Disclaimer: I do not own the Boondocks
The first * indicates the beginning of the flashback the second one indicates the end. Please review.
Knock, Knock.
Jazmine groaned, rolled over, and pulled her comforter over her head. Either her mom or her dad and been knocking on her door on and off for the past hour. Normally, they would have just walked in to check in on her but she had locked the door last night when Huey had been there.
'Huey…'
Jazmine's eyes started to water as she thought about what had transpired in her room on last night. She would beat herself up over turning Huey away one minute but then she'd think about all the years he had gone without talking to her because he wanted to keep her 'safe' then she'd get angry. The anger wouldn't last long before she'd run a hundred different scenarios where she had handle the situation differently and she could have laid in his arms all night.
With the vicious cycle of emotions that she was going through she decided it would be best if she just didn't go to school. She wouldn't be able to focus anyway.
Not that focusing was the only thing on her mind. There were a lot of people at school she just didn't want to see at all.
She didn't want to see Cindy for one. She was her best friend and she would mean well but she would just ask too many questions that Jazmine wasn't in the mood to answer. Jazmine did not want Cindy to start anything with Huey and if she told her what happened last night she knew that was exactly what she was going to do.
She didn't want to see Caesar or Riley. Huey had likely gone to Caesar for advice about what had happened last night and it was also very likely that Riley was eavesdropping and knew what had happened as well. She didn't want Caesar to give her any sympathetic looks and she definitely couldn't handle Riley laughing at her. She didn't want to blow up at anybody else… only Huey had deserved that.
She didn't want to see Emmanuel because she felt that she shouldn't have said yes to going out with him in the first place when she knew she still had lingering feelings for Huey. But, now that Huey had confessed that he had had feelings for her for about as long as she had feelings for him she knew she couldn't go on that date.
'Ugh," she threw the covers off of her face and sat up in her bed, 'I have to cancel.'
She looked around her bed for her phone and when she spotted in on the dresser she grabbed her phone off the dresser. She groaned when she saw that she had fourteen missed calls. Eight of the call were from Huey starting about an hour after he left and the last one came ten minutes after school started. Two were from Cindy probably wondering where she was and to her surprise, but not really, four of them were from Manny.
Manny's calls weren't surprising but the number of time he had called her were.
It's better to end this now before things go too far.
Jazmine unlocked her phone and opened the message thread for Manny when she heard her doorknob being picked. She held her breath expecting her Dad to walk in but released the breath when she realized it was her mom.
"Hey Mom," she smiled nervously, "um, how did you get in?"
Sarah waved a bobby pin at her and then stuck it back into her bun. She walked over to Jazmine's bed and put her hand on her lower leg on her blanket.
"What's wrong, sweetie?"
"Everything is, mom." Jazmine sat beside her mother on the bed and threw her legs over the edge. She leaned her head on her shoulder and Sarah wrapped her arms around both of Jazmine's shoulders.
"You want to be a little more specific Jazmine?"
Jazmine sighed. "Well, you know how Huey had stopped talking to me for a while right?"
Sarah was quiet for a moment but eventually said yes.
"Well since you've been away on your business trip we had started becoming friends again because our teachers thought it would be best for us to tutor each other. But, as soon as the teacher told us that Cindy set me up with this guy Emmanuel and he's been really sweet and nice and everything but sometimes he can be a little overbearing. So, last Friday we all went to this p- "Jazmine turned to her mother and smiled, "get together."
When Sarah just rolled her eyes and smiled Jazmine continued. "Well I was supposed to go to the party with Emmanuel but plans changed and I went with Cindy instead and I was going to meet him there. Well Cindy got caught up with Caesar and I lost her so I ended by the food table close to the wall. That's when this drunk guy came bustling up to me and was trying to make a move but Huey swooped in and stopped him and he backed off."
"So, I see he's still your knight in shining armor." Sarah smiled and raised her eyebrow at Jazmine. In the midst of Jazmine telling her story her and Sarah had transitioned into sitting in the middle of her bed cross-legged, facing each other. Jazmine gave Sarah a look and she just laughed and gestured for Jazmine to continue.
"Well after he did that he asked me to dance with him and honestly Mom it was everything my dreams were made of I think we would have kissed except Manny eventually showed up and by that time the party was ending anyway so we just went our separate ways, Huey going by himself and I went with Emmanuel."
Jazmine proceeded to tell her mom the story of what had been going on in her life since she left for her business trip on Thursday. From dancing with Manny in the headlights of her car, to the near fight between Huey and Manny that happened on the front porch, even down to what had transpired in her room last night.
"Okay, that's all that's happened. Mom, I don't know what to do about Manny or Huey."
