for a moment. Once again, I rolled my eyes and huffed out of frustration. I spent twenty minutes of my lunch hour talking to Mr. Sanders about my failing grades and how, if I didn't get my act together, I'd end up in summer school or repeating my junior year.

  "Keysha, I just got your grades from your teachers. Right now you have four Ds, one weak
C
and one
F.
You've got to pull these grades up. If you don't earn your credits you will be in summer school."

  "I know, okay? I'm going to do better."

  "A lot of kids tell me that just because they think it's what I want to hear." Mr. Sanders paused and then showed me an envelope that had been opened.

  "Do you have any idea of what's in this envelope?" he asked.

  "No," I answered.

  "It's a request from the court for a transcript of your grades. It appears as if the judge who has been assigned your case wants to know what kind of student you are."

  My heart began racing once again.

  "I'm a much better student than what those grades are showing," I argued. The last thing I wanted was for the judge to think I was completely lame.

  "Documentation beats conversation, Keysha. The proof is on paper, not in your words," said Mr. Sanders.

  Even though he was only telling the truth, I still

wanted to scream at him because I hated his smug attitude toward me.

  "I'll be forwarding a copy of your grades to the judge and your parents, as well. It's kind of like my little insurance policy that you'll change your ways."

  "Fine, I don't care." I looked him directly in the eye. "Can I go to lunch now?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said, and I got up and rushed out of his junky office.

  I didn't have enough time to get any lunch, so I walked directly over to the lunch table where Liz and the crew were hanging out. I rushed up to the table and slammed the books I was carrying down on the table in front of Liz.

  "Why did you do it, Liz?" I was angry and restraining myself from calling her every word in the book.

  "Do what? I didn't do anything to you." She treated me as if I were delusional.

  "Liz, you're the one who set me up! You're the one who planted that crap in my locker!"

  "Sweetie, you need to bring your voice down a notch or two." Liz was mocking with her fingers.

  "I know you're not trying to tell me to be quiet! Girl, I will beat you down up in this cafeteria and this school if I don't get an answer!" When I made that statement, everyone at the table began to give us space.

  "Hold up, ya'll," Liz said with a smirk on her face. "I want everyone to know that Keysha has flipped completely out. It sounds as if that Ecstasy you're hooked on has killed one too many brain cells because you're talking like a psychopath."

  "I want answers from you, Liz, and I want them right now, or else!"

"Or else what?" Liz was defiant.

  "Yeah, or else what?" said Courtney and Brittany, who were sitting next to Liz.

  "If you fight Liz, you'll have to fight all of us," said Courtney.

  "You see, Keysha, I have friends and you don't. I have people who will vouch for my character and you don't. I have a lot of things that you don't. I'm smarter than you, I'm prettier than you and everyone knows that my style is much better than yours."

  I was so angry I felt as if I were about to explode with rage. Then it happened, something in my mind clicked and I heard a voice tell me to beat her down. I swung at Liz but she moved out of range and immediately sprang to her feet.

  "Come on! I'm not afraid of you," Liz said as she removed her earrings. Everyone sitting at the table suddenly jumped to their feet.

  "Fight!" someone cried out. Just as I was about to leap up on the lunch table and punch Liz and her goons in the face, my brother, Mike, appeared out of nowhere.

  "Keysha, come on," he said as he hooked his hands on my shoulders and held me back.

  "No, she has it coming, Mike! Let me go!" I shouted out and wrestled to free myself from his clutch.

  "What's wrong? Your brother has to come to your aid and fight your battles for you?" Liz continued to antagonize me. In that moment whatever thread of a friendship we had ended. Liz had just become my fern enemy.

  "Let me go, Mike!" I tried to jerk away from him, but he was much stronger than I was. He grabbed my arm with one hand and picked up my books with the other and pulled me out of the cafeteria. His clutch was so tight I felt his fingernails tunneling into my skin.

  "Why did you stop me, Mike? I was about to kick her—"

  "You can't afford to get suspended again, Keysha! Think about what you're doing."

  "Let me go!" I snarled at him like a wild monster.

  "Keysha, calm down before a hall monitor comes and nails both of us," Mike snapped at me.

  "Okay, just let me go," I said. Mike wasn't sure if he should.

  "Please, just let me go," I pleaded, and finally Mike released his grip.

  Mike and I argued during our walk home from school. He was talking to me as if I had no business starting trouble with Liz.

  "You've got to calm down, Keysha. You just can't go around getting into fights."

  "Why not?" I barked. "She had it coming, Mike. She's the source of all the drama that's going on in my life."

  "I know but you've got to think about the consequences of your actions."

  "I wasn't thinking about consequences. All I wanted to do was to beat the truth out of her. I mean, who does she think she is? When I came to this whacked-out school, I didn't know anyone and she was the first person who acted as if she wanted me as a friend. Then she turns around and stabs me in the back?" I growled. "I want to know why she's doing this to me. I want to know why she's treating me like I'm some psycho who doesn't know up from down."

  "Look, I'm not saying that she didn't have it coming. What I am saying is that you can't get involved in a fight. You have two strikes against you already. You have a court case and you've been suspended. One more mishap and who knows what will happen? If a hall monitor had come you'd have gotten suspended again, then what?"

  "At least I would've felt better knowing that I'd gotten suspended for seeking the truth."

  "Ahhh, why can't you see what I'm saying, Keysha?" I was frustrating Mike because I refused to agree with him.

