About the Author: Takiyah Douglas (Creative Writing, Class of 2018) hopes to turn her love of writing into a career one day. Her best friend is food and her favorite opera is Trapped in the Closet. She can be found locked in her room creating play scripts, short stories and, very rarely, poems.

WARNING: This piece contains explicit content (profanity) and may not be suitable for all audiences.

_______________________________________________________________________________

A True Horror Story

by Takiyah Douglas

As a kid, I could say I was extremely weird. My personality would vary from a skittish mouse to a glamorous socialite who could be the life of a party. There was no in-between, and I think that’s the reason why I relive much of that time with utter horror. I never considered how I would look to other people and cluelessly continued to wreak havoc on the mental state of my future self. Seriously, I would probably beat the hell out of my younger self if time travel were possible. One story I remember in particular will always remain with me.

I was between the 4th and 5th grade when all of this foolishness went down. First, let me provide some background:

My mom and her friend Tisha had probably known each other since before I was born, so this resulted in her daughter Daysia and I being best friends as young as five years old. Growing up, we would have sleepovers, and I was always at her house. A while passed during which we didn’t see each other since she had moved to a different neighborhood.

She lived in the projects, where a bunch of families with children lived in close proximity to each other. I got to meet nerdy-ass Steven, annoying, loud, and obnoxious Jayana, (the guy Daysia had a crush on) heartthrob Willie, and many others. One of the last I got to meet was Kamil. She was a few years younger than us, but we played with her the most. Now when I met her older brother. Oh lord.

Jeremy Rodriguez was hella fine. But honestly, I think it was the hair that had my younger self sold. I look at him now and I can’t figure out where all the hype about him came from. At that age, the guy was attractive.

I met him in Daysia’s backyard one day when the adults brought out the inflatable pool. Kids were running around throwing water balloons and buckets of water at each other. It was during a breath holding contest that it happened. I had dunked my head in the pool with a bunch of other kids and when I came up after holding my breath as long as I could, I saw it was me and Jeremy who were the last to come up. We were breathing heavily and staring at each other as intensely as two elementary school kids could. That’s when I got the hots for him and wanted to be his sweetheart. Unfortunately, my timid barrier prevented that.

Fast forwarding to around the holidays, I was currently attending the same school as Daysia and  Jeremy. To my dismay, I didn’t have the same class as him, but I solved that by waiting to see him in the mornings by my locker. Even though I was out of my element, I tried to get my flirt on, which meant waving hello at him from an impressive 12-foot distance. That was progress to me.

As I said before, it was around the holidays and I wanted to get Jeremy something for Christmas. I thought giving him a gift would show how much I liked him and earn me some brownie points. The thing is, I was fucking terrified. I thought about how it would look just handing him a gift. Even though I wanted him to understand that I liked him, he would then know I liked him! I couldn’t have that happening! So I decided it would look less suspicious if I also gave his sister a gift. I mean, she was my friend and I hung out with her a lot, so it wouldn’t be weird. On a side note, I don’t ever remember purchasing a gift for Daysia, my best friend. Isn’t that terrible?

A few days later, I went to the store with my mom to buy supplies for the house. I then asked her if I could buy something for my friends at school. She agreed and let me go off on my own. I didn’t have any money of my own since I was still a kid, but that wasn’t even the worst thing. We were in the Dream Dollar Store, and whatever I bought would be some cheap-ass gift. Kamil was so easy to shop for. I picked out a ballerina snow globe and I think it was only two bucks, but I frantically ran around the store looking for something, anything, for Jeremy. I knew my mom wasn’t going to wait once she was finished and would tell me to get something or nothing at all.

It was in the office supplies section that I found Jeremy’s gift: a jumbo-sized red pencil. Yes, I purchased a pencil, but at the time I thought I had hit the jackpot.

Though I still wasn’t satisfied. I felt like I still needed to convey, but not reveal my feelings to Jeremy. That’s when I decided to make him a card. Of course I also made Kamil one. (I had to remain below the radar) The thing that still bothers me to this day, is that I used tan manila folders to make the cards. I cut them up, wrote heartfelt messages on them, and drew pictures to the best of my ability. On Kamil’s card, I wrote about how good of a friend she was and how nice her family had been to me. I drew a regular-ass Christmas tree with her family members surrounding it.

Oh, but I  went all out on Jeremy’s. I wrote that he was awesome, funny, and extremely talented at basketball. I even drew him a Christmas tree decorated with basketballs with only him beside it. Definitely a difference from Kamil’s. After that, I wrapped their presents in freaking newspaper and called it a day.

The day I was going to give him his gift, I was a ball of excitement. Not nerves, just pure, utter stupid, joy because I thought I were giving someone a million dollars. Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen him all day. I got impatient and told this girl I knew was in his class to give it to him. Nowadays I think about how stupid that was, because his whole class would have seen the dumb pencil and knew that I gave it to him. I wonder what they thought about my lovely newspaper wrapping.

When school was out, I saw Kamil first and gave her the gift. She loved it, but wound up breaking one of the ballerina’s legs off of the snow globe in less than five minutes. I didn’t really care, because then I saw Jeremy. He was talking to someone, but then saw me and smiled. He held up the pencil, gave me one of those cool guy nods, flashed me his signature angelic smile, and said thanks. Oh man, I went over the fucking moon. I went from not being able to properly talk to this guy to giving him a gift. Mission accomplished.

As I look back on that moment though, I feel like he was probably thinking, “What the fuck is this?” At that age, “the thought that counts” wasn’t really something we learned. I also think he might’ve suspected I was really weird, especially after reading his card. I’ll never know what he truly thought or what events occurred in his classroom after getting his gift, but what I do know is that that was some stupid shit I did. I will never do such a thing again… but I do admire the efforts and huge balls my younger self had. Instead of beating her up like I wanted to originally, I think I’ve changed my mind. I would pat her on the head and say good job, because she was the one to overcome her insecurities and weaknesses.

Copyright © Takiyah Douglas (2017) All Rights Reserved.