"Well sweetheart, I think since you still have intense feelings for Huey you shouldn't pursue anything with Manny or lead him on any more than you already have. Intentional or not." Sarah added the last part when she saw Jazmine get into a defensive stance. "Now, about Huey," Sarah sighed and reached out to rest her hand to rest on Jazmine's face, "It is inevitable that the man you love will do something stupid that will make you question why you love him. Huey did something stupid but you have to decide whether or not you are willing to forgive him. If I stopped talking to your father after every stupid thing he'd ever done we would never speak. Seriously Jazmine, do you remember the Usher thing?"
Jazmine shuddered at the memory. Just to think that if her Mom had ended up with Usher after that whole fiasco her cookies would probably be burning right now. I mean come on thousands of women threw themselves at Usher everyday what would prevent him from getting with one of them.
"See, at that time I was seriously considering leaving your father but I realized that our love was stronger than some stupid fight. Although help from a Pimp Named Slickback did not help anything… it did spice up things in the bedroom though."
"Mom!" Jazmine covered her eyes as though to block the mental image from seeping too deep in her brain.
Sarah laughed and began to unfold her legs from the bed and turned around to face Jazmine.
"At the end of the day Jazmine it's up to you whether or not you're going to move past what Huey did and be with him. Just choose wisely and whatever you decide I'll support you one hundred percent." She smiled, gave Jazmine's shoulder a little rub and headed towards the door.
Jazmine smiled at her mom's retreating form and reached to pick her phone up off the night stand.
"Oh, and Jazmine," Jazmine looked up at her mom who had peaked her head back into her doorway, "don't think I didn't notice how you just decided you weren't going to school today. It's almost lunch time now so you can just stay home but you're going to school tomorrow. Kay?"
Jazmine sighed. "Okay Mom."
Sarah blew her a kiss and continued down the hall, presumably to her office. Jazmine got her phone out and proceeded to text all those who had texted and called her about her absence today.
*Meanwhile at School*
Cindy, Caesar and Huey were all sitting at the lunch table talking amicably while subconsciously looking at the empty chair that should have held Jazmine. Cindy looked at the chair again and when she caught Huey looking at the chair with a solemn look on his face she stopped in the middle of her sentence. Caesar looked up from his lunch tray to question why she had stopped speaking when he noticed her looking at Huey and Huey looking at Jazmine's empty chair.
He cleared his throat and they both turned to look at him. "Guys, I'm sure Jazmine just wasn't feeling good today. I mean if there was something really wrong wouldn't she have told you Cindy?"
Cindy sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I guess but, she would have at least texted me and you know how she is about perfect attendance. If she's not sick then something serious must have happened between her leaving school yesterday and this morning."
Huey shifted in his chair uncomfortably knowing full well why Jazmine wasn't at school that day. Luckily for him no one noticed him move so he wasn't under anyone's scrutiny.
*After he left Jazmine's house last night he climbed back up the house into his open window. He paced his room for about ten minutes thinking about the events that had just transpired. He thought about possibly telling Jazmine that it was her father that had influenced him to stop talking to her and that he would have never done that of his own accord but he knew that Jazmine had three options were he to attempt to do that.
She could not believe that her father would do something like that or even bother to convince him to leave his daughter alone. She could still blame him because he really didn't have to listen to him, which is something Caesar reminded him of often. Her third option, which would hurt him the most, would be to not listen to him at all. He had never seen Jazmine as angry and sad as he had seen her last night. She wasn't even that's sad the first time he brushed her off.
Eventually he gave up and decided there was nothing else he could do tonight except make things worse. He flopped on to his bed and much to his surprise he had a peaceful night's sleep.
When he woke up that morning he was in a bad mood due to last night's events and he didn't speak to anyone that morning.
Unbeknownst to Huey, Grandad and Riley looked at each other in question, trying to see if the other knew what his problem was. They both shrugged until they heard Huey's car start. Riley got up and ran out the door so he could catch a ride with Huey. Grandad shook out his newspaper and shook his head.
"That boy must be going through puberty or something."
It was a quiet ride to school. Riley felt as though there were a dark cloud being cast over Huey's head usually he wouldn't care because, you know caring about another nigga was super gay, but he hadn't seen his brother this mad since Trump had won the presidency.
Huey felt Riley looking at him and knew he wanted to ask him what was up but he was not in the mood to talk. So, when he pulled into his parking space he grabbed his bag out of the backseat and hopped without ever uttering a greeting to his brother.
To Huey it felt like the whole school knew he was in a bad mood. As he walked through the hall it seemed as though people were running to get out of his way. That wasn't the case but that's at least what he felt they should have been doing.
He continued through the hall when he felt somebody walk up beside him.
