Teenage Love Affair Read Free Page A

time we got there. I was quiet as we headed to the apartment, and like clockwork as soon as my mother opened the door, I could hear the telephone ringing. I looked at her. The shiners on her face gleamed like black and blue gold. I wondered what she would think of herself when she looked in the mirror.
    She turned her head once she realized I was looking at the marks on her cheeks and forehead. The phone continued to ring as my mother said, “Don’t answer it.” So I didn’t. I simply sat down in the chair next to the phone because I knew that the phone would ring again.
    Brrrrrnnnngggg… I didn’t even look at my mother. I simply answered the phone. “You have a collect call from,” the recorded operator said, and then paused as my daddy said his name. “Zach.”
    â€œWill you accept the charges?” the operator continued. “If so, press two. If not, hang up.”
    â€œPress two?” I asked my mother, knowing she would say no but meant yes.
    â€œNo. Hang up that phone!” She paused. “Know what? I can’t put you in the middle of this. Press two and give me the phone.”
    I handed her the phone. I started to go into my room, but then I remembered I had to keep my clothes on for when she dropped the charges.
    â€œZach,” my mother said into the phone, “I can’t keep going through these changes. I want more than the constant fights and arguments.” She paused. “But you say that every time.” She paused again. “I love you too, but I need more than love. I need respect. I need for you to keep your hands off of me.” She paused. I knew he was offering gifts, because she started to grin. “You don’t have to buy me diamond earrings, just do the right thing…. Okay, I’ma give you one last try and that’s it. If you put your hands on me again, you got to leave and that’s all to it.”
    My mother’s smile was so wide that the bruises on her face ran into her curled lips. “I’ma drop you and Hadiah off with your aunty Grier. Me and your daddy need to talk.”
    My aunty lived around the corner so it only took us a few minutes to get there, and judging by the look in my aunt’s eyes when we arrived, she knew what my mother was up to.
    â€œDid you look at yourself before you came here?” my aunty said to my mother as she opened the door for us to come in. My twin cousins, Seven and Toi, were standing behind their mother as me and Hadiah walked past her. “What happened?” they whispered. “They were fightin’ again?”
    I nodded my head as my aunty continued on. “Jazmyn, all it takes is for one person to hit their head the wrong way. And then what?”
    â€œWhy are you in my business?” my mother scolded. “Why? All I asked you to do was to keep my girls until I returned. What me and my husband do doesn’t concern you. Worry about yours and his mistress.”
    My aunty slammed the door in her face, and I could hear my mother storm down the stairs and jump into her car.
    â€œIt’s okay, Aunty.” I tapped my aunty on her thigh. “They always make up.”
    â€œNo man is supposed to put his hands on you,” she said to me sternly. “You hear me? No man.”
    â€œI know, but he’s always sorry,” I said, taking up for my daddy. “You’ll see, he’s going to buy her something pretty.”
    My aunty stood silent, her eyes combed my face and seemed to say something to me that perhaps I was too young or too naive to understand. And although I didn’t know everything about life yet, I knew enough to know that she could talk to my mother until she was red in the face, Jazmyn and Zach Fields would never change and Friday nights would always be the same.
    â€œAunty,” I said, breaking the troubling silence, “I need to change my clothes. I have had these things on for two