"Just A Dream Series: "That's What Friends Are For "

By: Crystal

Me and this guy Jimmy are on a double date with my friends Tiffany and Dwayne. We just left the movie theater and are now heading back to the University of Miami campus. I was wearing this black Spanish-looking dress with high heels. Tiffany had borrowed my white skirt and with it she was sporting her orange, green, and white UM baby tee. We had gotten together a few hours beforehand to discuss what we were going to wear tonight. Jimmy was someone Tiffany had introduced me to just tonight, making this sort of like a blind date. To be nice I had agreed to going out with him under the stipulation that Dwayne and Tiff would come with us. Jimmy had on these blue jeans, dark blue shirt, and black leather jacket. Dwayne had the UM pride going all the way, let me tell you! Seeing as we were all seniors and would be graduating in 2003, I guess he figured it was his duty to do this. He had on his UM Hurricanes football jacket, a UM jersey with his name and number 94 on the back, and some jeans.

"It's getting chilly out here." I said, walking with Jimmy.

"Here," Jimmy said, taking his jacket off and putting it on me.

Dwayne looked back at us and scowled. Our relationship was more so that of a big brother-little sister type. Since day one he had looked out for me, making sure that noone mess with me. As you could imagine, we were extremely close. I could tell that he didn't take to Jimmy too well. Every 5 minutes he had his head turned back around and looking at him with disgust on his face. It was really funny.

"Come here, girl." Dwayne said, taking Tiff in his arms and kissing her.

Tiffany and Dwayne's relationship made me sick, to say the least. Tiff was my "friend" and had been for some time, but I couldn't help but think that she had just been buddy-buddy with me just to get to Dwayne. She has seen just how close me and Dwayne are, that we're practically inseparable at times because our friendship is so tight. And I swear...at times I can actually feel her getting jealous just by the little looks or things Dwayne says or does to me. I just shrug it off though. Maybe I'm just imagining things?

"You two are sick! Could you stop? It's not that serious." I said, making gagging noises like I wanted to vomit.

"What's the matter Crissy? You know you can get in on this too! We can make things out to be REALLY friendly, if you know what I mean." Dwayne said, turning back to me and smiling a devilish smile.

"No, that's okay man." Jimmy said loudly, making Dwayne turn his head back around to the front.

The next thing I know Tiff and Dwayne disappear behind these bushes. Jimmy and I are walking and suddenly Jimmy pulls me behind this tree. Jimmy kisses me, and I kiss him back. We start making out, and I go to stop but he persists. Before I can say anything, he starts to get forceful. He brings my arms up over my head and pins them to the tree, as he starts to kiss my neck.

"Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?" I ask, trying to get out of his grip.

"Shut up." Jimmy snaps.

I start to struggle and Jimmy presses me up hard against the tree.

"You know you want this. You were practically on over my dick all night long, girl." Jimmy said, feeling on me.

"What? Let me go!" I yell, dropping to the ground and crawling away from him.

"Get your ass back here!" Jimmy yells, grabbing my legs and dragging me back to him.

"Noooooo!" I scream, starting to cry.

Jimmy gets me back behind the tree and lays me on the ground. He gets on top of me, and I continue to struggle with him. Tears come down my cheek as I protest for him to stop what he was about to do.

"Stop it, Jimmy! Please!" I whimper.

"Shut up! I'm not gonna tell you again!" Jimmy yelled.

Jimmy pulls out this needle contained with some kind of clear liquid in it. I'm getting up as he prepares the needle.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I ask, backing up.

"Lay the fuck down!" Jimmy yells, smacking me in the face and grabbing me by my hair to lay me back down.

"Please don't..." I start to say.

"Alright baby, this will only hurt a second." Jimmy says, as he sticks the needle in my arm.

I smack the needle out of my arm and then Jimmy retaliates by hitting me, only to start raping me afterwards. I'm struggling with him where at one point he gets frustrated and punches me.

"Help me! Somebody please!" I yell, only to have Jimmy cover my mouth with his hand as he continues raping me.

I knee Jimmy in the groin in an act of desperation, and get out from underneath him. I crawl away and then get up to start running.

"Crystal? What happened to you?!" Tiff asks as she and Dwayne run over to me from behind the bushes.

"I thought I heard something..." Dwayne said.

I'm crying on Tiffany's shoulder, not saying anything. I'm just glad to have gotten away, and right now I'm just trying to catch my breath. Dwayne pulls me to him and lifts my chin up to get a good look at my face.

