“You didn’t lose me,” said Brielle. “You blew me off.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. Let me finish this, okay?”
She nodded.
“Then one day, well yesterday, I realized I was shutting you out like I did to her because I didn’t want to deal with the complications; and I said, "No way!"
“What?” she asked.
“One day I’m going to have kids. And I want to love my baby’s mother. That is not going to happen if I lay down with just anybody. Sasha and her family are totally whacked.”
“Yeah, they’ve got issues,” said Brielle, although she had no idea if they did or not.
“I want my kids to have hope for a better future. I don’t have much hope for Ricky, as much as I still love that kid. His mother, she doesn’t have too many maternal instincts and her home life is awful. When you don't have hope, you do some stupid things with your life. I don’t want my future baby’s mother to be just another sexier. I just want to be the best father I can be for my children. Like my dad or Mr. Tally. And I decided that I want you to be the mother of my children.”
“Whoa. I’m only sixteen,” Brielle protested. “You’re only seventeen. And you didn’t even ask me how I felt about being your future baby mama.”
“I know that,” he said, reaching over to yank on her braid. She flinched away and he dropped his hand. His eyes darkened with misery but he was determined to finish his speech. “I don’t mean right now. Maybe in ten years.”
“You decided, huh?” she asked in a neutral tone of voice. “How you going to make decisions for my life?”
“Well, you’d have to agree to it, of course,” said Damon, in exasperation.
“Yeah, like I’ve had a lot of say in how this relationship went on” said Brielle, in derision. She looked so bitter for a moment that Damon plunged into the depths of depression. He felt like he was drowning, but he had to keep trying to make her understand. He couldn’t give up.
“I’m so sorry about that,” said Damon, fighting for his life. “But that was then, this is now.”
“What does that mean?” asked Brielle.
“Whatever you say it does,” he said, simply. The knot in her chest loosened a little more, but she said nothing. Hope destroyed was too hard.
“I’d like to start over,” he said. “Like all of this never happened.”
“It did happen,” said Brielle, folding her arms across her chest. She turned away and stared into her locker, as though there were some answers in that dark cavern. “And you really hurt me. But I learned that I’m okay without you.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. How many times should I say it?”
“I don’t know if I can trust you with my heart, again,” she said. “Would you, if you were me?”
“I think so,” said Damon, honestly.
“Right,” said Brielle, with a snort of derision. She deepened her voice to mock him. “I’ll never trust another female as long as I live? Does that ring a bell?”
“I was hurt,” he said, simply.
“So was I, Damon,” said Brielle, fiercely. She turned back towards him and looked into the distance over his shoulder. Meeting his eyes made her weak and easy to manipulate. “So was I.”
“I know I hurt you, Bri,” said Damon, starting to feel desperate. He touched her shoulder with his hand. She snatched away and he dropped his arm to his side. “You have to forgive me. I need you to.”
“It’s always about you?” asked Brielle.
“I didn’t think you’d understand,” said Damon.
“You didn’t give me the chance to understand,” said Brielle.
“What was I going to say?” demanded Damon. “I got a baby on the way, it’s Sasha’s and I still want to date you?”
“How about,” said Brielle, nostrils flaring. “I need to talk to you and tell you what happened. I need to tell you why my life is going out of control and I can’t see you right now?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Damon, hanging his head. “Stuff was just so crazy. It was coming at me so fast.”
Brielle rolled her eyes. She started to turn away. Damon tried again.
“I thought you were too good for all the drama. I didn’t want anybody else to feel what I was feeling. I felt like I was the goldfish that jumped out of the bowl. I didn’t have time to catch my own breath, let alone think about how you were feeling.”
Brielle froze; expression arrested.
“Couldn’t catch your breath, huh?”
He looked down at his feet, clad in black and red Air Jordan’s.
“Nope,” he said, as though admitting to a shameful secret. His hands wanted to reach out and tug on one of her braids so bad that the palms itched but he controlled the impulse.
“Well,” said Brielle relaxing, expression brightening. “That clears things up. Not being able to breathe is serious for an asthmatic.”
“Life and death,” said Damon, meeting her eyes.
“Then maybe I forgive you.”
“Just like that?”
“Hasn’t it always been that way?” asked Brielle, with a shrug.
He reached for her. She held up her hand to stave him off.
“I forgive you, but I don’t want to put myself out there like that again for you.”
“If you give me a chance, I’ll never shut you out again.”
Brielle laughed without humor.
“Just like that? You are such a dude. You run away from stuff, Damon. How you gonna change how you deal with problems?”
“For you, I’d do anything,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t run away from Ricky. I stepped up and then he got snatched away.”
“That’s how I felt when you dumped me, too. But you didn’t care. It was all about you.”
“I know,” said Damon, looking away briefly. He hesitated, took a deep breath, exhaled and then met
