Nineteen years ago; Howard University

SERENITY FREEMAN

“I’m telling you, baby, I was out there killing shit. That nigga from Morehouse had the ball, and I was on his ass. You in my house, nigga, so give me that shit. Had him sweating like a motha fucka. Fumbled the ball, so now it was in my hands. Baby , I was halfway across the court. Shot that shit so easy. Easy , Bay -Bay . Shot for three, and I kept doing that shit throughout the game. Beat they ass 101-80,” my man boasted, standing up from his bed, where I was lying, and showing me the moves that he’d done tonight on the basketball court.

I was the girlfriend of Dionte Reed Jr ., and I loved this man to pieces. He and I were seniors at Howard University and had been together since we were college freshmen. Our love story started a little differently. Usually , when a couple gets together, it tends to be the male who shoots their shot, but not with us. I was bold and quick on my feet, and I went for anything I wanted in life. And , baby, three years ago, when I was just an itty-bitty freshman in the gym, waiting for dance practice to start, I laid eyes on Dionte for the first time and claimed him in my heart as mine.

I’d just made the Ooh La La dance line at Howard , fulfilling one dream of mine. While I was in the gym stretching, the basketball players were wrapping up practice. Now , when my parents dropped me off at college, they told me that my purpose for being there was to receive an education. My mom made it clear that it was cool to have a little crush and maybe go on a few dates, but she drilled that shit in my head that I didn’t need to leave Miami and go all the way to Washington to fall my ass in love. I heard the preaching, but the second my brown eyes landed on Dionte , all the conversations that I’d had with my mom went out the window.

God took extra time creating Dionte , so if you run into an ugly brotha, you’ll know he got shortchanged on the looks because God had been too busy giving all the good stuff to Dionte . Now , prior to Dionte , I was in a relationship with my high school sweetheart, Chez . You couldn’t tell me shit when it came to Chez . We got together during my sophomore year, and honestly, our breakup was fresh when I got to Howard .

Chez and I had different goals. I went to Washington to attend college, and Chez wanted to go to the Marines . I had made up my mind that he and I were going to do the whole long-distance relationship thing. He was going to pop up on me one day at one of the games, surprise me, and witness me dancing, but the bastard obviously wasn’t on the same kind of time that I was.

I remember the day it happened verbatim. I’d gone over to his house, and that day, he was acting funny as hell with me. He didn’t hug me as long as he usually did, our kiss didn’t hold any kind of passion, and I didn’t see that gleam in his eyes for me that I usually saw whenever I was around him. I knew something was up. I knew Chez . At that time, he had been in my life for two years already, and I pretty much knew all sides of him. That day, he had me go into the room with him, where he told me he would be leaving for the Marines that same weekend, and he basically broke up with me. He cried as he said those things to me because the bastard knew he was breaking my heart.

I’d always known that Chez was going to the Marines , but I’d always assumed he would enlist a few months after graduation. When he laid that on me, we’d literally just graduated from high school a week before. That was the first time I can honestly say that I experienced heartbreak. I wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t live a perfect life, but nothing to that extreme had ever happened to me, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. With the emotions that I went through, you would have thought Chez had been murdered because I took the news so hard. Even after he’d just broken my heart into a million pieces, I still opened my legs for him and let him get the pussy one last time. It was our goodbye sex. I think we both knew that would be the end of the Chez and Serenity show.

Chez was who I lost my virginity to. It happened during my sophomore year after we had been dating for a while. He’d asked me to go with him to the homecoming dance, and, of course, I said yes. I gave up something to him that night that I will never get back, and to this day, I don’t have any regrets. I had sex with Chez that night because I loved him, and you couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t going to marry him, have his kids, and spend the rest of my life with him, but that’s just not the way things went. Now , after I’d already been through the motions and experienced my heartbreak, I can say that I’m content with the way things played out.

My mom knew how I could be when I got into relationships. Hell , I’m a Cancer . My sign was voted the most affectionate, and I was a living witness. I’m a lover, and being in love will have my ass skipping dance practice, wanting to lay up under my partner any chance I could. If by any chance, we could connect our souls and bodies, so we didn’t ever have to part ways, then I was cool with that too.

