Laugh Til I Cry

“So Kelly, have you heard about Jasper?”

My eyes rolled up. “No, what about him?”

“You know his girlfriend who goes to Cross Creek, Rocsi? Well I heard that they broke up.”

“Amber you’re always hearing stuff. You better stop spreading all of these rumor before they come back and bite you.” I walked into the lunchroom.

“Oh, this is no rumor; I received the news first hand.”

We sat down at our usual table.

I rolled my eyes and simply said, “Uh huh.”

“I’m serious! Jasper came and told me himself. Then he asked for your phone number.”

This caused me to stop eating. “Amber, seriously you need to stop.”

“Kelly I am not kidding with you. Look over there at him. He’s looking at you.”

Just the thought of him looking at me made me burn up inside. I turned and saw that he was staring at me! The next thing I know, he’s walking towards me.

Jasper was by far the most popular boy in the 11th grade. He was tall, dark skin boy with waves for days in his hair, and he had the perfect muscular build. He had won Mr. Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior, he was section leader of the drums for our band, varsity basketball player for three years, and from what I’ve heard he had the worst temper in the world.

He sat next to me. “What’s up Kelly?”

I couldn’t think at all. “U-u-um, I’m fine.”

“You look fine too.”

“Thanks.”

“I haven’t spoken to you in awhile, you know since band season ended.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Are you still gonna be dancing next year for the band?”

“Yeah, I’m hoping I’ll become the captain.”

“Oh really? Well you know from what I’ve heard the captain of the dancing girls usually dates the captain of the drum line.”

“Oh I’ve never heard that before.”

“So, I heard you broke up with that boy A.J.”

“Yeah, we stopped dating sometime ago.”

“Yeah, me and my girlfriend just broke up not to long ago. She was busy flirting around with some other niggas at her school.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” I but my fork down and wiped my mouth.

“You’re by far the quietest dancing girl I have ever met.” He wrapped his arm around my waist. “I like that about you.”

I felt my face turn red.

“Oh, you’re blushing! Don’t be afraid of me girl.” He pulled me in closer. “Hey, how about you give me your phone number?”

I could feel a big smile come across my face. “Sure, it’s 7-0-6-2-4-9-0-1-2-7.”

“All right, I’m gonna call you tonight, make sure you pick-up.”

“Okay.” I thought that he was going to leave then, but he stayed.

“You thought I was about to leave after that? I’m not the type of boy who gets a number and walks off, I like to sit and talk with you some more. Maybe I’ll walk you back to class.”

My last boyfriend, A.J., never walked me to class unless they were close to each other. I guess those are the consequences of dating another honor student, but one who’s serious about having a tardy.

“Jasper?” Amber couldn’t help, but join in the conversation.

“What’s up Amber?”

“Nothing, I’m just wondering if you wanted to take Kelly to prom. You know since she’s not going with A.J. and you’re not going with Rocsi.”

He looked at me, I knew that he was going to say no at any minute. “It’s kind of late to ask me that don’t you think? Prom is next week and I’ve picked out my vest and shit. So unless you’re wearing a turquoise dress I don’t know how we’d look together.”

“Well isn’t that a coincidence? Kelly’s dress is turquoise. Isn’t that right Kelly?”

I sat there looking lost and confused.

“Isn’t that right Kelly?” I felt her kick my leg.

“Ouch you bitch!” I looked at Jasper and smiled. “Yeah, it is turquoise.”

“Well how about you and I go to prom together? We’d be the hottest thing there.”

“Okay, that’s fine with me.”

The bell rung. “Let me walk you to your…..”

“Literature.”

“Literature class.” He smiled as he got up.

From that day on we were around each other quite often. We went out that week which was very interesting; he walked me to all of my classes, to my car, and basically anywhere that he could take me. When prom came I was extremely excited because I was going with Jasper Ellis, the boy that every high school girl dreams about.

I heard the door bell ring.

Mom screamed out, “Kelly, it’s Jasper!”

“Okay, I’ll be down in a minute.” I put my earrings and necklace on and walked downstairs.

