If I Were Your Boyfriend by Earl Sewell Page A

thinking!"
      "Keysha." He tried to calm me down but his words didn't offer me any comfort.
      "You hate that I know you?" When Jordan discovered that I was his daughter a few months ago, Mike gave me such a hard time. He was suspicious that I was trying to take advantage of their family, and probably felt I was a no-good hood chick.
      "Keysha—"
      "Whatever, Mike!" I said as I ran ahead of him so that I could completely let my tears go.
      When I reached the house, Jordan was home. I gave him an ugly glare before rushing in the house and up to my room. I slammed my bedroom door so hard that several items on my desk fell over. Picking up one of my pillows, I began slamming it against the walls of my room. I'd lost it. I didn't understand why everything had to be so complicated. In the middle of my display of rage, Jordan walked into my room without even knocking on the door and that ticked me off.
      "What do you want?" My words were poisonous.
      "First of all, you need to put yourself in check when you're speaking to me."
      "What for? You really don't want me here and I know it. You want me to go away. You want me to disappear. I can feel it. You never wanted me in this house. You never wanted me to be around you or Mike. You only took me in because you felt sorry for me. I know it's true so you might as well say it so that I can move on with my life."
      Jordan closed my bedroom door and leaned his back against it. He folded his arms across his chest and just looked at me.
      "I'm going to say this one more time, young lady, and if I don't get the results that I want, you're going to see just how ugly I can get. Lower your voice and sit down on the bed."
      I didn't like being told what to do one bit and I was about to let Jordan have it. But something deep inside me told me not to make things worse for myself. Forcing myself to sit down on my bed, I focused on a spot on my wall. I didn't want to look at Jordan and right now I certainly wasn't in the mood for one of his speeches.
      "Tell me what's going on with you," he asked, but I remained silent.
      "Answer me, Keysha." Jordan raised his voice at me, which made feel worse. The sound of his displeasure with me hit my heart like a flaming arrow and I began to cry.
    "Nothing," I lied.
      "No, something is going on and I want to know about it." His voice became calmer.
      As I continued to look at the wall, my tears continued to overflow. I hated the fact that I'd lost command over my emotions.
      "Mike probably already told you what happened." I sounded as if I had several frogs lodged in my throat.
      "I want to hear your version of what happened," Jordan said.
      "It was nothing." I paused.
      "Keysha, tell me. We can talk about this. You know that I care."
      "No one has ever really cared about me. No one has ever really cared about what I did or didn't do. So why do you care?" I asked.
      "Because that's what dads do. We care about our children."
      I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. "I almost got into a fight today," I answered.
      "A fight! Mike didn't tell me anything about a fight."
      I was surprised that Mike hadn't. I automatically assumed that he would.
      "Mike arrived in the nick of time and stopped me," I said. "Please don't raise your voice at me. It upsets me when you do that."
      "Who were you fighting?" Jordan wanted to know.
      "I don't want to tell you because then you'll get mad at me," I answered. Jordan was silent for a moment.
      "That girl. What's her name?" He began snapping his fingers, trying to recall her name.
      "Liz." I told him the name that had eluded his memory. "She's the girl responsible for all of this mess. I went to talk to her today but she treated me as if I was a complete outsider. She made me feel dumb and worthless, so I was about to make her eat her words."
      "Keysha, look at me."
      I slowly blinked away more tears from my eyes and then