It all started with the first boy she ever went out with, Bobby Jindel from the next class over. Everything was great at first. As far as her sixth grade self could tell the two were in the perfect relationship, fast-tracking to high-school sweethearts and eventually marriage. Jazmine already knew what she'd name their dog: Quincy Doodles III. Bobby was cute- he had a young Justin Bieber kind of vibe with the long blonde hair that swooped low over his forehead. Blue eyes that reminded the girl of Bubbles the powerpuff girl. The other girls in class said they were a cute couple so that was all the child could ask.
Two weeks into the middle school relationship and Jazmine saw Huey standing on a crate in front of their school with a sandwich sign laid over his shoulders. In bold red text it read: STOP RACIAL EXPECTANCY BIAS. HIRE MORE TEACHERS OF COLOR. A megaphone was held in his hand as he spoke into it with a monotone voice, carefully detailing every event that revealed the underlying racism of Woodcrest and its school system. She had an extra bounce in her step as she bound towards the child she considered to be her best friend. The mixed-race girl hadn't seen him nearly as frequently since she started dating Bobby; she spent too much time walking around the mall with her boyfriend holding hands and engaging in minimal small talk to sit under the large tree atop the hill with Huey anymore.
"HUEY!" Jazmine held her arms out wide as she ran at him. The boy seemed to recoil slightly at the sight of her as he glanced behind him to see where her tackle hug would land him: the bike rack. Nope, he's not going to let himself be slammed into a warped metal bar. Right as she was about to reach him the domestic terrorist side-stepped her and watched apathetically as one of the few people he was able to tolerate stumbled past him before crashing to the ground. He offered a hand to help her up as she sat up from her sudden stop. "Huey," Jazmine whined as she rubbed her butt and glanced up at him with tearful eyes, "we haven't seen each other in so long!"
"We're in the same English class. We see each other every other day. We're also still neighbors." He responded dryly as he further extended his hand, trying to end the social interaction already.
"Ugh," she groaned as she grasped his hand and allowed him to do all the work in lifting her off the ground. "You know what I mean, Huey." Brushing invisible dirt off her pants, the girl directed her bright green eyes to his maroon ones.
However rather than give her a reply, the boy remained stoic as he stared at her. "What did you want?"
"I- I was just wondering how you were," Jazmine didn't know why but she suddenly felt much more flustered. "What are you, uh, doing right now?"
"Protesting the employment standards of our school." Her friend turned away so he could go back to standing atop his soapbox.
"Can you explain the details to me?" She asked while tucking a stray curl behind on of her ears only for the untamable hair to pop right back out.
"It's racial expectancy bias," his dark wine colored eyes were on her again, "basically the teachers expect students of ethnic minorities, like you and me, to perform worse than caucasian children in their studies and so they tend to grade our papers more harshly and can even indirectly and unconsciously convince students that they should be performing to a lower standard. This is especially prevalent in our school because, well, it's Woodcrest. Everything about Woodcrest is racially biased."
"Wait," Jazmine said with a frown as she mulled over his words, "are you saying the reason I got a B on my book report is because I'm only half white?!"
"It's possible." He spoke dryly, unimpressed with the small scope of her world. "Anyway, this needs to change. We aren't the only minority students in this school and not everyone is as academically resilient as we are." The redhead grinned at the backhanded compliment he'd given her.
"Sounds good! Tell me if I can-"
"Jazzy-bear!" Called the prepubescent voice of her boyfriend. The girl grimaced in spite of herself and smiled apologetically to Huey.
"Jazzy-bear?" He asked with the slightest of smirks. Jazmine felt her cheeks flush. She never got the chance to respond as Bobby was upon her and whisking her away to their first class, American History.
It was later that day that she suddenly found flaws in Bobby. Admittedly his personality hadn't really been factored into the equation of their relationship to begin with, however the mixed-race girl was haunted by the realization of his character. Namely that the blonde was a complete and utter wimp. Whenever he was confronted with a problem he just gave up. He'd whine a little but he did nothing to change the problem and half of the time he didn't understand the nature of his problems anyway. It was pathetic and made Jazmine unnecessarily frustrated with him. She broke up with him after class and spent the rest of the day sitting in front of the school with Huey, listening as he tried to right their corrupt world. The redhead never told her friend that she broke up with her first boyfriend nor did she tell him why.
