Cutieboomd: u been checking me out?
Sexy#8: lol a lil bit.
Cutieboomd: tell u what, if ur serious I'll post a pic l8r Sexy#8: what's serious?
Cutieboomd: jus wondering how bad u want 2 see me Sexy#8: jus makin sure u aint a dude
If I were, that would be good enough for you,
Mina thought, typing back angrily.
Cutieboomd: def'ntly not a dude. U'll see if u play rt Sexy#8: dam u got game girl. its over 100 girls in the chat rm who would send me their 1st born if I asked and u teasing. thas cool. i don't mind the chase.
Cutieboomd: all dogs like 2 chase tail
Sexy#8: ouch! its true ... but it still hurt
Cutieboomd: lol j/k
Sexy#8: naw its aight. so how old r u?
Cutieboomd: 17. I'm a sr. at Suitland High School. so y did u msg me? U got chix in there rdy 2 fight
Sexy#8: lol its crazy in there. im still in there chilln but most of da chix in there not bein real
Cutieboomd: r u being real?
Sexy#8: always
Mina's eyes rolled. She wanted to kill him.
Cutieboomd: so r u really single? heard u had a gf
Sexy#8: how u hear that?
Cutieboomd: cant tell u all that. but wht kind of groupie wld I b if I didn't kno all the details of my fave player?
Sexy#8: righ' righ' well I had a gf but its 2 hard 2 do that ldr thing. kno what I mean?
Mina snorted. She sure did.
Cutieboomd: yeah
Sexy#8: u have a bf?
Cutieboomd: does it matter? if i didâi wouldn't da nite u dipped by
Sexy#8: umph thas what im talkin bout. so u gon post that pic or what?
Mina scrolled to the top and read the chat from the beginning, dissecting every word, turning them over, inspecting them for interpretation, wishing there was a way for Brian to be innocent. When she confirmed the verdict for herself she responded.
Â
Cutieboomd: yup. putting 'em up now.
Â
She posted several pictures of herself and one of her and Brian together that only she had, so he'd know without a doubt it was her and not someone playing a prank, then logged off.
“You played yourself.”
“Lately, I get the feeling we're not the same.”
â16 Frames, “Everything Around Me”
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M
ina cut her computer off and took her time undressing.
She dropped the clothes on the bottom of her closet, turned her light off, and got into bed. The darkness nestled her in its bosom and she let the tears flow, soft and hot onto her pillow. Brian's betrayal hurt, but the reality of what she felt hurt more.
She was empty.
She'd wanted so badly to believe that she was the nutcase worrying needlessly about Brian cheating that discovering the truth only left her exhausted.
Her phone buzzed angrily beside her, as she expected it would. She let it buzz three more times, then hit Send calmly.
“What the fuck? So you set me up?” Brian's angry voice said.
“Yeah, that's it, Brian,” she said quietly. “I set you up. I made you message me privately. And I forced you to ask me for a picture. Then I put a gun to your head so you'd say you broke up with me because it's too hard to do that ldr thing, know what I mean?”
Her bluntness threw him off. His breathing came hard and heavy over the line. Mina remained lying down, the phone sitting on her top ear. She pressed it closer so she could hear better when he talked.
“Why'd you do that, Toughie?”
Mina's tears flowed harder at the regret in his voice.
“Why'd
you
do it?” she asked with equal remorse.
His silence stretched forever. She waited, wondering if Brian would practice what he preached when it came to honesty and being real and wasn't surprised when he did.
“I don't know. I know I messed up.”
Her voice hitched. “You were gonna ... h-h-hook up with this girl? Some random girl you met online?”
“I was just ... messing around. Seriously.”
“Brian, stop. If I had given you my phone number or arranged a time for you to drop by once you got home, you would have totally acted on it.” Her voice rose angrily. “Don't lie anymore.”
“I can't believe you did this shit,” he said, astounded. “All I asked was for you to let things run its course, Mina.” His voice squeaked in his anger “Why'd you do this?”
“Why are you blaming me?” she said, crying harder, unsure whether to be angry or apologetic.
“Because we had a good thing going,” he spat. “I'm three hundred miles away. You can't keep me in check from there and I can't check you.When I got home for the summer it was gon' be cool, we were gonna be together. But you couldn't let shit be. Damn.”
He continued to curse and mutter under his breath. Mina nearly apologized until she remembered him glibly agreeing he was like a dog chasing tail.