“Whoa,” I saw Jasper lick his lips. “You look good, no you look sexy.”

“Thank you.” I hugged him. “Ma, we’re about to go.”

“Let me get some pictures.” My Mom took like ten minutes to take pictures and we were on our way to prom.

The limo ride was slightly awkward I’ll admit because Jasper kept trying to kiss me.

I moved my head away. “Jasper, stop please.”
“What’s wrong? You don’t like me kissing you or something?”

“It’s not that, I mean we haven’t dated that long and I just don’t want you kissing all on me. You have to move slowly.”

“Well I’m not use to that, most of the girls I date don’t care. That’s why Rocsi and I broke up.” He put his hand on my face and started kissing me.

In the back of my mind I knew I didn’t like this, but it was Jasper. I knew this was my one and only opportunity. I just sat there and took it.

Prom was really fun in my opinion. Jasper won Prom Prince which wasn’t surprising. I danced of course with Jasper and A.J. had asked me to dance, but Jasper pushed him away. I even saw Jasper’s ex-girlfriend, Rocsi, she was extremely pretty. I noticed she kept looking at Jasper and whispering to her friends. He just looked away and pulled me along with him.

“Kelly I’ll be back.” He kissed me.

“Okay.” I sat there looking at my phone when Rocsi and a group of her friends walked up to me.

Rocsi sat down next to me. “Hey Kelly.”

“Hey Rocsi.”

“So…I see you’re here with Jasper, you do know that is my ex-boyfriend?”

“Yeah I know.”

“Uh huh, so how long have you been going out with him?”

“Not long, just about a week.”

“Oh that’s nice.” She looked around. “Now I want you to listen to me carefully. Jasper is not what you think he is Kelly.”

“What?”

“Jasper is not what you think he is. Jasper is not what anyone thinks he is. He seems nice and charming, but he’s not.”

“Rocsi what are you talking about? Jasper’s always been nice to me and the people I see him around.”

“Duh, he has to act like that. I dated the boy for a year and everything was all right for the first two or three months, but after that he becomes mean. I’m telling you, I dealt with almost ten months of mental and physical abuse from him.”

“What?”

“Listen, I know you’re smart so you should understand everything I’m saying. He is not what you think he is, okay? He’s an abusive jerk and you need to leave him alone.”

I wanted to listen to Rocsi, but in the back of my head I didn’t want to listen to her because she was his ex-girlfriend.

She looked around again. “Trust me on this Kelly, I don’t want you to get hurt. He’s coming back so I have to go.” She got up and walked off with her friends.

Jasper sat down next to me. “Who were you just talking to?”

“Oh nobody important.”

“You want to go get something to eat?”

“Sure, from where though?”

“How about we go to Applebee’s?”

“Ummm, okay then.”

We got up to leave, but not before his friends came to tell him goodbye.

His friend Sean walked up to us. “What’s up nigga?”

“Nothin’ much just about to go get something to eat with Kelly.”

“Oh, well we handled your problem so don’t worry about anything.”

“All right my nig, lets go Kelly.” He wrapped his arm around my waist as we walked out.

“So did you have fun with me?”

I wiped my mouth off. “Yeah, it was really fun going to prom with you.”

“I know it was fun.”

I began poking at my food with my fork.
“Is something on your mind?”

“No, not really.”

Our waiter walked up to our table. “Did you all order the Dulce de Leche Cheesecake?”

Jasper raised his hand, “Yeah that’s mine.”

The waiter placed the plate in front of him. “Enjoy.”

“Listen, Kelly you can tell me whatever you want to tell me okay? You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“Well that’s not what Rocsi says.”

“Rocsi? My ex-girlfriend? Baby you can’t listen to her, she’s just jealous of the fact that I’m not with her anymore. You know girls like Rocsi get attached to boys and will do whatever it takes to get back with people they like.”

“Well, would you ever hurt me Jasper?”

“Take a bite of this.” He put a piece of cheesecake in my mouth. “I would never hurt you, but I would hurt anyone that hurt you. And I will always love you.” He kissed me and our night ended like that.