It's Complicated

"That's all I ever hear you say. If I could get you to tell me something new, something real, we'd be together. Just tell me that I'm not the only one who's in love here." Huey/Jazmine

Chapter Six: Complicatedly Angry

Even when she was younger, it was obvious to Jazmine that all anyone ever did was try to protect her.

Her parents never told her anything. Racial segregation, gender issues, sex, it was all taught to her from the outside, never inside her home. She could remember how stupid she must have sounded in class when she would say she was white. How idiotic she must have looked when she first asked exactly what the 'n' word was.

Riley snorted. "You just a halfsie. Light bright, almost white, but sorry jack- ya still part black." When Jazmine had repeated that to her mother the next day she had been sent to her room. She asked her dad, who stuttered and said he didn't know what it meant. That was when she started to realize that her parents were afraid to explain things to her.

So she went looking for answers on her own.

"Huey?"

He was leaning back against the old oak with his hands in his lap. She swore she had yet to see him blink in the past five minutes- he was just staring off into the sunset, dark eyes hard and unreadable. "Hn." He mumbled, not moving or turning his gaze to look at her. Here, at this tender age of fourteen, he still refused to treat her like anything special. But the way his mouth twitched when she moved toward him let her know it was different. There was something there between them, even if Huey tried his best to hide it, she just knew it.

She patted one of her puffs of hair and tilted her head in curiosity. "What does 'go fuck yourself' mean? I heard Riley say it today to your grandfather! It seems impossible! How could anyone do that?" The mechanics just sounded odd to her!

And even though Huey hissed in disapproval, even though he talked to her like she was an idiot two year old, Huey was different from her parents.

He didn't try to protect her. Maybe he didn't care.

Or maybe he believed in her enough to know she could handle these things. That's what Jazmine liked to tell herself.

PRESENT DAY

It was still hot as hell outside, but Jazmine found herself trudging along the streets anyway.

Actually, it was so hot, people had been warned to stay inside, but like that mattered- ignorance is bliss, and considering how many other people were outside walking the streets just like she was, she didn't think much of the warnings.

She had straightened her hair yesterday, but it was already curling up again thanks to the humidity, small wet curls forming on the back of her neck from soaking in sweat. She didn't know why she had taken the long grueling hours out of her day to straighten it. Maybe it was out of contempt for him, since he hated it when she flattened it. Said it made her look like a white girl.

Maybe this was her way of getting back at him.

She sniffed. Damn, she was pathetic.

The basketball shorts were hanging low on her waist and her wife beater had a few holes in it, attracting the attention of more than a few men walking the streets. Perverts, she thought. All they want is sex!

That's all they ever wanted, after all.

"Jazmine! Get your ass inside! It's took damn hot for that bullshit!" Her head whipped around, and damn, she wished she hadn't looked that excited but she did, like a fucking puppy who had just seen a hunk of steak falling from the sky. It was that voice, god, it was him-

Huey was standing in his driveway, the door to his home thrown open. He had that same blank look on his face, the same dark eyes, but his eyebrows were narrowed dangerously, angrily. "Are you an idiot?" He gestured for her to follow him inside as he turned on his heel and walked back toward his door. "Stop being stupid and take care of your damn self."

Jazmine didn't know what she was feeling. Anger, betrayal, contempt. But most of all, she just felt… tired. Sad. Unable to argue. So she followed dutifully, her flip flop covered feet clapping along the pavement behind her as she tried to keep her eyes from straying toward Huey's ass.

Pathetic. That was what she was. An idiot going toward her new found object of anger just to get hurt again. Why was she doing this? Why was she still clinging to him?

But, the answer was always the same. This was Huey. Her Huey.

She shouldn't have expected anything to be different, but really- nothing was different.

They still sat on the couch, side by side, not touching, watching some channel that neither of them cared about. Except now, something hung in the air, a new feeling.

Jazmine was having a hard time putting her finger on it when she felt something- an arm. Huey's arm was laying across her shoulders.

Well, actually, it was more like laying across the couch, but his hand was touching the other side of her, grasping her shoulder slightly with a careful touch. It was the same type of gentle touch you used to pet a shy kitten or to sooth a scared child.

"Huey...?" Jazmine asked, looking over to him with shock and curiosity. Huey never, ever touched her, not on purpose, not until the other night, that is.

He was still staring at the TV, eyes and face blank and scowl still taunt on his face. But he flickered his eyes over to Jazmine and blinked at her, once, twice, three times, before looking back to the TV. He was still quiet, indifferent Huey. They were still sitting quietly on the couch, still the same as they ever were and at this rate, it seemed, as they ever would be.

But now, Huey had his arm around Jazmine.

Now, something had changed.

"I hate it when you straighten your hair." He mumbled, pulling at the strands with contempt. Jazmine tried not to fall over simply from the feel of it, the feeling of Huey touching her again, acknowledging her again.