The second time was in the eighth grade. The mixed-race girl had tried to avoid the romantic aspect of her social life over the past two years instead trying to deepen her friendship with Huey while also making new friends in her middle school. However peer pressure inevitably caused her will to cave in as her clique never ceased to nag her about going out with a boy. She chose according to her new friends' decision. They thought she'd make a cute couple with a boy who tended to flirt with her in her English class, Tommy Robinson. Tommy was redheaded and pale with freckles coating his face, arms, and upper torso much like the stars coated the night sky. He was sweet although his gaze tended to wander. Admittedly Jazmine didn't have a problem with that as she wasn't exactly attached to this particular boyfriend. She was just dating him to date someone.
Tommy and Jazmine would sit together in English class. He was constantly passing her notes full of jokes in poor taste and observations of the teacher's receding hairline. This made it exceedingly hard to focus in class and soon enough her grade took a slight dive. On the other hand she sat with Huey in her Government class. Her friend was not only not interrupting her studies but participating so rigorously in the class that he'd taken over the teacher's role and had taught over half the classes himself. In addition whenever the redhead was confused the boy was more than willing to tutor her and help her understand the body that governed so much of her life. She'd known so little of the world she was a part of and upon hearing some of this information she finally understood Huey. Jazmine knew very little but she'd become aware of a very upsetting problem and was filled with the urge to correct it. Huey was so full of information on the topic and understood it so much better than she did, the girl finally understood why it was the boy was so driven to change their world. She'd always respected him but after this it evolved into a new type of respect- admiration.
After Tommy passed a note to Jazmine during English comparing their teacher's nearing baldness to the stereotypical African American hairstyle, the mixed-race girl broke up with him. Big red letters over the pencil scrawlings of his note. Immediately afterwards she requested to change seats. When asked why by her teacher the normally bubbly redhead responded that the boy had insulted her culture. That was close enough to the race card to cause the teacher to hurriedly move Tommy to the back of the classroom and replace the now empty space beside Jazmine with one of the only other people of color in class, an indian girl named Srija.
Jazmine's clique didn't give up for the rest of the eighth grade year and encouraged her to give dating another go. Each of the girls was in a relationship of varying intensity. It was strange for them to have a single friend. As they tried to push the redhead back into the game, Jazmine put more effort into understanding the social crises of her time. She doubted that the inherent racism of the American society was the only problem for her to help fix. Research inspired Jazmine to become thoroughly entrenched in animal rights activism. For once she knew more about a subject than Huey and found that she loved to compare her fight to his. The retired domestic terrorist seemed to respect her more now that she'd found a purpose even if it wasn't the same as his. The two attended rallies together for both civil and animal rights. Huey no longer hesitated to call Jazmine his best friend and that was the most gratifying experience for the teen. Ten pages of her diary were filled out the night he first admitted it aloud.
The third instance occurred right around the end of her eighth grade year. This one Jazmine blames herself for the most. His name was Jerome Casey and he was one of the few other African American kids in their school. He was pretty attractive and would flirt with her pretty frequently, although he admittedly flirted with a lot of girls pretty frequently. Before she accepted his invitation to date she made sure to get Huey's advice on the decision. The mulatto girl remembered their conversation perfectly.
"What do you think I should do?" The redhead asked desperately as her best friend lazily pulled textbooks from his locker.
"Well," he said as his dark eyes slid over to look at her, "do you like him?"
Her mouth clammed up as she felt her cheeks turn as pink as her skin color allowed. "I- well- yeah." He smiled gently at her and dumped his books into his backpack.
"Then go for it." The retired domestic terrorist slung his backpack over his shoulder, "besides I think this is the first one where you really had a choice in the matter of who you date."
Jazmine fell into step beside him and smiled back. "Yeah."
His pace was slow and the girl found herself really enjoying the moment. She wasn't looking forward to them having to go their separate ways for their different classes. "You know what that means," he said. She glanced at him curiously. One of his rare smirks set her heart aflame. "It means we know you're into black guys." Her face exploded into red as he laughed.
