Promise Kept (Perry Skky Jr.) (19 page)

I didn’t know how to begin so I looked away. Then she replied, “You know what? Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, the two of us being alone up under the moon, stars, and all. I can’t do this, Perry.”

Before she walked away, I grabbed her hand. “I messed up. I told you I messed up. Wait, Savoy, don’t leave!”

“Why should I stay?” she asked.

“Because you have to know how I feel.”

She chuckled. “Come on, Perry, your actions told me how you feel about me. I’m not angry with you, I told you that, but you can’t expect me to forget that it happened.”

“No, no. I know you can’t forget, but I don’t want you to dwell on it.”

“Yeah, right!” she said, stepping away from me. “There are some nights I can’t even sleep because all I can do is imagine you in Tori’s arms.”

“Okay, maybe we can’t be boyfriend-girlfriend anymore, maybe that was too strong of a title for us anyway, but can’t we just hang out—do this thing, see where it takes us?”

“Why should I reinvest time in something that I tried and didn’t work out?”

As she was talking, I didn’t hear what she was saying. All I could see was her juicy lips asking me to kiss them. So I did. At first she was resistant, pushing me back a little, but her lips never left mine. And then she melted some, didn’t give me so much turmoil, and then I knew what I felt for her she felt for me as well. We weren’t headed to the altar or anything, but in that kiss, in that moment, in that embrace, I knew we weren’t through. And when we pulled away, Savoy knew it, too.

“I guess us spending time together in the end isn’t going to hurt anybody, but I am ready to go back to the party now. Perry, I mean—we can’t do this! Kissing me and all, why are you trying to confuse me? You cheated on me, okay?”

“I was wrong and stupid, I’m sorry! Can’t you see I feel something for you?”

“Yeah, and that’s what worries me, because maybe what you’re feeling is something that could get us both into trouble, and we’ll both end up regretting our actions like you say you are regretting yours and Tori’s. I don’t know, maybe it’s not a good idea for the both of us to hang out. I gotta go back now.”

She didn’t even wait for me to catch up to her as she opened the back door of the hotel and walked through the ballroom corridor. I wanted to reach out and pull her close to me, but I had to realize that it just wasn’t the place where the two of us were anymore and it was my fault. When the elevator door opened, she had her hand on her hip and her mouth looked pissed.

I got in, then she said, “You know what? I’m just going to take the stairs. I’ll see you up there.”

“I can walk with you,” I said.

“Nah.”

She let the elevator doors shut with me inside. Alone. Or I thought I was alone. The white dude from the party earlier was behind me, squatting in the corner on the floor.

“Dang, man, that must be your girl. She looks mad, dude. What did you do?”

Even though the beer had him talking sluggishly, his relationship senses were keenly awake.

“Man, you black boys are dumb. There’s no way I’d let a girl with a butt looking that good get away from me.” He went to press the elevator buttons. “Open up the door. I want to go talk to her.”

“Awh naw, partna, mmm-mmm, you stay back,” I said as I grabbed his arm and took it away from the buttons.

“That’s where I know you…you’re that state football dude that plays all good and going to Tech and all. I’m a Bulldog, man!”

“I hear yah, partna.”

“Well, let me just say this: I always heard that black boys have a lot of pride. And that might be fine, but that’s why you’re in this here elevator with me instead of with that girl.”

When the elevator opened again, it was his floor. He said, “You better lay down your pride and think about what I’m saying and go after what you want, you understand?”

I never caught his name. He was cool and he was drunk, but he had a point. Savoy wasn’t going to make it easy for me to get back in her good graces, and maybe that made me like her more.

“A
w, Perry, please. Be for real. Of all four of us, you are the one with the least past drama. You are a goody-goody,” Lance Shadrach said, as Deuce Avery and Collin Cox, my other two college roommates, laughed along with him.

It wasn’t like the three of them were getting under my skin or anything, but I did sort of feel a need to defend myself. To most on the outside looking in, I had it going on. I had a physical body that most would kill for, and I now stood six feet four and a half inches tall. Weighing a thick, solid 225 pounds, I was strong. I could run faster than most on the team and leap almost as high as I was tall. That ability allowed me to catch balls that were uncatchable. As a freshman, without even playing a down, I had NFL scouts already calling my name. Though football had been good to me, it hadn’t always been great. A lot of pressure and troubles come with the notoriety.

So I quickly said, “Don’t y’all even try to forget, I didn’t practice for most of the summer due to a recurring injury. What, y’all think it’s easy to watch y’all get out there and do your thing?”

“Aw, come on, Perry,” Deuce said. Deuce was also African American. He was a star running back and went to high school with Lance. Out of all the freshman players, he and I were the only ones who won a place on the first string. “I had to prove myself to get on Coach Red’s list. You ain’t really have to do all that. He signed you up to be his main man in the outfield right off the bat. You know you have it easier than all of us.”

As I sat there watching the three of their mouths yap about me being some kind of privileged citizen or something, I wondered why in the world it even bothered me what they thought. I had always been a pretty confident guy, but at that moment, it was like I could see my self-esteem being zapped away with each word they spoke.

Immediately I defended myself. “Wait a minute. Have any one of y’all three chumps had a girlfriend tried to kill herself over y’all Negroes?”