Back in high school, when I was with Chez , my mom used to tell me, “Girl , your ass is stupidly in love.” You would think she would be able to relate since she and my father were high school sweethearts as well, but I felt that my parents just didn’t like the idea of their daughter being in love and having sex. I was cool with my parents, but I was closest to my mother. My dad and I had a relationship that was up and down because he wasn’t as supportive of me chasing my dream to be a dancer the way my mother was. Since that was the case, when I started having thoughts about having sex with Chez , it was my mom that I went to.

Of course, she tried to steer me in a different direction and get me to change my mind, but she knew when it came down to it, I would do what I wanted regardless. Hell , that’s how teenagers were. I wasn’t an only child. I had a younger sister named Scarlet . That was my girl. She and I were close as hell, and I would take a bullet for her. My mom had literally given birth to my best friend, and I was thankful for my sister each day.

My experience with Chez had me swearing that I would never date again in life. My goal was to come to Howard University , major in performing arts, make the dance team, and become captain in my senior year. All of that went out of the window the first time my eyes landed on Dionte . It was his chocolate skin that had me pausing, having to pinch myself, and wondering if this man was even real. His skin was perfect. I had dark skin myself, and I didn’t begin to embrace my chocolate skin until I got to high school. During my early years in elementary and middle school, it was definitely something the other kids would tease me about.

Going into high school and seeing other boys and girls who looked like me and even having dark-skinned teachers who thought so highly of their blackness rubbed off on me. I learned to appreciate my skin, and boy, did I appreciate Dionte’s black skin. Not only was he nice and chocolate, but he was tall. He was only a freshman at the time, and he was already 6’6.” Both of his arms were already filled with ink from his tattoo sleeves too.

Dionte was a Cali boy, so his accent and everything were much different from my Miami drawl, and it enticed me. His ass was hood as hell, too, even though he came from money and was the son of a professional NBA player. Dionte’s mouth was filled with gold teeth, but they were pull-outs, so it was nothing for him to take them out and show his perfect pearly whites. He had nice, smooth looking waves in his hair. A perfect face. The kind of face that was so beautiful that you just knew he had a beautiful mother. Perfect white teeth, some very large hands, big feet, and a big… yeah, we’ll get into that later.

See , when I originally saw Dionte , I didn’t know who he was. Like , I didn’t know his name held so much weight. His father was Dionte Reed Sr ., who played point guard for the Lakers and had just retired a year prior. Now , I knew who Dionte Reed Sr . was, even though I wasn’t too much of a basketball fan. I just didn’t have a clue that his son attended our school, and that’s who I had been gushing over as I stretched. It wasn’t until Brooklyn , my teammate on the dance team and now my best friend, came over, saw me staring, and told me who he was.

I was bold. I knew I was beautiful and not to sound too cocky, but I knew I could snatch any man I wanted. So , when their practice ended, and before ours could even start, I said the first thing that came to my mind, which was, “I hope to see you play like that Saturday night.”

Now , you must understand how bold I was to say this because I had opened so many doors for this man to clown me in front of his teammates because there were other players standing around. I just remember Dionte hitting me with that award-winning smile, looking me up and down, and he was like putty in my hands. I got him, got the phone number, and we were going on year three since I’d been throwing the pussy to his dick and his mouth, knowing he’d catch it each and every time. All that talk about me not coming there to fall in love was a distant memory because I had it bad for this nigga.

“I really wish I could have seen you play. I’m sorry, baby,” I said. My voice sounded really raspy because I’d lost it.

When I made that comment, Dionte dropped the mini basketball that he had been holding and got in bed with me, pulling me his way, so I could lay on his chest. I was going through something heavy and lowkey, it had caused me to become depressed. I was living with lupus.

I was diagnosed when I was fifteen years old. Back then, I had been complaining to my mom for a few days about muscle pains. At the time, my parents didn’t think anything of it because I was on the dance team at my high school and practicing for long hours, so my body was under a lot of strain. My mom had me in dance since I was four years old, and I overworked the hell out of myself because I wanted to be the closest thing to perfect, so the muscle pain wasn’t a big concern.

My mom didn’t freak out until I broke out in a bad rash and started running a fever. That’s when she rushed me to the hospital, and it was pretty much confirmed that day that I had lupus. The rash was the first sign, but through my urine and blood work, it was confirmed. Since then, I had been in treatment, but there isn’t a cure for lupus. Every once in a while, I had a bad flare, which is what I had experienced over the past few days and why I had been in bed, not wanting to move because my body was in so much pain. This was one of the worst flares I’d had since being diagnosed.