"H-Huey!" She squeaked as she whacked his rock hard arm. The mulatto girl was literally incapable of physically hurting her best friend. Unfortunately that didn't mean she wasn't able to injure him in any manner as was proved a month later.
The first month dating Jerome was quite pleasant. There were some rocky moments but the relationship was pretty solid in Jazmine's opinion. Occasionally her boyfriend would 'express concern' over how frequently she hung out with the 'crazy African 'fro dude' that was Huey. He doesn't like them attending so many rallies together but when she offered that Jerome come with them the teen responded that he was busy at that time (without actually knowing when that time was). Jerome was sweet on so many other occasions that the girl tried to not let that one thing bother her. The real problem didn't surface until one day when he suggested something while they were cuddling on her couch.
"What?" she said while stiffening in his arms.
"Babe," he drawled lazily, "what'chu getting so freaked about? I'm jus' sayin' you should try straightening yo hair."
"I," the mulatto girl sucked in a shaky breath as she directed her emerald eyes at the ground, "I don't know, Jerome. I mean, it's just-"
"You worried about what the crazy African 'fro dude will say?" the teen didn't wait for a response, "babe, I know he's your friend but you can't let him run your life." She bit her lip as she looked at her boyfriend, "it ain't his hair. 'S yo hair. You can do what you want with it. It doesn't matter if you two don't have matching 'fros for a day or however long. If he's trying to tell you how to wear yo hair then it ain't yo hair anymore and he clearly don't respect you."
Jazmine didn't know why she gave into him. "I- okay. One day only and I'm only trying it out. Okay?"
"Hella yeah, babe!" He gave her a chaste peck on the lips which was as intimate as they'd ever been.
The next day she woke up early to straighten her hair for school. However it quickly became apparent that she hadn't awoken early enough as she'd barely gotten half of her hair done when first period began. When she finished the girl examined her image in the mirror. Her auburn hair was surprisingly long when flat. The texture looked strange, almost plastic-y now that they'd been melted into shape. Her head smelt burnt. She didn't know whether or not she liked it because, in spite of how uncomfortable she felt, how much it felt like she betrayed Huey, conforming to traditional standards of beauty made her feel good. It was so comforting to fit in. Insecurities hid so neatly under the false image conveyed by her appearance.
It was her hair and Huey didn't have the right to tell her what to do with it; this is what she told herself over and over as she walked to school. Jazmine had the fortune to arrive during a passing period. Her straightened hair was surprisingly powerful. People looked her in the eye more readily and smiled more to her. The flirtation rate also rose considerably. None of this meant anything, however, when she noticed her best friend leaning against her locker. He must have heard that she was absent for the first couple periods. Steeling herself, the mulatto girl sucked in a deep breath and strode confidently towards him.
When he spotted her, his jaw slackened. The only other emotions could be seen in his surprisingly expressive eyes. Jazmine had learned to read those wine colored orbs like books over the years. First was shock, confusion, a slight hint of anger, but in the end of all that gave way to pain. Oh god, OH GOD, she'd hurt him. She'd actually hurt him. Her worst fears were being realized. 'It isn't his hair,' Jerome's voice whispered in the back of her mind. It wasn't his hair. Suddenly Jazmine was angry that he would let something so- so insignificant hurt him. He was supposed to be stronger than this! How dare he be upset about her decision to straighten her hair.
When she was close enough, the teen scooted out of the way while he kept his eyes downcast. She opened the locker and tried her hardest to conceal her anger.
"So," Huey's deep voice caused her to flinch. She glared into her locker as he kept speaking. "You hair."
"What about it?" Jazmine snapped before realizing how visibly her best friend recoiled. "L-look, I just wanted to try something new, alright? You don't have to act so hurt that I'm not, I don't know, jumping headfirst onto your black power idealism or something." She wasn't speaking proper English near the end but the message was clear enough.
"Jazmine," his voice pulled at her heartstrings way too strongly. Her chest tightened the same way it did when she watched one of those sad romance movies. "I am hurt."
"Why?" She whined in exasperation as she turned to look at him, "it isn't even your hair!"
