Always by Timmothy B. Mccann Page B

snow , because snow affects their lives in so many ways. So it befuddled me how four letters could begin to describe the love for a brother and the love for a job and my love for Cheryl. I felt the word love was deficient because I was supposed to use this word to describe just how much she meant to me? So we had our own word to describe how we felt. And that word was simply always . Because we felt that our love would never die and would last forever. That it would last . . . for always.
    When the phone rang, my heart stopped. I remember falling over the couch onto the floor to answer it.
    â€œStang. What’s up, man?”
    â€œâ€˜Sup?”
    â€œDamn, man, you sound like stewed shit. Listen. I got some good news for you. Coach handled that situation. He told Dr. Langston that he would discipline you, because he didn’t want you to miss any days from school. He said he would have you run stadium steps and your parents would have to pay to get Darius’s teeth fixed.”
    â€œUmm.”
    â€œUmm? That’s all? Umm? You know, they talked that punk out of calling the pigs. If you had a record, you could have forgotten about FAMU. You know how Coach Gaiter is.”
    â€œI’m happy, man. I just—”
    â€œYo, get over it, brother,” David shouted. “Like Coach says, either you’re the hammer or the anvil. That’s life. Deal with it and move on!”
    The next day I was at the stadium running the steps and trying to focus on my halfback physique. Coach Niblack sat in the distance watching me but it didn’t matter. I felt good running up one row and down the other. I never stopped my conditioning after the season, so I was in the best shape of my life. Up one row and down the other. I attacked the steps as if I were trying to punish them. I wanted to pushmy body to the limit, and Cheryl out of my mind. Up one row and down the other. Then I did something I rarely did. I pulled off my shirt and tossed it on the bleachers. I knew a few girls from the pep squad were watching and I could hear them making comments, but I never looked back. At this time I was getting more definition in my thighs and abdomen. My chest, which was always large, was now accompanied by a flat stomach and thick triceps. As I ran, sweaty and hot, I had no time to even get tired, I was too busy punishing the stadium and trying to forget Cheryl.
    And then I saw her, and almost tripped on a step. I regained my balance and I could hear a couple of the girls giggle. When they did, Cheryl looked around and noticed me running. We had not spoken the previous day, although someone had called the house two or three times and held the phone without saying anything. I’d called her house and done the same thing. She knew it was me. I knew it was her. But neither of us knew how to give in.
    As she watched, I continued running. I ran harder, as if the answer to what had happened to our “for always” were buried in the cinder-block steps. Up one row and down the other. Up one row and down the other. I pounded the steps as if they contained answers. I could feel my heart pump acid throughout my body and it didn’t matter because I saw her and I saw Darius. I saw them standing closer than close and I saw her tears. I saw her choosing to stay here with him instead of going to Tallahassee with me. And then I sprinted the rest of the way, skipping two or three steps as I ascended to the top. Sweat flung from my arms like a wet mop being shaken outside a back door. Breathing heavily, I finally stopped and gathered my composure, determined that I would stare her down. When I looked in her direction, she was gone.
    After school I got off the bus and ran home as fast as I could. Herbert, who came in a distant second, thought it was because I wanted to control the TV. Getting to pick which program to watch on television was the last thing on my mind. I listened to the radio and did my chores and