To make matters worse, it was homecoming week, and I was captain of the dance team. I’d just missed out on dancing at my last homecoming game at Howard University as the captain. This shit was hurting me physically and mentally, and I’d been in bed all day. Tonight was Dionte’s basketball game, and I missed it. Having to lie there and listen to him tell me what I missed caused me to get super emotional, and I all of a sudden started crying.

“Sit up, Bay -Bay . Let me look at you,” Dionte said as he grabbed my arm and lifted me up.

Bay -Bay was one of the many nicknames that he’d given me. Siri is something that he often called me, too. This man would call me everything except Serenity , but I didn’t mind. I loved the cute names he had for me. During our freshman year, I gave Dionte the nickname ‘Mr . Man .’ To me, he was just the man. He handled his business on that court, so I called him Mr . Man one day, and everybody ran with it. Now , that was the nickname he was known by around campus. Even when college basketball was on, that’s how the commentators referred to him. If I wasn’t calling him Mr . Man , it was Te and all the other sweet nicknames that I had for him.

I sat up and looked him in his beautiful light brown eyes. Mr . Man was everything and more to look at. He had the perfect physical shape, which was due to all the hard work he put in at the gym, on the court, and even the long runs he liked to take. He was in better shape than anyone I knew, which is crazy because he could eat down an entire house.

I sat up, admiring his six-pack. His chest and arms were so nice and strong. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so I could easily see all the tattoos that adorned his chest, stomach, and his arms. He wore his basketball shorts that sagged off his waist a bit, and white socks were on his feet.

Once I was fully up and looking him in his eyes, he brought his left hand out and cuffed my chin. “Your health comes first, Bay -Bay . I know you’re pissed that you didn’t get to dance in your final homecoming game and you didn’t get the chance to watch me ball out tonight, but Siri , you're right where you're supposed to be right now. You need to get better, so you can come back and be 100%. I hate seeing you down like this. Trust me, that shit fuckin’ rocks at my heart. This lupus shit, in general, is something I hate, and it breaks a nigga’s heart when I see you have these flares. Your body gets these rashes, and it isn’t shit that I can do to stop that pain.

“We going to get through this shit, though. Ima graduate and I’m going to be a first-round pick for the Lakers , just like my pops. You going to graduate, do your fuckin’ thing with dancing, and you going to have a big ass dance studio with people wrapped around the building to audition for Mrs . Reed’s dance team. Bay -Bay , we going to be good,” Dionte assured me.

Tears fell from my eyes as he spoke to me. Truth be told, I wanted all those things to happen as well, but living with lupus sometimes scared me and put negative thoughts in my mind, making me believe I might not make it that far in life. Each flare seemed worse than the previous one, and the pain always increased each time. Lupus was a deadly disease, and I was only twenty-one years old with fears that I wouldn’t even make it to thirty.

“Te , what if—”

“Nah , we not doing that. No what ifs. Baby , you’re going to fuckin’ be here, aight? Right by my fuckin’ side, doing this thing called life with me. You ain’t leaving me, so stop thinking like that, please. We got too much to take care of in this lifetime for you to even think about checking out on a nigga. Who the fuck else going to give me them back massages like you do whenever I get home from practice or after my games?” he asked.

I laughed through my tears as I picked up one of the pillows and threw it at him.

“All I’m good for is giving you back massages?” I playfully asked as I rolled my eyes at him.

Dionte released a yawn, pulled me to him, and laid me down. He got behind me, wrapped his right arm under my breast, and buried his head into the crook of my neck. I felt so comfortable in his arms. His arms had always been my safe place.

“You know you not only good for back massages with a nigga. My heart beats for you, Siri . Swear to God , if I didn’t have you, I would be drowning,” his deep voice whispered in my ear.

A tear fell from my eyes as I listened to the beautiful words Te poured into me.

“I love you, Mr . Man ,” I announced and yawned right after since I was tired as hell.

“I love you too, Bay -Bay ,” he responded, followed by a kiss on the neck.

Within a minute, the two of us had dozed off in each other’s arms. The only thing on my mind was hope that tomorrow would be a better day because this had surely been a week from hell.