Chapter 5: Remember, Part 2

"What's wrong with you?" She passed him a slice of butter cake that she had packed for him. He took it but did not make a move to eat it.

He looked at her suddenly. "Juicy, when you look at me what do you see?"

"What?" She shrugged. "Felix, who else?"

He closed his eyes slowly and sighed. He looked at her again. "No really. What do you see, if you didn't know me, what's your first impression?"

Juicy munched her cake and squinted. "I see a light skinned guy, with light eyes. Sixteen. Thin build but in shape. Hmmm, dress nice-"

"You see a sixteen year old boy." He repeated.

"You are a sixteen year old boy, Felix."

"You don't see a fag? A queer, a punk, a sissy-"

"What the hell?!" She hollered in alarm. "What brought that on?"

"Because that's what everybody else sees." His light eyes flashed, then he calmed and the fire went out.

Juicy did not like seeing him like this. She was quiet for a minute. "Is there anybody in particular that we're talking about?"

He turned to her again. "I like the same guys that you like, Juicy. I like the jock and the brain, and the cute guy with the goatee. Unfortunately, those guys will never like me."

"That's not true." She blinked. "Just because the world is filled with people too chicken to come out the way you have-"

"I did not COME out, Juicy! I was forced out!" He frowned and though his words were angry and frustrated, they suddenly became soft. "The way I walk, and the way I talk, and the way I look meant that I could never hide what I am." She stared at her friend, feeling his pain, but not knowing how to stop it. She was stunned by this conversation because Felix had always been proud of himself¡­or so she had thought. He had always looked openly at what he admired and didn't hide who he was. And now he seemed to be unhappy with what he was. This was not a side of her friend that she was used to seeing.

"Who?" She asked simply.

"Who?" He gave her a confused look.

"Who told you that you were a punk? Who made you feel like this? Who do you like that you think that you can't have?"

He watched her with steady eyes. "Everybody but you."

One day he sat on the roof staring at nothing in particular, with scraped knuckles and the residue of blood beneath his nose; not much different than any other day. But a month later he had either jumped or been pushed off the roof of the building.

Without Felix, High School was intolerable. Her other friends were almost whitewashed compared to Felix with his flair and dramatics. Hell, she felt whitewashed without his encouragement and laughter. And on top of that, the same sorry bitches at school that made you jump off roofs¡­or maybe that even pushed you off roofs¡ªwell those bitches had finally stretched her last nerve; the one that was already stretched far too thin.

One day, one of the light skinned girls had made another black joke about her. The next second that girl was lying on the floor. No one moved. It was just too strange to see the quiet, fat girl react, and at first no one believed what they had seen with their very own eyes.

Juicy returned to her business, but a great weight that had been sitting right over her heart had suddenly lifted. I can breathe, she thought.

Juicy didn't even get in trouble over it. As a matter of fact, the teacher seemed reluctant to punish her for something that they all had long overlooked. And Juicy couldn't stop thinking about how tight her chest had felt and after she let loose on the girl she could breathe, she could think again.

It began happening with more and more frequency; the tightness and then the release¡­same scenario, different facts.

She is just sitting in class, minding her own business and one girl is wearing a denim jumper almost like the one she is wearing; except Juicy's outfit is not a knock-off like the other girl's. And her friends are snickering and making fat jokes. For a moment, Juicy thinks, 'I shouldn't have worn this. I'm never wearing this again¡­' The next minute she is picturing Felix's face when he picked this outfit for her.

Juicy knows that rage has a distinct flavor. She tastes it on her tongue, it's like a copper penny or maybe just the taste in your mouth when your Momma runs a red light and almost kills you and all of the people driving on the street with her.

Yes, that is the taste of rage. First she has the taste, next she is standing up and pounding on the girl and swinging at her friends and there is long hair caught in her fist¡­no not hair, just weave. Girls are crying and the teacher is holding her arms down against her body and screaming over and over, 'Juicy stop!' And then suddenly she can breathe and think again.

It begins happening too often now for her to get off scott free. For that incident she had to go to court. She had given one girl a broken nose, another had gashes in her no-longer-picture perfect face. Juicy didn't remember doing it¡­but one girl's nose was broken and the other girl was all scarred so she couldn't dispute it. Afterwards instead of laughing at her when they walked down the halls, people laughed at those two girls.

The same thugs that used to torment her and chase Felix home last year were following her around this year. She wished that she could talk to Felix and ask him why these fools were bothering with her. But she couldn't. So one day she just turned to one of the more persistent thugs and with wide eyes she just shrugged. "What?!"

The thug grinned. "Why are you trying to play hard to get?" He kept following her, bringing her snack cakes at lunch, slipping her notes, and then catching her behind the school one evening.

She balled her hands into fists. "I'll fight you just as fast as I'll fight any of those bitches in there!"

He just grinned. "I know. A brother needs a strong woman to have his back." Juicy gave him a confused look.

"Why you fooling with me when all those popular girls are always sniffing around you? I see them following you around." In fact she had been watching him as hard as he had been watching her; just trying to see what his game was.

"Because you're fine, Juicy." She had given him a surprised look, and then later had gone home where she promptly stripped out of her fashionable clothes and stood in front of the mirror in her Momma's room.

This time she looked¡ªlooked past the hair that didn't flow to her shoulders like Momma's, and the way her ass and boobs bounced around when she moved. She just looked.

And what she saw is that she had pretty smooth skin that didn't have even one pimple; flawless. Her color was ebony like polished wood, her brow was arched naturally the way that others paid fifteen dollars a pop for her to do for them with a pair of tweezers. Her eyes were deep and black, like endless holes-not even brown but solid black and almond shaped like a Hawaiian's. She had a voluptuous body back when all of the other girls had flat chests and boyish shapes. Big and solid is what she was, like an hour glass, a coke bottle a guitar¡­

Juicy laughed. He said she was fine. Felix said she was fine. Momma said she was fine, so why the hell hadn't she ever seen it? Because she let other people convince her that big and black was ugly.

She went back to school dressed in her most fly suede mini skirt and matching boots with her short hair styled like Anita Baker's. She grabbed the thug-boy between classes, pulling him behind a set of lockers and gave him a kiss; her very first. Afterwards, when she walked down the halls in her tight jeans and baby doll tops, rocking her UGZ and she got stares, Juicy no longer cared. Some maybe thought that she was too fat, some thought that she looked good, but it didn't matter. Juicy already understood everything at the age of sixteen; people will make you want to die. People will make you hate yourself; and you cannot survive that without fighting.