The Maturation of J Reed: Vol. 15

After that trip to Morgan State I realized two things: 1) I was running out of time for big schools to give me a scholarship and 2) If I didn't get a scholarship by a big school, I was going to have to do something unorthodox for a person in my position.

I went to into my senior year with so much promise, but now it was all turning into a nightmare.
If you can remember back in the story, I talked about how KK had expressed interest in going with me to my prom. Well, somehow during the year we ended up losing touch. With all that I had going on, I hadn't really communicated with her like I should have. So needless to say she was slated to go to the prom with somebody else. This wasn't all bad, because even though I wanted her to go with me, I ended up finding somebody who wanted to go with me.
Denise and I were in Mrs. Pixley's room one day when she made a joke saying that she wanted us to go to the prom together. I took it as a joke intially, but through further conversation I found out that she was serious. So we exchanged numbers and decided to have a talk about how we were going to do this.
Denise and I had all our plans together by the beginning of April. With the prom less than two months away, I was happy with the decision I made to take her to the prom. This was short lived. The first thing I found out, through a casual conversation, was that Denise had a boyfriend. This wasn't that much of a big deal, because even though our interaction was flirty, I didn't see myself dating anyone at the time. But I did want to know how her boyfriend felt about her going to the prom with another man. So I decided to ask her about halfway through April and received the shock of my life. She told me that her boyfriend was a little leary of her going to the prom with some other dude and that she would not be able to accompany me. I laugh about this now as I write, but I was pissed off when she told me. I'm not really one to hold grudges, (or at least not consciously) but I didn't speak to her again until prom night. Honestly though, the way my life was going at the time, I just figured that this was the life of Jarrett Burgess. What was one more disappointment added to the resume of heartbreak that I had already experienced?

I decided that I was going to go to the prom by myself after that experience. I knew that I had messed up the chance to go with who I really wanted to go with, so I figured I'd just show up by myself rather than face another disappointment.
One day I was over TJ's house getting my hair done when KK walks in. I was explaining to TJ's mom the situation of why I was going to the prom by myself when KK chimes in in frustration. I believe she said something like, "She waited til the last minute to tell you she wasn't going?!?" After I went back over the story with KK, she tells me that we were supposed to go together. I knew that, but since we hadn't really talked about it since the previous summer, I figured she either had forgotten or didn't want to go with me anymore. This is where our lack of communication comes into play because she thought the exact same thing. This would've been great news, but as I said early, she was already going with someone else.
The next thing that KK did was what I consider now, a small piece of redemption to an otherwise disasterous senior year. KK called her prom date and informed him that while she did accept his invitation to the prom, she had made a prior commitment to go with me almost a year ago. I was speechless. I couldn't believe that she would do a thing like that. Now, I wouldn't usually celebrate someones misfortune, but I had went through so much that year that I didn't care. I needed something to be happy about and this was it. So KK and I began making our plans for the prom.