“Is that politically correct, calling me a Negro?” Collin said in his proper and uptight voice.

Mr. Cox was the other white-boy suite mate. Collin was from Alabama. He’s supposed to have a great leg to kick through the uprights, but he’d been a little inconsistent during the summer practices. The coach and the rest of the team were now skeptical that he’d be able to carry us in the event our first-string kicker could not play.

Lance picked up a pillow and bopped him on the head, “Man, he just playing. We’re roommates; we’re brothers in a sense. Haven’t we got through the whole racial thing?”

“I was just asking,” Collin said, looking like a teacher had reprimanded him.

“So back to my question—have any of you had that? Don’t be looking all crazy,” I said to them as their mouths shut at the same time.

They all drew closer to me to hear the details. Thinking back on the scary incident, I couldn’t even believe the day I found Tori, my old girlfriend of three years, sitting in her car trying to OD on the toxins. If I hadn’t gotten there and opened up the car door, who knows what would have happened to her. My point, of course, wasn’t to brag that I was all that and that she had to go to such lengths because she had lost me, but the dudes were saying that I was drama-free. Certainly that incident alone would get them the heck off my back.

“Whatever, man, a little girlfriend problem ain’t nothing that major. My girl got pregnant!” Deuce said. “And though she gave up the baby for adoption, it’s not a week that goes by that I don’t think about the child I fathered.”

He had me. I remembered the pregnancy scare that happened to my homeboy Cole. Another one of my boys, Damarius, got an STD. I had to be with him through that. But it wasn’t me. Though I was deeply affected, I wasn’t even trying to plead my case like that.

“My best friend almost killed me,” Lance admitted.

“What?” I said shocked.

Deuce chimed in, “Yeah, because he tried to take his girl. Lance is not a real loyal friend. You know that firsthand, Perry, don’t you?”

I chuckled. I certainly did remember when I first got to college and Lance made moves on my new girl, Savoy. In his defense, technically she was fair game. Savoy and I weren’t going together any longer because right before we came to college, I had broken her trust by sleeping with my former girl, Tori, the one who tried to kill herself because I had left her.

Yeah, I had a lot of issues going on. I used to get myself in deeper, deeper, and deeper. Now that I was in college, I wanted to make sure I did things the right way. It was time for me to grow up and carry less baggage around. I knew it was going to be hard enough to make it at Georgia Tech.

“But, have you ever been hemmed up by police?” Deuce asked me. “Probably not, because you aren’t the average black man. Folks don’t mess with Perry Skky Jr. You’re royalty in this state.”

I had to tell him about a few months back. “Aw, see, I was in Hilton Head…”

“Well, that explains whatever bull you were about to try to feed us. You weren’t even in Georgia,” Deuce said, as if cops in our state were the meanest jokers around.

“Naw, y’all gonna listen,” I said, knowing that I was dealt with unfairly. “I see this cute girl on the beach late one night. She’s crying and all, and I’m the only one out there. I was actually trying to catch up with the other players on the team who went to this little camp. Chaplain hooked it up for us. Thought it was going to be a vacation. Shoot…I go to help her, turns out she had been raped, and then these three white dudes come along. Bash my face, all assuming I’m the one that messed with her. Next thing I know, the cops jack me up without any interrogation. Finally the girl comes to and tells them it wasn’t me. She was date raped. What’s even more a trip, the girl goes to Tech. She’s a freshman here, too.”

“Ooh, small world,” Deuce said.

“Yeah, if she was real cute, I need to meet her,” Lance teased.

Quickly I told him, “Please, you aren’t her type. I saw her last week, and she wants me.”

Lance, Deuce, and I laughed and kept messing with each other. We wanted to find out which one of us was the toughest. All three of us thought we had had it the roughest. However, when Collin spoke, he had us all beat.

Collin said, “Have any of you ever wanted to take your own life?”

All jokes were put aside at that point. We didn’t know whether he was playing or was serious. We didn’t know what in the world he was talking about. We had no idea where that comment even came from, but it certainly made us stop and be serious for a moment.

All of a sudden, Lance broke the silence and said, “Nah, I’ve never wanted to do that.”

Deuce said, “Nah, I ain’t never want to do that either.”

Something inside me made me ask, “Why, Collin? You’ve been there?”

Collin yelled, “Just forget it.” He got up from our family room area and went into his own bedroom.

When he slammed the door, instantly I prayed aloud: “Lord, my boy Collin has issues. Actually, all three of us do. You know I didn’t even want to open up. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.”

When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to hear Deuce say, “You talk to the Lord often? I need to do it more.”

“Yeah, partner, I understand,” I responded. “We need to stick to keeping each other accountable.”

Deuce and I slapped hands.

Lance cut in and said, “Enough of the mushy stuff. Let’s get ready for the big party. We’re headed to the big national championship game. I can feel it. We might as well celebrate early.”

“You really think we got a shot?” I asked him, doubting my own abilities to help lead a team to that type of victorious season.

Confidently, Lance replied, “If I get to start, then I’ll guarantee it.”

I so wanted his type of buoyancy. Looking back on all I’d been through the last year had really taken a toll on my psyche. However, that was all in the past. I couldn’t use my issues as a crutch. I was a college freshman. Time for me to walk positively and enjoy my life. I really hoped I could conquer my negative thinking.

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