The Other Side of the Pillow

I wondered how she knew that. I had on a loose dress; I wasn’t trying to announce my pregnancy right off the break to anyone at the school. Not even Lilibeth.

“You’re tripping. I’m not pregnant.”

“I can see it in your face. It’s not fatter or anything, but you have that glow.”

“I went to Saint Thomas for a few days. It’s a tan.”

Winsome stood there and started tapping her foot on the concrete. “Humph, you can’t fool me. I’ve seen your ass when you’ve come back from vacation before and I’ve had enough chicks in my family and friends who’ve had babies to tell a pregnancy glow.”

I was in a panic. Not because I cared about Winsome figuring it out, but I wondered if other people at school would figure it out. My faculty was comprised of people who had at least one child, if not several. And Lilibeth had grandchildren.

“How many months are you?” Winsome asked, snapping me out of my trance.

“None of your business,” I replied, walking past her. “I don’t have time for this. I have more than two thousand students to get situated and organized. I need to finish writing my back-to-school speech.”

“I’m sure you finished writing that a month ago.” Winsome smirked. She was right. I would never wait until the last minute for something like that. “You look good, girl. So I take it that you and Tevin are back together. He is the father, right?”

That does it!

“I don’t have whore tendencies like you!”

Winsome sucked her teeth. “Wow! You just gonna stand there and call me a whore. So that’s where we are now!”

I sat the crate down on the ground. “No one told your ass to come here, to my place of employment, trying to start some kind of spectacle with me. You already know. I don’t do theatrical performances.

“And that’s why we are nowhere now. I didn’t come for you; you came for me. Now you can turn your scandalous, stank ass around and go crawl back into the cave you came out of.”

“Jemistry, I swear. If you weren’t pregnant, I’d—”

“Tell you what. Meet me here on the first day of school next year. Same place, same time, and we can go out in the woods behind the school and fight until I knock your fucking block off.”

Winsome was obviously shocked. Truth be told, I was shocking myself by talking and acting that way.

“You think resorting to violence is the answer?” I asked her. “That says a lot about your character, or lack thereof. Grown women discuss matters. Little girls throw punches. But if you want to go there, like I said, next year, and we can make it happen.”

She was about to say something, opened her mouth, and then shut it again while she thought of a comeback and digested my words.

Meanwhile, I attempted to regain my composure. People were starting to stare at us, sensing that something was wrong. The last thing I needed was to end up on some YouTube video and end up losing my job. Winsome wasn’t worth it.

“Winsome, this is exactly why we can’t be friends.” I waved my left hand up and to the side. “There’s nothing left. You went too far. I did nothing but support you, love you like a sister, and even paid your bills when that bullshit job you were doing fell off. I bet you’re somewhere mooching off someone else right now.”

She dropped her eyes, letting me know that I was on point.

“We’re too damn old . . . you’re too damn old to still be trying to figure out what direction you want to take with your life. You’ve had twenty different jobs since I’ve known you, none of them with any chance for progression. You’ve been crawling your way through life instead of getting your ass up and running.

“I’m sick of it. What you did to Tevin was the final act of a tragic Shakespearean play.”

Winsome glared at me. “What I did to him?”

“Oh, please!” I exclaimed in disgust. “Even now, you’re prepared to still stand there and lie to my face. I admit that you had me there for a hot minute. Hell, months even. You made me break off the first real thing with the first real man that I’ve had in years, over your weak-ass self-esteem.”

“How dare you?”

“No, how the fuck dare you?” I retorted. “You’ve been riding the fence your entire damn life. Not sure what you want to do for a living. Not sure what you want to study in school. Not sure whether you want to settle down with a man or a woman. Not sure about jack shit.

“And then you wonder why no one has ever loved you, or even tried to love you.”

Winsome started trembling. If I weren’t pregnant, she actually may have jumped me she was so mad.