  "No, Mike. Why can't you see what
I'm
saying? If I go down for this, they're going to ship me off to a juvenile detention center and I can't deal with that, okay? You have no idea of what it's like to be in a place like that."

  "They're not going to ship you off to a juvenile detention center." Mike didn't believe me.

  "You want me to leave, don't you?" I snapped out on Mike. "You never did want me in the house. You and Barbara really want Jordan all to yourselves. Come on, Mike, say it?" I punched him on the arm. "Come on! Say it." I hollered at the top of my lungs. "Say it, you jerk!" I felt tears of anger swelling up inside. I didn't want Mike to see me cry but I couldn't help it.

  "Say it! I know that's what you're thinking!"

  "Keysha." He tried to calm me down but his words didn't offer me any comfort.

  "You hate that I know you?" When Jordan discovered that I was his daughter a few months ago, Mike gave me such a hard time. He was suspicious that I was trying to take advantage of their family, and probably felt I was a no-good hood chick.

  "Keysha—"

  "Whatever, Mike!" I said as I ran ahead of him so that I could completely let my tears go.

  When I reached the house, Jordan was home. I gave him an ugly glare before rushing in the house and up to my room. I slammed my bedroom door so hard that several items on my desk fell over. Picking up one of my pillows, I began slamming it against the walls of my room. I'd lost it. I didn't understand why everything had to be so complicated. In the middle of my display of rage, Jordan walked into my room without even knocking on the door and that ticked me off.

  "What do you want?" My words were poisonous.

  "First of all, you need to put yourself in check when you're speaking to me."

  "What for? You really don't want me here and I know it. You want me to go away. You want me to disappear. I can feel it. You never wanted me in this house. You never wanted me to be around you or Mike. You only took me in because you felt sorry for me. I know it's true so you might as well say it so that I can move on with my life."

  Jordan closed my bedroom door and leaned his back against it. He folded his arms across his chest and just looked at me.

  "I'm going to say this one more time, young lady, and if I don't get the results that I want, you're going to see just how ugly I can get. Lower your voice and sit down on the bed."

  I didn't like being told what to do one bit and I was about to let Jordan have it. But something deep inside me told me not to make things worse for myself. Forcing myself to sit down on my bed, I focused on a spot on my wall. I didn't want to look at Jordan and right now I certainly wasn't in the mood for one of his speeches.

  "Tell me what's going on with you," he asked, but I remained silent.

  "Answer me, Keysha." Jordan raised his voice at me, which made feel worse. The sound of his displeasure with me hit my heart like a flaming arrow and I began to cry.

"Nothing," I lied.

  "No, something is going on and I want to know about it." His voice became calmer.

  As I continued to look at the wall, my tears continued to overflow. I hated the fact that I'd lost command over my emotions.

  "Mike probably already told you what happened." I sounded as if I had several frogs lodged in my throat.

  "I want to hear your version of what happened," Jordan said.

  "It was nothing." I paused.

  "Keysha, tell me. We can talk about this. You know that I care."

  "No one has ever really cared about me. No one has ever really cared about what I did or didn't do. So why do you care?" I asked.

  "Because that's what dads do. We care about our children."

  I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. "I almost got into a fight today," I answered.

  "A fight! Mike didn't tell me anything about a fight."

  I was surprised that Mike hadn't. I automatically assumed that he would.

  "Mike arrived in the nick of time and stopped me," I said. "Please don't raise your voice at me. It upsets me when you do that."

  "Who were you fighting?" Jordan wanted to know.

  "I don't want to tell you because then you'll get mad at me," I answered. Jordan was silent for a moment.

  "That girl. What's her name?" He began snapping his fingers, trying to recall her name.

  "Liz." I told him the name that had eluded his memory. "She's the girl responsible for all of this mess. I went to talk to her today but she treated me as if I was a complete outsider. She made me feel dumb and worthless, so I was about to make her eat her words."

  "Keysha, look at me."

  I slowly blinked away more tears from my eyes and then craned my neck toward Jordan.

  "Under no circumstances are you to be up at the school fighting."

  "She had it coming, Jordan."

  "I don't care whether she had it coming or not. Fighting is not an option, especially with your court case pending."

  "She's the very reason why I have the case, Jordan."

  "That may be. However, we're going to let Asia, the attorney, deal with this."

  "Asia doesn't know Liz like I do. Liz is a two-faced—"

  "Keysha," Jordan interrupted, "fighting is bad for several reasons. You could seriously hurt someone or they could seriously hurt you, or even worse, if things get too far out of hand, someone could lose their life. I'm not saying don't defend yourself if you're being assaulted. What I am saying is that I don't want you initiating any physical confrontations with this Liz girl."

  I placed my face in my hands.

  "She's ruining my life and she doesn't even care," I said. "I can't let her get away with that."

  "And she's not. We're going to prove our case in court," Jordan assured me.

  "How, when everything points to me? How are we going to do that without any evidence? We need evidence or a confession or something. All I was trying to do was to save time, money and a big effort. If I get locked up at some juvenile detention center, you're not coming back for me and I know it." I stood up and began pacing the floor. I was trying to think of ways I could torture a confession out of Liz. I was thinking about my grandmother Rubylee and what she'd do in a situation like this. She knew how to make Liz talk like a bird singing in a tree.

  "Keysha, I'm not going to leave you," Jordan said.

  "Yeah, you say that now. But I know the minute I get locked up, you're going to disappear."