When I arrive home, I shower and crawl into bed with a heavy heart and exhausted limbs. I know I should check in with Bernard, but I’m too tired, too preoccupied with images of Stenton in my head. Too troubled about the thoughts of what could have been when I realize I just spent an eventful evening with what, for years, I so desperately wanted to be my family.
Minutes into this internal battle I’ve engaged in while I beg for sleep to come, I feel my ducts fill with tears. I knew they’d arrived before they poured because dealing with Stenton for the past seven years acquainted me with the act of crying, something I don’t recall doing much of before him. My chest heaves from the heaviness my heart bears and my lungs fill with the pain of what I’ve become. Then the tears. This is exactly why I didn’t want to extend the evening with Jordan’s dad in the first place.
And so here it is, another night of haunted memories, trying to figure out where I went wrong years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then
June 2006 ~Zoey~
“Girl, aren’t you pumped? Yeeeeeeeah, baby!” Angela shouted with one hand on the steering wheel and the other, holding a cup of WaWa coffee.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah.” I yawned. “Just ecstatic. Wooohooo,” I pushed out wryly.
“Zo, you have no idea what you’re in for! And I’ll never forget my favorite cousin, who took the journey with me to get my husband! We’re going to have so much fun these six weeks! I can feel it!” Angela was so beside herself with glee, she literally exclaimed each sentence.
“How long before we’re there?” I asked, yawning again. It was around 5:30 a.m. and I was completely exhausted.
“Not long at all,” she answered as we rode in her 2000 Ford Taurus.
She had come to pick me up since Princeton is en route to Moorestown, NJ where we were spending the greater part of our summer.
“Girl, you are going to thank me as soon as you see those tall, rich and fine basketball players! I heard at least six 76’ers are going to be there and possibly two from the Knicks. Zo, we got the best assignment!” Teasingly, she nudged me in the arm as she laughed.
Angela and I had been tight since I moved to New Jersey from South Carolina in seventh grade. We had known each other prior to my move, but when I arrived we became best friends. There were no secrets between us. We shared everything and every detail of our lives.
Angela stole glances in the rearview mirror, assessing her makeup. She was beyond excited about this excursion. Her almond skin came from her mother, though her beautifully carved facial features were all from her dad. Angela and I were fairly the same average 5’5” height. Even with the whopping fifteen pounds she’d put on her last few months of college, she still had a killer body, only now, her figure seemed more mature. And believe me when I tell you she knew how to work her weight, no matter how much or little.
My complexion was less than a shade darker than hers. Some referred to me as light skinned and others brown. I was thin, never being more than a size five, if I was lucky. I’d wished for that surprise fifteen pounds myself, but wasn’t so lucky. Most of my weight came from my wild hair. Angela’s hair was far more manageable than my own. She was lucky there.