"No, it's not." He acknowledged as he drew himself up so that he stood straight. Huey towered over her and the girl suddenly felt so small. "But you are my friend, my best friend. You straightening your hair is equivalent to me wearing a mink fur coat." On that note he turned away and walked down the hall, not once looking back.
The teen pondered his words. If her best friend had ever elected to wear any actual fur coat, mink or otherwise, she would've been furious. It would've been the greatest insult to her beliefs. It would have undermined the respect that was so essential in their relationship. She technically didn't have the right to tell him how to dress but it would hurt if he chose to dress that way in spite of her wishes. It would've hurt so much. And she'd just done the exact same thing to him.
Slamming her locker shut in frustration, Jazmine held back the tears. It wasn't even her idea to do this. It was Jerome's! Stupid Jerome! Speak of the devil, he was suddenly behind her.
"Hey beautiful," he said never once acknowledging the wetness in the corners of her emerald eyes, "you look great. I told you this would be a good look for you. You're like Britney Spears, super hot. You should definitely wear it like this all the time."
Glowering at him, the mulatto girl spat, "it isn't your hair." She hiked her oversized purse containing her books higher up on her shoulder and spun away from him. "We're breaking up." Jerome stood frozen as the girl ran in the direction she'd seen her very best friend go. Catching sight of his broad shoulders towering high over the pale skinned crowd that filled the hallways, Jazmine called out to him. "Huey!" He stopped. He looked over his shoulder so that his wine colored eyes fell on her and she felt her heart skip a beat. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize how much this would hurt you," the gentleness in her eyes sent her heart soaring. "However," he tensed, "if you ever wear a mink fur coat I will skin you myself." He chuckled and the tiniest smile set upon his lips. His sharp eyebrows relaxed upwards just enough for her to see how relieved he was. And God, if he wasn't her best friend, she didn't know what she'd do. There was simply no way for him not be her best friend and at the same time she almost wished something insane- something that could never be.
That summer she'd spent at a beach house timeshare her parents invested in. She'd wanted to invite the Freemans but her father thought it might be for the best if the destructive family keep it's distance from the rental property. Jazmine met a vacationing boy who was just so nice to her. They started out as friends but it eventually morphed into a summer fling. His name was Gerald Johansson. He was a sports buff, loved telling stories, and quite funny. He had a hi-top fade that would make Huey proud. Jazmine almost wished the two could meet. Almost. The mulatto girl decided she'd never tell anyone in Woodcrest about her short romance with him. It seemed like he was in a similar state of mind. Both of them were in denial about something. Jazmine was pretty sure that Gerald had a girl he liked back where he was from but he'd yet to realize it. However what she was hiding from, the girl wasn't sure.
Near the end of the summer the two sat on the beach together, preparing to say their goodbyes.
"It's been fun." Jazmine said as she stared out into the ocean.
"Yeah." Silence consumed the two. "Since, we likely won't ever see each other again should we just get everything out into the open." The redhead nodded. "We're obviously not in love with each other."
"Obviously," the girl parroted. "I think of you more as a friend than a boyfriend."
"Yeah," he watched seagulls float above them, "same. Anyway, want to tell me about the guy you're really in love with?"
"Me?!" Jazmine squeaked as she whipped her head to look at the teen. "No, you're the one with somebody back home. I-I don't like anyone."
"No way!" Gerald protested as he turned to her. "You're totally in love with the one guy you kept talking about! What was his name, H-something?"
"H-Huey! No! We're best friends! We aren't like that! You're clearly in love with the Asian girl you kept mentioning."
"I am not in love with Phoebe! I just think she's really cool and smart and nice and pre-" The two fell into silence. "So, I guess we both needed a bit of a wake up call."
"I'm not in love with Huey." The mulatto pouted. "I love him but I'm not in love with him."
"Mm-mm, girl," Gerald rolled his eyes, "you're head over heels for him. You think the world of that boy."
She was holding back tears now. "It-it wouldn't matter even if I did. He'd never look at me that way." Why was she talking about that? Why was she about to cry? Jazmine was so confused. Was she really in love with Huey.
