A Flower and Spandex Friendship

There was no getting back together with Number Two, but that didn't mean we were completely done with each other.

Toward the end of the summer, he called to give me some song and dance about how before everything happened with Tay-Tay, he was starting to fall in love with me. I politely told him it was over, but I had a false sense of serenity. I believed I could go back to New Haven and see him on a cordial, friendly basis.

I had spent the summer starving myself down to a size 6 and entering two "starter pageants," Miss Black World Michigan and Miss Michigan International. To my deep consternation, I failed miserably at being a beauty queen. Apparently, I couldn't walk. I didn't have the right clothes. I didn't have the right weave. And even though I was dizzy and hungry as hell from slurping Slim Fast plus one small meal a day, I was still considered 20 pounds "overweight."

I had also met a really good-looking guy on the Boblo Boat and convinced myself I was in love, even though we only saw each other a few times, and he kept stringing me along and standing me up.

But I digress.

When I got back to New Haven for my junior year, Number Two spied me strutting down the street in black-and-pink, floral-print spandex biker shorts. (Me and my booty were particularly effective at turning heads that day.)

Less than a week after returning to school, he came to see me with flowers in hand, and we went for a ride in my raggedy car, which promptly broke down for what felt like the millionth time. I didn't even have money for a tow truck, so I took Number Two's offer to buy my car for $200. He paid me $100 cash up front and was supposed to pay the $100 balance in a few weeks. Plus, I had left the tools my dad had bought me in the trunk.

I guess you can guess how this story ended.

Our new-found "friendship" was every bit as trifling as the love affair.

Fast-forward about five months, and this fool still owed me money. He claimed my jumper cables and toolbox had been "stolen." And on top of that, I had an $80 ding on my credit report from some stupid movies I had rented for him just before he went to jail.

It was time for another cuss-out session, only this time I was out for blood. And I cut him to the quick with what was really festering under the surface ... my nagging suspicion, egged on by my new boyfriend, that this fool was gay.

(Number Two Diaries Part 7 of 8: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Lessons Learned Parts 1-3: 1 2 3)