“It's not my fault.” She sat up, lighting into him as loud as she dared. “And you know what? It was only a good thing for you. I've been a basket case since you left for school. Half the time I can't eat or sleep wondering what you're doing. I wanted to believe we could do this, Brian, but I couldn't ... I can't.”
“Then why didn't you break up with me?”
“Why didn't you break up with me?” she spat. “You're the one chasing slutty groupies.”
“Because I thought we could each do our own thing and still be cool when I was home.”
“What is our own
thing
, Brian?” Her voice bounced off the dark, quiet walls and she lowered it to a fierce whisper. “We never agreed to see other people.”
“Not officially, but you knew I wasn't going to be down here twiddling my thumbs in my dorm room every night.”
The words stung Mina. “So then you've been cheating the entire time?”
He sucked his teeth. “No.”
“Yeah, excuse me if I don't believe that,” she snorted.
“Believe what you want,” he snapped.
“So you haven't gone out with anyone in Durham?” she asked, hating herself for caring.
“Gone out? Grabbed a bite to eat or went to a party with somebody. . . yeah. But I haven't sexed nobody.”
Mina's arms folded across her chest. “And how come you never told me about any of this?”
“Because it wasn't a big deal.” His voice was incredulous. “So you've been sitting home every weekend doing
nothing
?”
“I've been busy, Brian, and when I go out it's with the clique.”
“Well, I don't really have a clique anymore. I'm just chilling, meeting new people and enjoying school.”
“Well, when you come home you can enjoy Cutieboomd,” she huffed, adding snidely, “Oh that's right. She's not
real
. You're burnt.”
“Man, you're so ...”
“So what?” Mina said, challenging.
“Obsessed. You never let shit go, Mina. All you had to do was trust me andâ”
“Trust you?” She snorted. “I did trust you and look what happened.”
“No, you didn't trust me and that's why this happened.”
Mina took the phone from her ear and looked at, as if she'd heard wrong. Brian was still talking when she put it back up to her ear.
“You played yourself,” he said.
Her body shook with fury, then trembled with cold doubt. She rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms. She had brought this on herself, but it must have been meant to happen, whether she liked the end result or not.
She took three deep breaths, then closed her eyes.
No, this wasn't happening. When she opened her eyes she'd be back at Jill Ling's party or at JZ's New Year's Eve Party, the last time she and Brian had been happy ... anywhere but here. She pinched her eyes closed, willing this to be a dream, scared to open them to reality. But his voice reached into her haven.
“I'm sorry, Toughie. I honestly thought we had an understanding that what happened while we were apart stayed in the past.”
Tears leaked from Mina's closed eyes. She let Brian talk, unable to speak.
“Mina, I know I messed up. But I wouldn't hurt you on purpose.” He paused, waiting for her to respond, but she refused.
His voice, gentle and pleading, coaxed her. “I don't want to lose you.”
Mina sniffed and it seemed to give him hope.
“Can we work it out?”
Her eyes fluttered open. She spoke low and tentative. “Remember you said I was obsessed?”
He rushed to explain, “I didn't meanâ”
“No.You're right,” Mina said. “But that's just me, Brian. I get ... so into something and it's like, I just want to throw myself into it all the way. I don't know how not to do that.” She took a deep breath, letting the words find their way out. “I wanted so bad not to care what you did at school. And when I saw you at Christmas time, I almost didn't. But then I would care and when I did, I needed to hear that you still loved me. I waited for any tiny sign or signal that you still loved meâ”
“I do,” Brian said.
“But it's not enough.” Mina sighed. “I keep needing more and more proof and it's driving me crazy.” Her voice hitched and she waited until the feeling to bawl passed. “I'm letting shit go this time.”
“So you're breaking up with me?” Brian said, strangely calm. His voice grew angry when she didn't answer. “Mina, are you breaking up with me?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
In her head she screamed,
No, I didn't mean it,
as Brian coolly played the whole thing off.
“All right, cool,” he said. “See you around then.”
He seemed unable to stand her silence.
“What? You speechless now?” He snorted. “You had plenty to say online. Where's all that mouth from earlier, Cutieboomd?” He waited for her to respond and the silence hung between them until he sighed loud and exaggerated. “Bye, Mina.”
The line went dead.
Mina fell back on the bed, smashed the pillow on her face, and cried herself to sleep.
Epilogue: Beginnings and Endings
“Where do we go? I don't even know.”