"You kidding me?" The athlete said as he wrapped a friendly arm around her shoulders, "from what little I know it sounds like you're the closest person to him. If anyone has an uphill battle ahead of them, it's me. Phoebe. she's so out of my league, Jaz. She's the smartest kid in our school- maybe our entire city. She's got class. I'm just some idiot who knows how to tell a good story and throw a ball through a hoop."
"Gerald, you're an idiot. You've got to be the most charming guy I know. There's no way she'd say no to you," Jazmine said while wiping at her eyes.
The two fell into silence again. "Want to exchange phone numbers so we can cheer each other on with our love troubles?" He suggested after a while.
"Yeah."
Through their texting conversations for the years to come Jazmine would learn more about Gerald's trials and tribulations. During Sophomore year he'd sent her a text saying that he'd gotten Phoebe to accept a date with him. The next day she'd gotten a strange text from him asking her to identify herself and her relationship with Gerald. The boy later reassured her that it was from Phoebe's overprotective best friend and that he had no idea how the girl had gotten her hands on, not only his phone, but also access to all social media, email, IM accounts. and otherwise just to make sure he wasn't trying to pull a fast one on her bestie. It reminded Jazmine of Huey and the way he reacted to her only boyfriend of their freshman year.
Freshman year started with the realization that she was in love with Huey Freeman. This was followed up by complete dejection. The girl had casually asked her best friend what his ideal type of girl was. He replied with a complete and utter rejection of anything romantic in nature.
"I'm too busy for romance," were his exact words. She was in a dark place for a little bit and that lead to her accepting Josh Carmine's invitation to go out about a week later. Josh Carmine was infamous in the school for dating, fucking, and dumping girls at a lightning speed. He usually had at least three girls going at once. At the time the girl hadn't known any of this. Huey, on the other hand did.
The day after she became Josh's girlfriend, Huey rushed at her in the hallway. "I-is it true?!" He asked in as panicked of a voice as Huey Freeman could use- meaning it was just barely beyond monotone.
"Is what true?" She asked sourly. Jazmine might've been a smidge resentful that he was so quick to deny her any romantic future with him.
"That you're dating Josh Carmine!" He spoke with such exasperation that the mulatto girl found herself intrigued. Why was he is such a tizzie?
"Yes," she turned to face him, "I am."
The retired domestic terrorist slapped his hand to his forehead. "Oh fuck, Jazmine. Why?"
"What does it matter?" She was having a bit too much fun messing with her best friend.
"Jazmine, are you trying to tell me you don't know?" Groaning, he bore his maroon eyes into her own bright green ones. "Josh is notorious for being a cherry picker. He is almost always dating at least three girls at once and trying to get into the pants of any and every girl he comes into contact with." At first Jazmine was terrified for herself but then she acknowledged the figure in front of her. Chances are this knight in shining armor would never let anything happen to her. She was safe enough to have a little fun and get some payback for the emotional torment he put her through.
"Huey," she scolded him, "you shouldn't believe in foundless gossip. Besides, I know Josh. I see a side of him that no one else can."
"Jazmine, please tell me you're joking."
"I never joke about love." With that she strode away from him and let the game begin. She broke up with Josh the next day but never told Huey. For the next two months the boy was always bringing her evidence of the teen's shifty business practices. He had texts, phone calls, emails, numerous online dating profiles, pictures, mail, and so many other things that he couldn't possibly obtain legally. The activist was frantic to protect her and Jazmine found she couldn't get enough of it. It was adorable. She would've kept the scam going longer but one day Huey brought her a video.
They were having lunch outside when her best friend pulled his laptop from his backpack. Without warning he shoved all of her food away from her and placed the laptop in front of her. On the screen was a play button. He handed her headphones and glared at her until she put them in. She regretted it as soon as he hit play. It was a video of Josh engaging in acts of adult nature with a couple different girls from their school. Ten seconds in and the girl had already covered her eyes.
"Oh god! Oh Huey! Why?!" She violently threw the headphones away from her and slammed the laptop shut.
"I wasn't getting through to you so I figured the ultimate evidence would be-"
"Huey!" Jazmine whined as she looked over at the male. "I haven't been dating him for two months! I broke up with him the day after you told me about him the first time! I just figured I'd mess with you a little!" The two fell into silence for a moment. But then Huey started pouting and it was so cute that the girl couldn't stop herself from bursting out into laughter.