"Son of a bitch..." Dwayne growls, his eyes glaring with anger.

"Honey, I'm so sorry this happened." Dwayne said, kissing my forehead.

Just then, as if right on cue, Jimmy appeared from behind the tree. He had a really pissed off look on his face.

"You need to tell that bitch to watch her fucking attitude!" Jimmy yelled, pointing at me.

"Hey, she ain't no bitch man!" Dwayne yelled back to Jimmy.

"Nobody was talking to you! Mind your own damn business!" Jimmy yelled at Dwayne.

Dwayne looked at me and it seemed as if he wanted to cry. He gave me one last look over. My face was stinging really bad, for real.

"You're like a baby sister to me, Crissy. I would never hit you, but my man just took things too damn far. Excuse me for a minute." DJ said, starting to walk toward Jimmy.

"Dwayne, no." I said, trying to stop what was about to happen.

"Crystal, get the hell outta my way." Dwayne said.

"Don't do this, D. He's not worth it. You don't need to get benched and lose some playing time because of this. Just get me outta here." I said, trying to reason with him.

"Oh no, CRISSY! Let your little boyfriend come on and try me. I wanna see what the jock has to prove! Come on, big man!" Jimmy said, challenging Dwayne.

"Crissy, move NOW." Dwayne said, getting angrier by the minute.

"I'm bout sick and tired of your fucking ass!" Dwayne yelled, as he approached Jimmy.

Tiffany grabbed me to the side with her as we watched Dwayne and Jimmy fight it out. Jimmy was the one to start out punching Dwayne and he looked like he was taking some pretty hard blows.

"Dwayne!" Tiffany and I yelled.

Suddenly things began to change, as Dwayne was the one beating up Jimmy. He was putting somethin' serious on him!

"Son of a bitch bastard!" Dwayne yelled as he kicked Jimmy.

"Don't you EVER (punch) touch (punch) her (punch) again! (punch) Do you understand me?!!!" Dwayne yelled.

Dwayne kicked Jimmy in the stomach one last time, making Jimmy spit up blood this time. DJ left Jimmy laying on the ground and walked back over to me and Tiffany.

"What...the...hell?!" Dwayne asked, pulling my arm to see the bruise that the needle had left after Jimmy stuck it in my arm.

I was stumbling in an attempt to stand up straight and look Dwayne in his eyes. I was really tired all of the sudden and I wished I could be in my bed instead of outside like this.

"I'm a...a little tired. Am sleepy...can I go back to my dorm now?" I muttered before finally collapsing into Dwayne's arms.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Um...where the hell am I? Dwayne, is that you?" I ask, just now waking up.

"Yeah honey, it's me. You don't know where you are?" Dwayne said.

"No, what...the last thing I remember was we were walking on campus because we had just got back from the movies. We went to see that movie Brown Sugar I think, didn't we?" I asked, confused.

"Yeah. It was you, me, Tiff, and that asshole Jimmy who I laid out a serious ass whuppin' to." Dwayne said.

"You got into a fight? Why? Did we meet up with somebody from Florida State again? They swear they're the best college, for real."

"I got in a fight, but it wasn't with somebody from FSU. Not this time around. That ass Jimmy who you were with on our double date had attacked you suddenly just as soon as me and Tiff went off and he raped you and drugged you. Look at your right arm." DJ said.

"What am I looking for...ooh, what the hell is that ugly bruise?" I asked, shocked.

"Ya boy stuck a needle in your arm containing some kind of sedative or tranquilizer drug or something like that. You passed out right in my arms, and luckily I caught you. You were out for a long time. I'm just glad you woke up." Dwayne said, stroking the side of my face.

"Ow...that hurts, D."

"Oh, I'm sorry Crissy. If it wasn't for you and Tiff being there I would have killed that bastard for what he did to you. I didn't mean to hurt you. He just messed you up pretty badly, honey." DJ said.

"Speaking of Tiff-Tiff, where is she anyway? How come you're the only one here?" I asked.

"She and I had a falling out actually. We're over with. She got jealous of how much attention I was paying to you and whatnot, and we got in this big argument. She started bringing up old shit about how you and I had been the center of all those rumors going around UM some months back, remember that?" Dwayne said.

"Oh yeah, how could I forget? Everyone swore that you and me had sex on the UM stage when we stayed after school that one time!" I said, shaking my head.

