Jennifer

“What do you mean what happened? Nothing happened!”

Alphonso looked at me with his all-knowing smirk. Like he knew something I was not privy to.

“Oh, I am sorry, the fact that you had no clothes on led me to believe otherwise!”

I lit up a half of a day old cigarette, which I quickly regretted because, well, it was stale.

“It only looks like I do not have clothes on, look, see, I was a good girl.”

I opened up the blanket that was wrapped around me to reveal that I was indeed in a pair of shorts and a tank top.

“Okay, I mean I was not a total good girl, but I did not do what you clearly think I did.”

That is when I first noticed it. The look of disappointment. He was almost sad. Not for what I  did or did not do, because let’s face it, Alphonso had seen a lot worse than what I was showing him. There was something more to it. He was sad for a different reason.

A reason that I would not understand until just a few short weeks later.

______________

Shortly after the “Pat and I just messed around” incident, things went on as normal. Except “our” normal was anything but normal.

Alphonso and I came home from work one day to a scene straight out of Jerry Springer, and it would only get worse as the night went on.

Pat was in the living room, it looked as if he had just gotten off the phone, and Christin had just turned the corner with some sort of object in her hand. Alphonso looked at Pat, we looked at Christin, we looked at each other.

Little did we know the next five hours were going to be a game change for our little group.

Things would never be the same again.