"I wasted so much time collecting this."
"Oh- HAHA- my god - HAHAHA- Hu-HA-Huey!"
"You should've told me."
"HAHAHA I'm HAHAHAHA sorry!"
She kept laughing as he went quiet. Just as she was about to calm herself down and apologize seriously the most magical thing happened. He glanced over at her and smiled. The moment was so perfect, so beautiful, that she tried her hardest to capture every small detail in her mind. Jazmine flung her arms around the teen as she tried to quiet her laughter long enough to tell him something really important. "You're the best, Huey."
He slung one arm around her to return the hug. "So," she could feel his voice rumbling in his chest, "want to send this video and all the other data to the seven girls he is currently dating?"
"YES!"
After that the girl decided she didn't care if he thought he was too busy for romance. Jazmine was definitely going to date, probably going to marry, and maybe even going to have kids with Huey Freeman. Her dating strategy changed as she focused on her new target of getting Huey to consider her romantically.
At first the goal was to make him jealous. She dated multiple nice, kind-hearted, handsome guys that honestly had a chance at winning her heart throughout high school trying to bait her into intervening. However, as long as she was content with her relationship, Huey was happy for her. After that she considered a variation of the Josh incident, where she would purposefully date someone dangerous so the teen would have to come running to her rescue but she didn't like the idea of manipulating her best friend that much. Jazmine dated Huey's rivals, in academics or in sports. However she soon discovered that the retired domestic terrorist wasn't the instigator of these rivalries and that it was always the other party accusing him of being their greatest competition. Huey couldn't care less about these pests. He had a higher calling. That didn't mean that he didn't thoroughly cream the rivals whenever they challenged him, just that he didn't care about it the same way they did.
Soon enough the two were graduating high school. Huey wanted to go straight to dedicating himself to political activism but Jazmine convinced him that he'd have a much more potent edge if he played by the white man's rules and went to college to earn a degree in higher education. They attended Brown University together. The mulatto woman pulled some strings so that their dorms would be in the same building, as close to each other as possible.
College turned out even better for Huey than imagined. The civil rights movement was so thoroughly embraced on the college campus that the man finally fit in. There were more people than just a redheaded mulatto willing to listen to him. Within the first term the African-American was already one of the biggest names of the civil rights movement on campus. He was a celebrity and the center of attention. He was receiving love letters and confessions from women and when he turned all of them down he got the same from men. By the end of his freshman year, Huey was infamous for turning down anyone and everyone that approached him but it didn't stop people from approaching him. Jazmine was burning with jealousy at all times. She tried to bury her insecurities in various relationships but none stuck and Huey still wasn't making a move on her.
It was time for her to play hard ball. That summer she convinced her father to let her get an apartment and then convinced Huey to move in with her as her roommate. Twenty four seven she was playing a serious seduction game. She'd wear booty shorts and clingy tank tops when inside the apartment with him and purposefully fall asleep in compromising positions on the couch in their living room so that he'd have to pick her small form clad in only an oversized t-shirt and carry her to her bed. Yet still he remained stoic.
It was during winter term that she finally got him to crack under the pressure. She'd started to leave the shower only clad in a towel and would hang out in the living room, still only in a towel, for ten to thirty minutes before finally changing back into her regular clothes. As she lounged on their couch in her towel watching the TV Huey sat at the table with a bowl of cereal in front of him. He let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead before speaking up.
"Jazmine," the redhead sat up and glanced back at her roommate. "Look, you do realize that I'm a guy, right?"
"Well, yeah," she responded as she leaned forward slightly allowing the man a peek at the swell of her chest. His wine eyes were averted immediately and the mulatto allowed herself to smirk.
"So maybe you shouldn't walk around in only a towel so frequently?" His discomfort made her giddy. It was pretty clear he wasn't asexual and wasn't aromantic because of biology. He was willfully abstaining from romance in the name of social justice but she could change that. She'd prove that he could have both his social justice agenda and a relationship with her. But Jazmine wasn't cruel and Huey wasn't ready so she held back the overt seduction- a little. Changing gears the woman instituted a new plan.