"I know," She said quietly, and they let it stay like that, Huey's arm on her shoulders, his hand pulling at her hair, and so many things being left unspoken.

It's Complicated

The problem didn't lie in what they were doing with each other. No, the problem was in all the things they weren't doing.

For every touch they shared, there were a thousand, more urgent touches they were ignoring. For every word said between them, there were millions waiting on the tip of her tongue that she really wanted to say.

Also, Huey was growing more and more irritable by the day. Huey was usually a very calm guy, he didn't necessarily get mad at things. Rather he would say that something angered him and look placid about it anyway. However, over the past week, he'd been taking more offense to anything Riley said and actually started replying to insults with his own. Huey never fought verbally with Riley, it was a 'waste of his time'. He was also much more liable to get angry at his granddad for things that usually didn't bother him.

When she saw Cindy a week after the incident, Cindy had asked for all the juicy details.

"It's not exactly 'juicy'." Jazmine sighed, sitting by the pool playing speed yet again with the white girl. It was still just as crowded as it always was.

"Bet ya it is though!" Cindy winked. "Bet ya got some of dat ass, didn't cha?"

Jazmine blushed lightly and Cindy's jaw dropped. "Oh hell naw, ya'll did not! I was just fuckin' with cha, yo tellin' me this is for real?!"

Nodding slowly, Jazmine let Cindy get her squeal out before ruining the surprise. "But even after it, he said he didn't want to be with me."

"What?!" Cindy yelled, throwing her cards down and crushing a few as she did so. "Are ya fuckin' kiddin' me? I'll whoop his ass for ya, baby girl, ya know I can get a gun if I wanna, I know where all the hit men are-"

Jazmine smiled, waving her off. "It's okay, Cindy, I'm fine. I mean, I think so..." She shook her head, laughing. "Actually, I think Huey is having a harder time than me."

Cindy quirked a brow. "What do ya mean by that?"

Jazmine shrugged. "He's been touching me, but not... touching me, you know? Like he'll put his hand on my shoulder, or, more recently, my thigh and just kind of let it linger there. And he's been getting really, really mad at Riley and his granddad. Like, literally, if they drop a pin on the floor, Huey's liable to start screaming at them."

"But he's not mad at you?"

Jazmine thought about it for the first time, and shook her head. "No, he never gets mad at me, actually, now that you mention it." Even when Jazmine was the one who had spilled the milk on the table, Huey yelled at Riley to 'get his lazy ass together and clean it up'.

Cindy stared at her for a few seconds before something clicked in her mind and she howled with laughter. "I got it! I figured out your problems, girl!" Jazmine waited for her to elaborate, but Cindy was laughing so hard it took her several minutes to gain her composure back. "Oh damn, this is too good," She wheezed as she wiped a tear from her eye, still giggling.

"What are you talking about?" Jazmine asked, raising her eyebrows in confusion.

Cindy breathed once again, then started, with a huge grinned spreading across her face. "So ya know how ya said this dude is touching ya, right?" Jazmine nodded slowly. "Right, well, the whole reason he's doin' that is 'cause he feels bad. He's doin' it ta make ya feel like your wanted, 'cause Huey does want ya, he just hasn't needed ta show ya until now when ya started to doubt him."

Jazmine frowned, but nodded her head as if to encourage Cindy to go on with her analysis of their relationship.

"And then-" Cindy laughed again, "-This is the funny part. So ya know how ya said this nigga is all irritable and shit with Riley and his grand-dude?" Another nod. "Yeah, well, it can all be accounted to the fact that-" And yet, another wave of laughter.

Jazmine huffed irritably, "Cindy, will you please just spit it out already?!"

"-This nigga is horny as hell for ya!"

And that did attract a few stares from around the pool. Jazmine clamped a hand over Cindy's mouth, whispering at her to shut the fuck up and stop talking like that. "What the hell do you mean?!" She said once Cindy had stopped laughing, yet again.

"So this nigga doesn't want to admit it, but ever since he had sex with ya, he's been cravin' it. A man can go his whole life being good but once he dips his hand in the cookie jar, he's gonna want more." Jazmine blushed but Cindy continued on. "And since he's too mad at himself to do anything more but touch ya gently like he's doing, he's getting angry. Sexually frustrated, ya might call it. And he's gettin' mad at the two guys in his life since he won't allow himself to get mad at you."

Staring, Jazmine blinked and smiled. "You're really smart, Cindy, you know that?"

"Don't start sayin' things ya don't mean." She chuckled, picking up her cards again and straightening the ones she had bent.

"I've just got one question... what do I do now?" Jazmine pleaded.

Cindy smirked devilishly. "Well that's easy. Ya gotta make him jealous, of course."

It's Complicated

A/N: Only took two effing years, Jesus. I'm gonna finish this story, I promise.