Page 1 of Real's Love

(Seven YearsAgo)

“What you not gon’ do is come in here and get on that computer, Ev! I didn’t ditch school for three days to watch you on this laptop,” my big sister Emory fussed, her hand on the back of the portable computer, ready to close it. “Tiger Fest might officially be over, but we partying through the weekend, especially since tomorrow is yo’ birthday.”

Sighing, I rolled my eyes at her. I loved my sister, but I was partied out. Her extroverted ass was a junior at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Still, she’d driven the four hours home once she realized I had no intention of participating in my school’s week-long Tiger Fest. I was a first-year student at Grambling State, a nursing undergrad who just wanted to study a lot and party a lot less. I was willing to go out, but after three days of brunches and kickbacks, a comedy show, a concert, a step show, and some events I probably forgot, I had socialized enough.

“Em,” I began after exhaling loudly. “You have Tuesday-Thursday classes, so you only skipped one day, technically?—"

“C’mon, Ev! It’s one weekend, and it’s your birthday! I miss you, and I wanna get in as much time as we can,” she whined.

I rubbed a hand across my forehead, feeling myself fall for her puppy dog eyes and cajoling tone. I missed her, too. We saw each other pretty regularly, but it wasn’t the same as being at home and constantly hanging out together. This heffa knew when she had the advantage. She blinked those big brown eyes, and I sighed again.

“She has a point, Everly,” my cousin, Theory, spoke up from where she was checking her appearance in the full-length mirror mounted on the back of my bathroom door.

Of course, she was on Emory’s side. They were both outgoing, social butterflies. Emory stuck out her tongue at me.

“See!”

“She needs to come on cuz I’m hoping we see Jarvis Johnikin on the yard. I went home last month to see Mama and Daddy, and I saw him in the vestibule at church. He pulled me aside just to ask about her,” Theory said, smiling at me.

I pursed my lips skeptically. “He goes to school here everyday, and he pulled you aside to whisper about me at church?” I asked, not even bothering to hide the sarcasm in my tone.

“Ev, don’t be like that. Maybe he’s shy,” she tried.

I turned in my chair so I could let her feel the full weight of my disbelieving look.

“Theory, you remember when y’all were seniors and he liked Maeve Erickson?”

Pip scoffed. “How could anyone forget? He took out an ad in the school paper and convinced the football announcer to ask her to be his girlfriend during the halftime show of the Homecoming game!”

“Hmph. Exactly. He definitely ain’t shy when he likes somebody.”

Emory smacked my leg and gave me a disapproving look.

“Everly! That doesn’t mean?—”

“Em, we’ve had this discussion. Not everyone sees me the way you do. I don’t care, and it’s their loss, but it’s just the truth, Sister,” I said softly.

She cupped my face for a second, giving me the sweetest, saddest look before she kissed my forehead.

“You still getting up,” she announced.

“Ev’s done a lot this week, though! If she needs to rest, she should listen to her body and rest,” Theory’s sister, Epiphany, called from the kitchen.

She was busy brewing some tea that she claimed would relax and restore us. I loved her for it, but the problem was that Emory had no interest in relaxing. She was bubbly and beautiful and wasn’t used to being told “no.” People took one look at her and that perfect smile and fell in line. Even though she and I had almost identical faces, I had never mastered that mostly harmless manipulation. Most of the difference was due to my sister being a sleek size six, while I was closer to a sixteen. My family poured love and confidence into us both, but the truth was that the world just treated us differently.

“Don’t listen to Pip. Please, Ev,” she implored softly. “Tonight is just a little get-together hosted by my Sorors. It would be best if you showed your face, anyway. Being a legacy won’t necessarily get you in, and Mama and I will?—"

“Kill me if I don’t continue the legacy. I know, I know!” I grumbled.

I was about to give in and tell her okay. Then, my phone vibrated. That vibration released a million fluttering butterflies in my stomach and made goosebumps rise on my skin, even as my body warmed. Suddenly, I remembered why I had been reaching for that laptop.

Tate.

Just thinking his name made me tingle! That was corny as hell but true. Tate was the most amazing, most beautiful thing about my college experience so far. A junior who came from a long, distinguished line of Gramblinites, he was enrolled in my fall semester chemistry lab. I was one of the few first-year students in there, thanks to AP exams and summer classes. As lab partners, we’d exchanged numbers. I was surprised to get social media requests from him soon after. Tate was a classic “BMOC”— Big Man on Campus. Fraternity chapter vice-president, Dean’s List scholar, so fine that looking at him was a blessing, so rich that you could almost see the envy dripping from people. I was a little starstruck, fighting back blushes and giggles every time he gave me that sexy half-smile and called me “Youngin’.” Every straight girl and gay guy seemed to drool over Tate Thibadeau. That’s why, when messages from him kept coming after the fall semester and took on a tone that even I recognized as flirtatious, I was surprised… and suspicious.

Don’t get me wrong — I looked at myself daily, so I knew I was pretty. While I wasn’t a fashionista like Emory or my mother, I would have never heard the end of their fussing if I walked around looking like just anything. Starting in high school, plenty of guys had shot their shot with me. What I soon noticed, though, was that while they approached Em in person, they seemed to love my inboxes or trying to send a message through someone else. I saw it for what it was, and while it didn’t destroy my self-esteem, it did sometimes piss me off and aggravate my insecurities. I was about to give Mr. Tate Thibadeau the same ignore game I had given all the others. Then… I answered one of his calls. And we talked. Not just the science talk and silly jokes from class. Not just the short text and inbox conversations. No, we had an all-night talk-a-thon, during which I realized Tate Thibadeau was more than a pretty face. He felt a lot of pressure to live up to his family's standards, especially because those standards were double-edged. The Thibadeaux were influential politicians, brilliant lawyers, and pathbreaking doctors. But their money didn’t all come from those endeavors. The Thibadeau family had a dark side, and Tate was expected to excel in that, too.

He didn’t just talk about himself, though. Tate was the first guy that truly listened to me, sometimes with the sweetest results. Like the time I told him I always wanted to have an old-school picnic. He came and picked me up in his Mercedes, took me to one of his family’s country properties, and pulled out a red-and-white-checkered blanket and a woven picnic basket. We ate under the shade of a huge live oak.

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