* All characters in this story are of legal age. *
*FORTY ONE DAYS LATER*
"What're you doing here?"
My head was throbbing as I lay in a hospital bed overcoming a concussion. I was in bad shape after running afoul of Jay Stello for all of the thirty seconds it took for him to knock me completely out cold. Besides the class A shiner, I needed a few stitches in the back of my head where my skull collided with the sidewalk upon thunderous impact. Unfortunately after being knocked unconscious, my head drifted to the side alarming Mr. Stello who decided to kick me in the face for good measure before some of his teammates tackled him onto the grass.
"Making sure you stay out of trouble."
"Oh yeah?"
Faith was there at my hospital bedside with her laptop across her lap, typing away. She seemed to be there every other time I opened my eyes. After the first couple of times, my mother didn't seem to mind.
"I'm your advocate; tomorrow you're getting discharged and thanks to me, you have zero time catching up at school."
"Do they even want me back there?"
"Who cares, it's their own fault for creating a hostile environment through benign neglect. I've submitted a paper on the matter to an ivy league I'm scouting.
Perhaps you might wanna do the same, Jaleel."
"Have you seen Ricky?" Faith didn't answer, looking away pushing the thick, big box butterfly glasses she favored up on her button nose. After I'd been knocked out, Faith alerted the police using my discarded phone.
"Guess that's a no, huh?"
In the aftermath of my epic assault, when informed of the attempted sexual battery on her brother, Hope Arias rushed home to his bedside confessing everything. She'd mistakenly believed Kimberly Bivens figured out her identity believing herself responsible for everything. Of course she was wrong but the damage to our friendship was done.
I'm told Ricky came to the hospital but declined entry into my room. I was out due to medication at the time but informed by Faith upon my waking hour. She'd volunteered to pick up my schoolwork after gaining my mother's trust. That was no small effort on her part because my mother was old school raised in the south by severely conservative parents. Her parenting followed suite much to my detriment.
"Your mom asked me to give you something." Faith placed a small baggie in my lap; it was stapled shut piquing my curiosity.
"What is this?"
"I don't know, it was like that when she gave it to me." Her back was turned as she put away her laptop affording me the opportunity to avoid some embarrassment. I opened the baggie as quietly as possible.
"EH?!!" A packet of Magnum condoms was staring me in the face along with various mints and chocolates. There was a tiny folded up note on some pink stationary looked like it was taken from the nurse's station.
"What is it, something crazy?" Faith glanced back over her shoulder at me.
"Nah, it's just some candy and mints." I lied folding the note into my palm, covertly as she slung a satchel bag over her shoulder. I noticed some folded clothing on the hospital room bureau.
"Uhm, guess I'll wait outside while you get dressed."
"Don't leave on my account." Faith walked around the edge of my bed, casually slapping my foot as she left. I waited until she pulled the heavy door closed before unfolding the letter.
Note: THIS IS A GOOD ONE; DON'T SCREW UP!!-Mom
Matriarchal endorsement aside, I'd already figured that out. Somehow after the time I'd come home in the middle of the night after being with Charity Gilbert, my mother silently decided I had become somewhat of an adult. We never talked about that night, but she was a little less abrasive than usual following the deed. A day or so later, I was hospitalized, so until this moment it was just an assumption.
"Hey?" Twenty minutes later I was sitting beside Faith in her Toyota Yaris tooling along the freeway presumably to my home. I was plagued by a prevailing thought as Faith drove in silence.
"What is it, Jaleel?"
"Do you mind driving me by Ricky's place?"
"I don't think that would be a good idea; he's probably still angry at you for sleeping with his sister." Faith's mildly monotone delivery lent itself to her new position in my life as devil's advocate.
"You make it sound like I initiated it; Hope uh, said it would help me get over-some stuff with an ex." The explanation wilted in my mouth, drying up in inflection.
"Do you know how that sounds? You had SEX with your BEST FRIEND'S older sister; imagine how your friend feels for a second and admit you just want to make yourself feel better. Besides, you're still getting over a concussion, Jaleel."
"I feel like shit."
"You're getting over a concussion."
"You know what I mean."
"I'm of the belief things work out how they're supposed to. It's all about maintaining balance and control of one's self, Jaleel. For me, it's standard operating procedure and how I keep focus. I know what I want out of life, don't you?" I scoffed at familiar words.
"Sometimes, you sound just like Charity." Faith suddenly skidded to a halt at an intersection. I was wearing a seatbelt which helped keep me in my seat, but I had to press my palms against the dashboard.
"I am nothing like Charity Gilbert; don't you ever say that to me again Jaleel." There was a dead tone in her voice that carried a metric ton of weight.
"Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it Faith; I'm really sorry for that, okay?" Her knuckles were tightened on her steering wheel as another car pulled up behind us, honking.
Faith pulled over to the curb worrying me that she would toss me outside. There was a housing project adjacent to the car separated by a rough unfinished parking area of un-sectioned off blackened asphalt. In our short association, I'd never seen Faith angry or even mildly irritated. This was something different, a bit jarring.
"I shouldn't be angry that you find it trivial comparing me to the same irredeemable narcissist who is responsible for you occupying a hospital bed for the last forty one days? Is that what you're trying to tell me, Jaleel?"
"I'll do anything to make it up to you." I was crestfallen at her explanation. Faith wasn't wrong about anything, but her reaction left me shook.
"If I accept that, I'd be no better than Charity Gilbert; but if you're open, I'd like us to do something together." Her tone softened.
"Sure."
"Alright, but first we have to do something about that shirt; it's ugly." I was wearing this white collared, short sleeve Polo knockoff with the colors of the rainbow across the chest. My mother was completely tone deaf fashion wise.
"It matches your pants."
I poked fun at the yellow and black checked pants covering her legs that stopped short just above her ankles. Faith was wearing a Boho peasant styled blouse that was a mess of irregular colors and patterns. She seemed to have this weird off kilter style of dressing that made it hard to place where she belonged in our high school social circles. Looking at her now, made it clear this was intentional.
"The UNIF clothing line is very profitable; you don't like it?"
"Did you get that retarded looking blouse from there, too?" I countered wryly.
"Maybe I should hit a U-turn and take you back to the hospital; they probably let you go too early. Concussion is acting up." Despite her words, Faith pulled out into the lane tooling towards the nearby downtown area.
"Who writes your material?" She smiled genuinely flashing her pearly whites for a minute.
Facially speaking, Faith had pretty symmetrical features; green eyes, ethnic button nose and noticeably full lips. Her skin tone was called red bone in our community, Faith being smack dab in the middle of that scale with a smattering of light freckles spread evenly across the upper portion of her face. Faith was also blessed or cursed however she looked at it, with an additional beauty mark on the left side of her face. Her eyes were always covered by these big, nerdy butterfly glasses.
"Hey, do you think about them?"
She asked out of the blue as we entered this area near downtown known as a merchant ghetto and food hub. It was a part of the long history of our city reborn in the construction of a fire that devastated it in the early nineteenth century.
"Think about who?"
"Kimberly Bivens, and Charity Gilbert specifically; do you think about them often?"
"Nope, maybe Jay Stello gave me partial amnesia when he caved in my face. The only reason I bought up Charity was because she gave me this line of bullshit about how she was had it together and everything. But really, the only reason they were living high on the hog was because of sacrifices made by her dad. They dumped him for that; real class act, huh?"
