here's an essay I wrote for English. I'm looking for some input that doesn't come from Professor Danny.
it's called "Jamaican Me Crazy"
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“Me gusta tu, me novio,” she says. She works in a Mexican restaurant and has picked up a few sayings in doing so, one of them, “I like you, my boyfriend.” She looks a bit like coffee and she tastes a little like crème. She's sitting in the front seat of my car, parked in the cul-de-sac of a neighborhood that hasn't been built yet. Her dress is hiked up just above her knobby knees and her panties are down around her pale calves. Her bra is unhooked but not taken off, like her blouse is unbuttoned, but still on her body. Despite all of this though, something is wrong. I should be as crazy about this girl as she supposedly is about me, but it's all I can do to muster the strength to make my lips meet hers. She is my girlfriend, so I hear, but she is not who this story is about. This story is about the girl who will call me tonight, two hours after I've dropped this half-naked young lady sitting inside of my car off at her house, kissed her goodnight, gotten home, and changed into my pajamas, and tell me that she needs to see me, and could I please come to her? Over the span of three hours, she will convince me that the two of us could really work and that I should dump the lovely, Spanish speaking young lady that was sitting in my car hours ago, fumbling in the moonlight to make contact with me, but never getting closer than my skin.
The girl, not the girl that is my girlfriend, but the other one, the one I’ve wanted to be my girlfriend for a year now, Emily, she texts me out of nowhere. “I need you,” she tells me. I haven’t spoken to her in close to a month. “I’m afraid of what I’ll do if you’re not here.” She calls me, blubbering. She’s not doing so well. She’s hurting herself and purging food from her body after meals. She’s just been dumped by some twenty-five year old guy she chose over me. She needs me. As much as I hate her for everything that she’s done to me, I cannot help but love her. I get in my car and drive to her house, cursing my stupidity the entire time.
She embraces me for a long while at the front door when I get there. Her eyes are bloodshot and she still smells the same as she did the last time I was close to her. Like Skittles candies. We go into her room and sit down on the red couch. She has some music playing and the order of the songs playing reminds me of a compilation I made for her. “That’s because it is,” she says.
She tells me what’s been up with her life for the past month. How she’s started a job as a substitute teacher for Cobb county. How one of her best friends came out to her. How she’s become bulimic, started hurting herself, and how she’s been hurt by others. She talks for what feels like an hour, and I listen intently the entire time. I want to leave, but I want to stay forever and never leave.
She asks me what’s been going on with me. Walking into walls, I tell her. “What do you mean?” Without you here, that’s all I do. I just walk into walls. That’s all. She starts to cry and apologizes for everything she’s put me through. Things too great to list given the amount of space I have to write this. I tell her it’s okay and wipe the tears from her cheeks. We lay there on her couch for a long time, not saying anything. I want to kiss her. I have never wanted anything more in my entire life than those lips. God help me.
Do you think we could ever be together?
“...yes. I really do. Honestly, there are days when all I want is to be with you, or just be around you. There are days when I think to myself, ‘wow, I’m going to marry Josh Nix.’ And I’m completely fine with it.”
I have a girlfriend. It’s not her. Emily doesn’t need to know about my girlfriend.
We lay, just like that, on that red couch in her bedroom until five o’clock in the morning, when we both start to drift off to sleep. I decide then that I should go. “Okay.”
She hugs me goodnight at front door and kind of lingers in front of my face. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Just don’t. Don’t kiss her. Kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. I tell her I’ll talk to her later.
I get in my car and drive home.
The next night, I’m back in that cul-de-sac, my girlfriend sitting in the passenger seat, her hand placed gently on the back of my neck. Are you Jamaican? I ask her.
“No. Why?”
Because Jamaican me crazy. She laughs. Kisses me.
