Prologue

Prologue

14-year old Keisha

I watched as Jake dribbled the ball skillfully before jumping and tossing it into the net, it went straight in. I grinned and clapped my hands. He walked towards me and sat beside me, breathing really fast.

“How was that?” He asked as he turned and looked at me expectantly.

“That was really good, Jake.” I told him, watching his blue eyes light up with joy.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I can tell you are going to be a really good basketball player when you grow up.”

“Let’s get you home, it’s getting late. I don’t want your mom to kill me.” We both laughed as we got up and started to walk away from the abandoned basketball court. The walk to my house took just five minutes, Jake’s house was a street from mine, but he always made sure I got home first.

As I walked towards my door, he pulled my hair band from behind.

“Hey,” I smiled as I turned back to face him, already knowing what he was going to say.

“You look more pretty with your hair down.”

My smile widened. I deliberately tied my hair up around him so he could lose it and call me pretty. Then, I caught him staring at me.

“What? Is there something on my face?” I asked him, but he didn’t answer. He just kept staring at me with an expression I couldn’t fathom.

Then, he stepped closer, my chest almost touching his. My heart started to pound loudly in my chest.

This was it. The moment I had been waiting for like forever. Jake was going to kiss me, I had always wanted him to be my first kiss because I had this huge crush on him.

Jake was pretty popular in school among the girls in school, he was handsome but he wasn’t nice to girls so he wouldn’t give them the wrong idea, but this only made girls even more mad over him. Unfortunately, I was one of those girls.

I had liked Jake since we were twelve but I kept my feelings bottled up inside because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I was only going to confess to him if I noticed that he liked me too.

I didn’t want to be forward but, you wouldn’t kiss anyone you didn’t like, right?

I closed my eyes and pouted a bit, but instead of a kiss, I was pulled into a hug. My eyes popped open and stayed confused for a minute before wrapping my arms around his lean body. Jake rarely hugged me.

Then he shuddered as if he wanted to cry but was holding it in.

“Jake?” I wanted to pull away but he only held me tighter.

“Is everything okay? What is wrong with you?” I asked him as worry gripped me.

He pulled back and stared at me for a while, his expression was a mixture of worry, regret and something I couldn't place. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head and smiled.

“Nothing. I just wanted to see how you would react if you saw me crying.” He grinned at me.

“Don’t ever do that again.” I hit his chest playfully, making him laugh. But it didn’t reach his eyes, I noticed there was a bit of sadness and something else in his eyes.

“Hey, are you sure you are okay-“ I was cut off when the door was suddenly pulled open. I turned as I saw my mom standing by it.

“It’s almost bedtime, Keisha.” She said in a firm voice. She doesn’t play with our bedtime. Once it is nine o’clock you have to drop everything you are doing and go to sleep.

“Goodnight Jake. We will talk tomorrow.” I gave him a reassuring smile before heading into the house.

There was only one thing on my mind as I made my way to my room, I was going to confess my feelings to Jake. I had a feeling he wanted to do the same earlier but he was worried about our friendship. 

I tore a piece of paper from one of my notes and sat at my desk. Then I started to scribble out the words on the paper, the way I had been feeling about him all this while. I wrote it there before folding it neatly and put it in a pink envelope, then I scribbled my name on it and placed it in my schoolbag.

I jumped on my bed, grinning like a fool. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come, I couldn’t wait for him to read the letter and tell me that he felt the same way. I couldn’t wait for us to become a couple.

The next morning I was too eager to go to school. I was the first to get out of the house and sit in the car waiting for my dad and my brothers to join us. I checked my bag for the tenth time today to make sure it was still there.

“Dad!” I yelled in a frustrated manner just as he walked out of his house with Joshua and Justin behind him. “Hurry up, we are running late.” 

“Relax, young lady. You still have about an hour before class.” My dad said as he got into the car.

The drive to school had never been as long as it was this morning. I felt like jumping off the vehicle and running to school. My dad was a good driver, trust me, but I just needed to give Jake this letter before I changed my mind.

There weren't many people in school when my dad dropped me off, so I ran to Jake’s locker and quickly inserted the letter into his locker. I turned around and saw Amy standing behind me.

I jumped and let out a scream.

“What are you up to?” She said casually, like she didn’t just sneak up on me.

Amy was my other best friend, although she wasn’t really close to Jake like I was. We became friends a year ago.

“Okay, so I did something really crazy.” I said as I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and we started to walk towards her locker.

“And what’s that?”

“I wrote a letter to Jake, confessing my feelings for him.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Amy stopped walking and stared at me like I had gone crazy.

“What? I thought you said you won’t do that until you are sure that he likes you too.”

“I know it is not sure, but I can feel it, Amy. I think he likes me too, we had a bit of a… um, moment yesterday.” I muttered quietly. I told Amy what happened between Jake and I last night but she didn’t believe that he might like me.

“I guess we will have to wait until he reads the letter.” I said with a shaky breath as we headed to our first class.

The only time I saw Jake today was during lunch break. I was heading towards the cafeteria when I saw him standing by his locker. I quickly ran off in another direction because there was a possibility that he already saw the letter. We didn’t have any classes together so I didn’t see him throughout the rest of the day.

The next day, I was nervous as hell, I hadn’t gotten any response from him and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. I didn’t want to go to school but at the same time I wanted to. 

My dad was the one yelling for me to come out of the house. I sluggishly got into the car and in no time he had already dropped me off.

I signed as I made my way through the hallway. I noticed some girls looking at me and giggling as I walked by. They must have found my expression funny.

But it didn’t end there, people gazed at me and whispered to themselves as I walked past them, it was starting to get suspicious. Was there something on my body? I checked myself to see if there was anything on me but there was nothing.

Some even had papers in their hands. They looked at me, shook their heads and laughed.

“She must think he will stoop down to her level. Serves her right.” I heard someone say loudly and everyone in the hallway bursted into laughter.

My legs became unsteady, sweat from nowhere started to run down my face and my heart started to beat a little too fast that I thought I was having a heart attack.

“Keisha!” I looked up and saw Amy running towards me.

“Have you seen them?” She asked as she stood in front of me, looking really tense.

“Seen what? I don’t understand, what is going on here?” I asked her as I looked around.

“Oh no!” Amy said, her tensed expression turning to a look of pity. She held my hand and dragged me towards an empty classroom. Then she showed me two papers that she was holding.

“I'm going to kill Jake when I see him.” She seethed as I took the papers and read what was written on them.

“Oh my God!” My hand flew to my mouth and a face turned to a look of horror.

“This is the letter I wrote to Jake.” My voice came out as a whisper.

One of the letters contained the letter I had written to Jake and slipped into his locker while the other contained a really cruel rejection letter.

‘If I had known that you had feelings for me, I would have separated myself from you a long time ago. What on earth makes you think I would go out with someone like you? In your wildest dreams, Keisha. It will never happen, I will never be with a crazy nerd like you so, get over it.’

I read it over again until the letters were blurred with my tears. If he wanted to reject me, he could have at least put the letter back in my locker. Why did he have to make copies and make it known to everyone in school?

That was just pure cruelty. Why would Jake do that to me? I wasn’t sure what I had done to make him think of writing something like this about me, but whatever it was, it was clear that he was only offering me pity friendship all this while.

I didn’t need to confront him directly and ask him why he did this, I had read enough of what he thought about me to last a lifetime. He had just made himself my enemy. I hated him from the bottom of my heart and there was no way I would ever forgive him for what he had just done.