âKeane, “Bad Dream”
Â
A
ll due respect to her parents' advice, time wasn't healing Mina or the wounds of the clique fast enough. Every day, Mina awoke praying that some or all of Bloody February, as she'd come to think of it, had been a dream, and every day she had to face the grim truth that it was real.
The day after she broke up with Brian, he called her every half hour begging her not to end it. Too weak to resist his calls, she spent the entire day in her bedroom arguing with him, torn, wanting to forgive him but knowing her insecurity would be worse than before if she did. His pain ripped through her. She'd never seen him lose control and wasn't used to being the “strong” one in the relationship. Hearing him cry and plead weakened her defenses, but the words of the chat were seared in her brain. She could literally quote from it. In the end, those words and what they represented were stronger than Brian's pleas, eventually pulling her through the emotional torrent of his calls until they stopped.
The fight left her too weak to doctor the wounds of JZ and Michael's friendship. But true to JZ's words, their busy lives made it hardâthough not impossibleâto tell the clique was fractured.
Three weeks after “the implosion,” she sat in Jacinta's family room, on the floor, browsing a magazine.
“Ooh, turn that up,” she said, nodding her head to T.I.'s latest jam.
Jacinta made a big deal of moving two inches to turn up the music. “How long am I supposed to be at your beck and call while you're in mourning, Princess?”
“At least another three weeks,” Mina said, smiling through the pain in her chest. She wasn't quite ready to joke about it but appreciated Jacinta's ability to be normal under any circumstance.
They both looked up, startled, at a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Jacinta said, as she got up from the love seat.
“FedEx, ma'am.”
Jacinta frowned, then snorted when she opened the door to JZ's grinning face.
“Hey,” JZ said. “Is it cool for me to pop in? I been looking for y'all.”
“Yeah,” Jacinta said, leaving the door open as she walked away.
JZ walked in. He put his foot on Mina's back and rubbed gently. “What's up, Mouthy Mi?”
“Nothing,” she said, pretending to be into the magazine.
Although JZ continued to give her and Jacinta a ride to school every morningâMina riding shotgunâthis was the first time JZ and Jacinta had said more than “hey” and “good morning” to one another since “the implosion.”
“Can I holler at you for a minute, Cinny?” JZ said.
Jacinta shrugged.
Mina kicked JZ's leg with her heel and he removed it so she could sit up.
“I'll give y'all some privacy,” Mina said. She grabbed her magazine and went into the kitchen, just off the family room, where “privacy” consisted of her simply not being in the middle of the conversation. She could still see and hear everything.
JZ sat on the edge of a fat overstuffed chair next to the love seat. He cleared his throat and rested his elbows on his thighs. He stared down at the floor, seeming to get himself together, then looked up at Jacinta suddenly.
“You're one of the coolest chicks I ever met, Cinny.”
Jacinta's eyebrows hitched.
“It was mad swazy hanging out with you at my crib.” His hand shot up to his head, then slid down. He looked down at the floor again. Mina saw his broad shoulders heave once before he looked up at Jacinta again. “Nobody was more surprised than me when I started digging you ... more than a friend. I should have just come correct with my feelings from the start but ...” He looked off at the wall behind Jacinta, shaking his head. “That's not really me, you know?”
Jacinta nodded. The cool indifference in her eyes softened to warm understanding.
“But that didn't give me no right to go all date rapist on you.” He chuckled nervously, wiped his hands on his jeans, and sat back in the chair. “I'm saying, I'm man enough to apologize ... even if I'm hella late with it. But I'm sorry I came at you like that. I hope we can be cool again.”
A tiny smile played at the corner of Jacinta's mouth. “Dang, so I had to ice you for three weeks just to get an âI'm sorry'?” she said.
JZ's hand went back to his head for a new round of hand brushing as he admitted sheepishly, “I'm just not good at this apologizing shit.”
“You can start by not calling it shit,” Mina hollered from the kitchen, unable to resist.
JZ and Jacinta laughed.
“Gee, thanks for the privacy, Mina,” he said over his shoulder.
Jacinta beckoned Mina back into the family room and she came over eagerly, relieved for them ... for the clique, what was left of it.
Â
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Pleased to have one brick of her friends' foundation back in place, she threw herself into cheer Nationals, state basketball championships, work at Seventh Heaven's, and homework with a fervor she'd forgotten she had. She watched Duke play in the NCAA tournament, alone (at the protests of Lizzie, Kelly, and Cinny), crying through every game until they were knocked out in the final four.
The end of college basketball season brought closure, and shades of the old Mina made an appearance, two weeks after Kansas was crowned the NCAA national champion.