"So Crissy, how was it for you? Cause the way everybody was talkin it had to be pretty damn good!" Dwayne said, laughing hard.

"Don't make me laugh, D." I said, managing a weak smile. It hurt to laugh, and sadly that was the one thing I needed to do right now to help my mood. Dwayne was always a pro at doing that for me.

"Yeah but, Tiff was just really being dumb. So I told her off, that I was tired of her shit and that we were over. I'm not gonna jeopardize losing our friendship because she wants to be an ass. I'm sorry, but I'm not trying to lose the person I really wanna be with." Dwayne said, holding my hand.

"What? Say that again? You're not trying to lose the person you want to be with? So what are you trying to say? I'm not getting this." I said, trying to understand where Dwayne was coming from.

"I can't believe you haven't been able to see this whole time of us being friends, girl. Sure, we've had our ups and downs, but are you serious? Crissy, you're set far apart from all these other chicks at UM. You're completely out their league, if you ask me." DJ said.

"Even Dany?" I asked, getting serious.

"You know...we've always been up front with each other, right? So I am gonna put it to you like this. There was a time where I thought about actually MARRYING her, if you can believe it." Dwayne said.

"Oh no! Dwayne Johnson, the big time UM playa thinking marriage? Hell must have frozen over!!! I'm not trying to be rude, D, but I'm aware of your reputation very well. And you know this. Since when does bed-hopping constitute marriage all the sudden? The way you were going around with one girl this night and another the next, I never pictured you ever settling down." I said honestly.

"I'm serious, girl! I was gonna marry Dany right after I graduated. But um...things change, people change. I'll just say that, because if I get into talking about her I'll get pissed off. And besides, you've changed my whole attitude about everything. As far as I'm concerned, this Big Daddy's bed-hopping days are long gone. The whole time of me being with this girl and that and going into relationships only to have them fail because of me either being the playa I 'HAD' to be or for other reasons, it just gave me time to think. For the longest time, I knew I just knew I was going to go around playing girl after girl, because you know, it was all a game to me. It was fun while it lasted though. When you get down to it, the fact of the matter is, this is the absolute truth when I tell you that I wanna be with you. This is no line of bs I'm feeding you. I'm as serious as I'm ever gonna get. I feel like an ass because of the fact that it took me so long to see, but you know what I'm saying, right?"

"Confessions of the University of Miami Playa...that's good stuff." I said, shaking my head and giving a weak smile.

"No, but I understand where you're coming from. I wondered what it would be like if we ever went out a few times. The only thing turning me off about you was your playa-playa reputation which you thought was so important to uphold. That made me sick. Having chicks you drop like a bad habit coming up to me cussing ME out because of your ass wasn't a pleasant experience. All because they knew me and you was cool and that you wouldn't try any of that shit on me that you tried with them smuts...but I won't lie and say that I haven't and still don't feel the same way." I said.

"They did that to you? What did they say about me? Give me the dirt and tell me how much of a son of a bitch I am..." Dwayne said, starting to laugh.

"You're so wrong, D...half them girls actually believed they had a chance and you left them out to dry. Shame." I said sarcastically.

"Oh well. This Hurricane is turning over a new leaf, starting right now. Of course, that is if you wanna go ahead and do this." Dwayne said, smiling at me.

"You know I'm gonna say yes, Dwayne." I said.

"That's what I'M talking about!" Dwayne said.

"Oh, this may be sort of off the subject. But I wanted to thank you so much for helping me. If you weren't there with me tonight, I don't know where I'd be right now." I said, about to cry.

"I don't wanna even think about that, because all of what he's driven you through tonight and seeing you in this hospital bed now doesn't aid to the fact that if I ever see him on the streets-"

"D, stop! It's done, it's over with. I hope I don't have to hire you as my bodyguard or something just to make you happy so that you have an excuse to beat his ass. He knows how fortunate he is right now that you didn't hurt him even more than you did." I said.

"I'm telling you, I would have probably killed his ass for doing that to you if things were my way." Dwayne said, getting angry.

I grabbed Dwayne's hand tightly and gave a smile. He calmed down.

"I know you would never do that, and I just want to say that I love you for that. These 4 years of us knowing each other, not ONCE did you try anything with me. And despite your sometimes overly aggressive attitude and your past, I know that you wouldn't hit me. So again, I want to say thanks." I said.

"Baby, that's what friends are for!" Dwayne said, getting up out of his seat and coming to kiss me on the top of my forehead.

~THE END~