I’ll break up with her two days later, “date” Emily for two months, before she chooses two more guys over me, and I will never speak to her again. Two, two, two, to, too many times I have beat myself up over this, wondered why, wondered why I wasn’t good enough, no matter what I did. I would drive to her house in the middle of the night and stick a CD or a book or a movie in her mailbox. It started one night when I’d known she'd had a very bad day. I bought her a duck yo-yo and drove all the way to her house just to give it to her to make her feel better. That's when I realized that I was in love with her. I wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed home that night? And, for that matter, what would have happened if I'd never met her? Would I be any happier? I honestly don't care to know.
it's called "Jamaican Me Crazy"
--
“Me gusta tu, me novio,” she says. She works in a Mexican restaurant and has picked up a few sayings in doing so, one of them, “I like you, my boyfriend.” She looks a bit like coffee and she tastes a little like crème. She's sitting in the front seat of my car, parked in the cul-de-sac of a neighborhood that hasn't been built yet. Her dress is hiked up just above her knobby knees and her panties are down around her pale calves. Her bra is unhooked but not taken off, like her blouse is unbuttoned, but still on her body. Despite all of this though, something is wrong. I should be as crazy about this girl as she supposedly is about me, but it's all I can do to muster the strength to make my lips meet hers. She is my girlfriend, so I hear, but she is not who this story is about. This story is about the girl who will call me tonight, two hours after I've dropped this half-naked young lady sitting inside of my car off at her house, kissed her goodnight, gotten home, and changed into my pajamas, and tell me that she needs to see me, and could I please come to her? Over the span of three hours, she will convince me that the two of us could really work and that I should dump the lovely, Spanish speaking young lady that was sitting in my car hours ago, fumbling in the moonlight to make contact with me, but never getting closer than my skin.
The girl, not the girl that is my girlfriend, but the other one, the one I’ve wanted to be my girlfriend for a year now, Emily, she texts me out of nowhere. “I need you,” she tells me. I haven’t spoken to her in close to a month. “I’m afraid of what I’ll do if you’re not here.” She calls me, blubbering. She’s not doing so well. She’s hurting herself and purging food from her body after meals. She’s just been dumped by some twenty-five year old guy she chose over me. She needs me. As much as I hate her for everything that she’s done to me, I cannot help but love her. I get in my car and drive to her house, cursing my stupidity the entire time.
She embraces me for a long while at the front door when I get there. Her eyes are bloodshot and she still smells the same as she did the last time I was close to her. Like Skittles candies. We go into her room and sit down on the red couch. She has some music playing and the order of the songs playing reminds me of a compilation I made for her. “That’s because it is,” she says.
She tells me what’s been up with her life for the past month. How she’s started a job as a substitute teacher for Cobb county. How one of her best friends came out to her. How she’s become bulimic, started hurting herself, and how she’s been hurt by others. She talks for what feels like an hour, and I listen intently the entire time. I want to leave, but I want to stay forever and never leave.
She asks me what’s been going on with me. Walking into walls, I tell her. “What do you mean?” Without you here, that’s all I do. I just walk into walls. That’s all. She starts to cry and apologizes for everything she’s put me through. Things too great to list given the amount of space I have to write this. I tell her it’s okay and wipe the tears from her cheeks. We lay there on her couch for a long time, not saying anything. I want to kiss her. I have never wanted anything more in my entire life than those lips. God help me.
Do you think we could ever be together?
“...yes. I really do. Honestly, there are days when all I want is to be with you, or just be around you. There are days when I think to myself, ‘wow, I’m going to marry Josh Nix.’ And I’m completely fine with it.”
I have a girlfriend. It’s not her. Emily doesn’t need to know about my girlfriend.
We lay, just like that, on that red couch in her bedroom until five o’clock in the morning, when we both start to drift off to sleep. I decide then that I should go. “Okay.”
She hugs me goodnight at front door and kind of lingers in front of my face. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Just don’t. Don’t kiss her. Kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. I tell her I’ll talk to her later.
I get in my car and drive home.
The next night, I’m back in that cul-de-sac, my girlfriend sitting in the passenger seat, her hand placed gently on the back of my neck. Are you Jamaican? I ask her.
“No. Why?”
Because Jamaican me crazy. She laughs. Kisses me.
I’ll break up with her two days later, “date” Emily for two months, before she chooses two more guys over me, and I will never speak to her again. Two, two, two, to, too many times I have beat myself up over this, wondered why, wondered why I wasn’t good enough, no matter what I did. I would drive to her house in the middle of the night and stick a CD or a book or a movie in her mailbox. It started one night when I’d known she'd had a very bad day. I bought her a duck yo-yo and drove all the way to her house just to give it to her to make her feel better. That's when I realized that I was in love with her. I wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed home that night? And, for that matter, what would have happened if I'd never met her? Would I be any happier? I honestly don't care to know.
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