Jazmine began to ease him into the idea of a romantic relationship by doing all things things they'd do if they were in a romantic relationship aside from intimacy. The redhead insisted they go on outings together, which were basically dates but Huey didn't know that. They'd go to movies, restaurants, clubs, concerts, parks, carnivals, libraries, anywhere that Jazmine wanted to go. She touched him a lot; they were innocent touches, usually hugs or nudges or just her fingertips running down his arm. At first he was suspicious of her actions but eventually he became used to it. By the middle of their junior year she'd made it entirely normal for them to snuggle on the couch. The inexperienced Huey probably just assumed it was platonic in nature but the redhead savored every moment of feeling his muscled body wrapped around hers.
When senior year rolled around it was time for the mastermind to make a decision. Would she keep going easy on him or would she finally seal the deal. Before she could make up her mind life decided for her. It'd been her twenty first birthday and Riley and Cindy had come to celebrate. The two much more intense young adults took the college students to a local club to celebrate. The youngest Freeman pressured Jazmine into drinking and the rest of the night became a blur.
It was the next morning when Jazmine woke up in the same bed as her roommate with the both of them in the nude that she knew it was time to finalize the long game she'd been playing. He woke up with a groan, his free hand flying immediately to his head to cradle what must've been a painful headache. Evidently he hadn't been sober when he'd (literally) gotten into bed with her. Pretending to still be asleep, the mulatto tightened her grip on his other arm which lay wrapped in her own limbs and slightly under her thigh. When his wine colored eyes opened to investigate why one of his arms wasn't able to move, his entire body stiffened. Jazmine fought hard to hide her smile and keep her breathing steady and deep.
When Huey didn't move for the next few minutes the woman decided it was time to stoke the fire. She shifted slightly and faked the slow process of waking up. Her emerald eyes opened slowly and her eyelids remained droopy to imitate the just woke up look. She found him staring at her face, panic, fear, and a tumultuous war of so many emotions occurring in his eyes. It was utter chaos and she needed to run damage control fast.
"Hu-," the mulatto paused to yawn just to make sure she was really selling it, "Huey? What are you doing in my bed?"
"I genuinely don't know but it, uh, looks like we-" he motioned down at their entangled bodies with his eyes. The redhead glanced down at the familiar sight before smiling a small smile and snuggling closer to the retired domestic terrorist. Her eyes drifted closed as he stared at her incredulously. "Are- are you okay with this?" She'd never heard so much panic in his voice before. "Apparently a drunken me took advantage of a drunken you and that's basically sexual assault."
"Huey," Jazmine whined while trying to bury her face into his shoulder, "I could not possibly be more okay with this."
"Jazmine, it isn't okay. I basically raped you. I have to take responsibility." The redhead was hating the sexual assault awareness course the school had required all the students to take a few weeks ago.
"You want to take responsibility?" She asked as she propped herself up on her elbows and glowered down at him. "Fine. Marry me."
"W-what?" Huey sputtered as he tried to understand what his best friend was trying to say. "We aren't even dating!"
"Then date me!" Jazmine groaned as she flopped back down onto him. "And after that marry me." She paused to consider something for a moment. "And then after that have kids with me- yes, we can name them after black civil rights leaders: Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Al Sharpton, whatever you want." They fell into silence for a moment. Huey opened his mouth to say something but the redhead effectively cut him off. "No negotiating. Besides we're basically already dating. All this means is that I get to kiss you now." Which reminded her- the mulatto girl lifted herself up to kiss him on the lips before settling down into a hug.
"Are- are you emotionally blackmailing me into dating you?"
"Oh my god, Huey." Jazmine groaned. "Look, you're my best friend and I love you. I am also in love with you. I want to date you. I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. How do you feel about me?"
He fell into silence as she glared at him with her emerald orbs. Finally he spoke. "Roughly the same."
Deciding to do a victory dance later, the redhead smiled. "There. You benefit from us dating. Now shut up so we can cuddle." His muscled arms wrapped around her as they settled back into the bed.
A moment of silence passed before a little part of Huey suddenly egged him into doing something juvenile. He spoke suddenly. "I knew you were into black dudes."