"Hey Huey! Woah, man, what's wrong with you?"
"I don't want to talk about Ceez."
"Oh, come on, you know you can't keep anything from me. You're just prolonging the inevitable."
Huey stopped just before reaching his homeroom class. He turned to Caesar with a glum look on his face. "Look, me and Jazmine had a fight last night. I'll tell you more later but I really don't feel like getting into right now."
"Alright man, I'll talk to you later. " Caesar nodded his head in understanding and put his hand on his shoulder before continuing down the hall towards Cindy.
Huey eyes widened slightly. "Wait Caesar!" Caesar stopped and walked back over to Huey.
"Please for the love of God don't tell Cindy what I just told you," he made eye contact with Caesar and when his eyes wavered he grabbed both of his shoulders and shook him, "I'm serious the last thing I need is Cindy down my back."
Caesar sighed, "Alright man I'll do my best," he continued down the hall again towards Cindy.
Huey sighed again and walked into homeroom. He sat down in his seat and turned around to see if Jazmine was sitting in her seat on the possibility that maybe he could talk to her before the teacher showed up. When she wasn't sitting in her usual seat he turned around and pulled out his phone and called her. When she didn't answer by the second ring he hung up the phone.
If she's not here by the time the bell rings I'll call her again.
Their homeroom teacher was always about five minutes late to the bell, always with an excuse. So, before the teacher came just as the bell rang Huey called Jazmine again this time letting it ring until her voicemail picked up the call.
He was about to call her again when the teacher walked in and called their class to order. He put his phone away and halfheartedly paid attention to roll call.
When Jazmine wasn't in the next class either he excused himself to got to the bathroom and called her again while he was in there. He thought about leaving a voicemail at the fifth ring but thought better of it and hung up when the voicemail picked up the call.
The fourth call he made was as he was walking up to the lunch table expecting to get an answer from her when she hadn't answered his first three calls was crazy but he did it anyway.
"Huey, were you calling Jazmine? I've been texting and calling her all day but I haven't gotten an answer yet," Cindy asked with a concerned look on her face.
"No, I was just talking to my Grandad," Huey lied smoothly, "has she not answered any of your texts.
"No and I'm worried."
"Babe, don't worry about Jazmine I'm sure she's fine," Caesar reassured Cindy grabbing her hand and caressing the back of it with his thumb, "what you need to worry about is your skin. Baby, do you want some lotion or did you want to feel like an alligator today?"
Cindy snatched her hand back playfully and threw a grape at him.
That distracted Huey and Cindy for a while but eventually their thought trailed back to Jazmine. *
Everyone looked up expectantly when someone sat in Jazmine's seat but rolled their eyes when instead of strawberry blonde curls they were met with black cornrows.
Riley sucked his teeth and flipped them the bird. "Man, fuck y'all. Y'all should be grateful that I'm even gracing you with my presents," he stuck his nose up in the air haughtily.
Nobody bother to correct him and tell him that he should have said presence instead of presents. He picked the untouched burger off of Cindy's tray and took a bite.
"Hey, where Jazzy at? She don't ever miss school. It's like she actually like this dumb shit or something."
Cindy pushed her tray towards him seeing that she wasn't in a mood to eat anyway and answered his original question.
"We don't know where she is. We think she might be sick though."
"Shit," Riley pushed up from the table picking his teeth, "I'll go check on her I don't feel like being here anymore anyway."
Before anyone could say anything, he was exiting through the cafeteria doors.
"If he keeps skipping school like this he's going to get expelled, isn't he?" Caesar asked Huey.
"No actually he's been doing pretty good with his attendance since the principal threatened to send him to the alternative school. Plus, he has a pretty good excuse this time. We are all concerned about Jazmine."
Cindy and Caesar both nodded their head in agreement until they saw Emmanuel approaching Huey from the side.
"What's up, Freeman."
Huey groaned audibly and refused to acknowledge his presence. Emmanuel shrugged his shoulders and slammed some flowers down on the table. Huey looked up at him with a 'what the fuck' expression.
"Jazmine isn't here today and I have football practice today so will you drop these off at her house and tell her that I can't wait for our date on Friday. Thanks, pal," he said giving him a not so playful punch on his shoulder.
Huey was about to get up when Caesar placed his hand on his other shoulder.
"This isn't the time or the place man. He'll get what's coming to him."
"Yeah. He will."
A/N: I'm sorry. I moved in to my new dorm, and the last few weeks were stressful at my job, and I just have not been able to write. But, I promise that I have been working on this since Sunday night. I was supposed to go out but plans failed with a lot of drama and that's why it wasn't done yesterday. Anyway please review I really appreciate them.