She sat at her desk, laughing her head off at Vic's IM.
BubbliMi: ROFLMAO
Udontseeme: im like dam tht shiggity burned into my brain! ugh!
BubbliMi: u wrong 4 dat
Udontseeme: naw she wrong 4 tryna rock a bikini. wrong like a mug. lol
Mina looked down as a text message from Jacinta popped on her phone: can u come down jzs pls? now!
Mina's heart fluttered. She texted back: OK
What now?
She almost didn't want to know. JZ and Jacinta had been cool since he'd apologized late February, and Mina was finally starting to deal with life's new “normal.”
What now?
BubbliMi: gtg see u at work 2morrow Udontseeme: aight c u V
She smiled at Vic's version of the peace sign and sent it back.
Â
BubbliMi: V
She logged off, not sure whether to race down to JZ's or take her time. She slipped on a pair of blue and gold spirit flip-flops, hollered her destination to her parents, grabbed the keys, and headed out. Seeing Lizzie's car in JZ's driveway sent her heart and feet racing. She shifted from right to left as she waited for someone to answer the buzzing of the doorbell.
Mrs. Zimms's smile was warm. “Hey, Mina. Wow, everyone's here ... haven't seen all of you guys in a while.” She hugged Mina. “They're downstairs. Must be a super-secret meeting of the clan.”
Mina's smile was plastic as she walked away as fast as she could without being impolite.
Everyone was there? Even Michael?
She scampered down the stairs, not sure what she'd see when she turned the corner, expecting the worse but praying for the best.
They all looked up when Mina burst through the doorway, chest heaving, head whipping left to right as she scanned the room, sweeping it, wanting to see Michael standing there, his dark chocolate face scowling, fussing her out for being the last one to arrive. Disappointment kicked her in the chest.
JZ sat on the edge of the pool table, his shoulders hunched, his gaze on the floor. Jacinta and Kelly stood to his left, Lizzie to his right, faces somber, but no Michael. She battled tears as she joined them at the pool table.
“What's wrong?” Her eyes skated from one friend to another, then took another sweep of the room, still expecting Michael to pop out of the bathroom or out of the storeroom with the juice bar supplies.
Jacinta plucked a large white index card out of JZ's hand and gave it to Mina.
Mina frowned at it. “What is ...” She skimmed the card, frown deepening. Unwilling to break the eerie quiet, she read it aloud in a low voice, breaking when she realized it was from Michael.
Jay,
I know you care what people think and that's why you're tripping right now. Maybe one day you won't. Maybe one day you'll realize that our friendship was one of the most important things in the world to me and it ain't have nothing to do with me secretly digging you. 'Cause that's what you think ... I know it is. Maybe one day you won't.
You ain't even my type, punk. LOL
A tear dropped on the letter and Mina swiped at her face to avoid ruining the card. She swallowed the tears in her voice and kept on.
But I can't wait.That's the thing. I can't wait on you to get right about this. This is me, son. I was going to wait until senior year, then get ghost. Figured we'd just slowly lose touch and then do that 20-year reunion thing, where we catch up on things in our life. By then some things wouldn't matter no more. But I couldn't wait. I couldn't do 365 more where I was scared it might come up. But you still my dude, son. So I made this for you.
Mina looked up scowling. “Made what?” she asked.
Jacinta's head nodded to a suit hanging on the door of the supply room.
Mina walked over to the charcoal gray, pinstripe suit. She touched it lightly, caressing the fabric of the bold striping on the black vest. It was so JZ it made her heart ache. Unable to take her eyes off it, she stared at the suit until she realized she hadn't finished the letter.
How fly you gonna be on stage, shaking the NBA commissioner's hand in this? You know the answer, punkâfly as hell!
Do your thing, player. Umma do me.
Deuces,
Mike
Mina gazed at the suit again. She stepped toward it and caught the scent of Michael's bedroom, vanilla apple candle mixed with the Sean Jean cologne he always wore. Her resolve broke and she cried like a baby. She jumped, startled, when JZ came up behind her. His arms wrapped around her, filling the ache in her heart, a little but not enough.
“I'm sorry,” JZ said in her ear. “I'm sorry I messed things up.”
Mina cried harder, because in JZ's apology she knew what he hadn't said. That he knew Michael was right. JZ wasn't ready to accept Michael and Michael had moved on, no longer waiting for it. The bromance was over and there wasn't anything she could do about it.