“Fuck you, Barry. I’m through. I’m just done.” Lisa said tiredly, as she tried to brush past Barry without crying. She almost made it but then she heard him say, “Mat fucked me just fine.” The weather changed in her soul and she erupted in tears as she burst through the door of Barry’s dorm. Betrayal was the seed of her hurt and her tears only gave it more water to grow. But before she could let the hurt manifest she had to ride in her favorite vehicle; anger. Not just anger but rage. She had trusted this man, trusted him when he said that a woman could be enough for him. She believed him despite her instincts and she fell for him…sadly the rocky bottom wasn’t that long a fall.
The fact that he could even flaunt his sexual escapade like she had done something to hurt him only made her angrier. He treated her as if she had attacked him in some way but all she did was love him. As she briskly walked past all of the students congregating outside for some type of mini-concert, the tears could only fall. Her cup was filled and it was over flowing.
Stupidity kept repeating itself in her mind. But even through the thoughts of utter stupidity she rationalized her actions. She had messed around with a girl before, she even liked it. But she knew her heart lay with men. So she didn’t discriminate against Barry just because he was bisexual. She would have felt like hypocrite.
While these thoughts ran a marathon in her mind, she unconsciously went to her best friend’s dorm instead of her own. She looked at the letters spelling out “Simpson Dorm”. She took out her cell and texted her best friend that she was outside in tears. It took about three blinks for the door to open to let her in.
“What the hell happened?” asked RayRay, also known as Raymone.
“He slept with Mathias, Ray!” All of her emotion seeped out of her with those words and she collapsed into RayRay.
“The hell? Oh, gurl. I’m so sorry.” Raymone carried her weight to the elevator, pressed the button that would take them to the fourth floor and to room 410. His roommate wasn’t on campus this weekend so they could talk indiscreetly.
“Lee, tell me what happened?” All of the sympathy he could muster was in his voice as she lay in his lap on his bed crying silently.
“He fucked Mathias! That’s what happened! How could I have been so damn dumb?” Lisa began to sit up, trying to wipe her shoulder length hair out of her face. She loved her hair, it was the color of pecans, not exactly one shade of brown but naturally multiple shades of her favorite color. But as she touched it to move it out of her face she couldn’t feel the joy she usually did.
“Mathias?! I thought that nigga was straight? Lord, I shoulda known. So he just trade, huh?” RayRay said absently, then he realized that the issue wasn’t that he was gay or straight.
“Sorry girl, you know I get distracted easily.”
Lisa only barely smiled at him and shook her head, “You always manage to make me see some type of humor in the most serious situations.”
“Hey, it’s a talent, eh? Haha. Anyway girl, tell me what happened. What that half-cocked negro do?” Lisa smiled at the phraseology. Raymone always had some colorful expression to describe bi guys. He had a bad experience when he was in high school and it left him a little less than friendly towards them.
“I saw him. I walked in on him givin’ head to Mathias. Ray, they aint look uncomfortable at all. I’m tellin’ you, it’s been going on for a while. Why did I trust him?” Lisa’s voice was getting a little broken around the edges, as if she were fighting back another episode of sobs.
“Let me tell you somethin’ boo, men aint shit. It don’t matter if they gay, straight, or asexual. Barry wouldn’t be worth a damn even if he was straight because then he woulda cheated on you with a bitch. I know it hurts you, hell, it hurts me that it hurt you. But you gotta keep your head up. You can’t let this one dude screw you up for the next guy.”
“RayRay, how do you do it? How do you see the positive even after all the shit you been through?” Lisa looked at him with obvious consideration. Almost as if seeing him for the first time.
“It’s not easy, child. All these niggas that be trippin’, passin’ up on my sexy ass because they doin’ stunts and shows and I eventually see through that mess. It hurts but I can’t let it beat me because if I do, I won’t be able to see a good man if he showed up in my dreams.” RayRay got up to get Lisa and himself something to drink.
“I have to see him again. We have a class together. And so help me, I still love his trifflin’ ass.”
“Uh..duh. You’re supposed too. Love don’t stop just because people mess up. Not real love anyway. I don’t know what to tell you, to be honest. Do what you feel is necessary to make sure YOU can go on. As far as I’m concerned, Barry’s black ass don’t need no special attention.”
The conversation seeped into Lisa as she drank her soda wondering how she was going to face Barry in class the next day. There was one thing, however, that she didn’t have to wonder. She was going to get over this even if it killed him. That wasn’t a typo. They say that hell has no fury like a woman scorned…well…it seems people forget that God has anger too. Sometimes anger is righteous, if you know how to play your cards right. And let’s just say, Lisa is a pro at playing poker face.
1 comment:
I ha some fantastic phrases interwoven throughout the piece. I loved the line "The weather changed in her soul..." great imagery executed with subtle grace. You also do a great job with dialogue between characters. The conversations with RayRay came off as organic and real.
You have a rich phraseology, but I wonder if it might have been a little too heavy in the first half. Each time a I encountered one they were like gems that accented the rest of the writing; the contrast between the colorful airy metaphors and the groundedness of the dialogue and the natural feel if the conversation was great. That contrast felt a little dilluted in the beginning cause you use alot of it at first and then it sort of drops out until the very end. I kind of wanted it more evenly distributed so it could nurture my imagination the hole way through.
That aside, I liked it. I liked the distinction you made with the fact that she was upset he cheated not that he was interested in men. It was an interesting shift in the bisexual literary vein. It's not about his orientation. It's about his infidelity. Poignant.
Look forward to seeing this continue.
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