First things first...let's get one thing straight... I'm 'her'.
Like, capital-H, italics, bold print. Her.
I don't say that because I'm cocky (well… maybe a little). I say that because if you've seen me walking across campus in my box braids swinging, hoop earrings catching sunlight, skin moisturized like I'm sponsored by Shea Butter Inc., you already know. I don't chase. I stroll. I glide. I exist.
I'm the kind of girl who makes professors forget what they were saying mid-sentence. The type aunties at church whisper about, "Lawd! That one is too fine for her own good." The kind who posts one story on Instagram and gets thirty DMs from dudes who swore they weren't looking for a relationship.
So yeah, I'm not desperate. Especially not for hot guys.
And that's important to establish before I tell you how I managed to blow up the internet by rejecting one.
Before that Imma let you in on a few of my rules.
Rule Number One: Don't trust a hot guy.
Rule Number Two: Seriously, don't.
Rule Number Three: If a hot guy smiles at you in public...just know, your life is about to spiral faster than a Nigerian parent spotting you in public with a boy who is "just a friend".
I live by those rules. Religiously. Because hot guys? They're not real people. They're performance art. They're walking distractions with good skin. A catastrophe wrapped in a disaster with a side order of bad(at least that's how I remember it being said in the second part of the movie 'Ballerina').They're like crawfish boils...messy, spicy, and guaranteed to leave you sweating and regretting your choices afterward.
So believe me when I tell you...I never planned to become the girl who rejected Damian Cole.
Let me set the stage.
Louisiana heat...so thick you could spoon it. Humidity so disrespectful it had my edges lifting like Beyoncé fans at the Renaissance tour. I was outside Café du Nord, clutching my iced coffee like it was holy water. Hoodie on. Slides dragging. Sunglasses big enough to cover half my student debt.
And then the air shifted. Not in a cute poetic way. I mean shifted, like the universe had just changed frequencies. Girls gasped. Phones whipped out. And when I looked up, I realized why.
Damian. Freaking. Cole.
Now, if you don't know Damian, here's the elevator pitch..
He's the kind of hot that feels illegal.
Tall, golden-brown skin, haircut so sharp you'd think his barber was Michelangelo.
Always smells like warm vanilla and generational wealth.
Smiles like sin in 4K. LITERALLY.
Basically, he's a "Louisiana hot boy" packaged for TikTok.The kind you see in thirst traps.
And me? I'm me. Loud, sarcastic, unapologetic, with a friend group so messy I need therapy. (We'll get to them later.)
Anyway...Damian walks straight up to me. Not the girl behind me. Not the girl in front. Me.
"Yana right? You're in my Lit class, right? "
"AYANA"
Only my Closest friends are allowed to call me Yana.
He gave off a Smug smile...uugh
"Uh...Kay..Ayana..Wanna grab dinner sometime?"
Dinner. With him. The Café froze. Even the espresso machine stopped hissing.
Now, here's where a normal girl blushes, giggles, says yes.
Not me. Oh no. My brain decided to betray me.
"uhhhh...Nah.... I don't.....date hot guys."
Yup. I said it. Out loud. In front of witnesses. With my whole chest.
The gasp? Cinematic. Somebody dropped their beignet. One girl whispered, "She didn't…" Another clutched her pearls like she was auditioning for The Color Purple.
And Damian? Damian blinked like I'd just told him the sun was Green.
By 4 p.m....I was a TikTok.
By 6 p.m....reaction videos.
By 9 p.m.....I was a meme.
The memes ranged from savage to spiritually disturbing
A photo of me with the caption..."Rejecting God's strongest soldier."
Another , me in a nun's habit, "Saint Celibacy of Louisiana."
My personal fave? A split screen,Damian looking like a Calvin Klein ad, me in my hoodie holding iced coffee, captioned: "The audacity."
I should've been humiliated. I should've been hiding under my bed with my Wi-Fi turned off.
But let's be real... I'm Zoey-Johnson-level dramatic(I've watched Grown-ish so much I can basically say the lines in my sleep... Hell I'm more Zoey than Zoey), which means deep down, I thought...damn, I kinda look good in this meme.
Now, here's where my friend group enters.
Friend #1: Jordan
Black, bougie, dramatic. He FaceTimed me three minutes after the video dropped, holding a glass of wine like he was in Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Jordan: Aiyana Katherine Dupree You've gone international my friend. I just saw your face on a Brazilian meme page. Brazil, babe. BRAZIL.
Me: Kill me now.
Jordan: No ma'am. Not when the group chat is thriving. I live for this mess.
He wasn't wrong. Jordan loves drama more than he loves brunch...and he loves brunch.
Friend #2: Yvette
My partner-in-crime. Half-Mexican, half-Black, full-time savage. She's the type to start fights in the comments section for fun. By 5 p.m., she was already ratio-ing strangers defending Damian.
Yvette: Lol not y'all acting like he invented fire. He's cute, not Jesus.
Me: Stop feeding the trolls.
Yvette: No, I am the troll. This is my Olympics.
So yeah. I wasn't just living a meme. My friends were milking it.
And then came the real plot twist.
Damian didn't walk away embarrassed. He didn't sulk, didn't rage. No. Instead, he leaned against the counter, smirked like the villain in a Netflix teen drama, and said...loud enough for the café to hear:
"Guess I'll just have to try harder."
The café screamed. Like, literal screaming. Someone fainted into a croissant. Girls fanned themselves with their syllabi.
And me? I stood there, straw halfway to my lips, glitching like an iPhone on 2%.The Nigerian part of me wanted to scream "As howwww?" But the posh, It-girl , Louisiana part of me kept calm as always.
Because that was not a man giving up. That was a man declaring war.
So here I am.
One Tuesday morning in Louisiana, I managed to go from regular Black girl..Special regular black girl with amazing hair and crazy beautiful edges..minding her business to The Meme.
Now the entire campus is watching. Jordan is already planning matching shirts that say "She Said No." Yvette swears I'm about to fumble the "bag of the century." Damian? Oh, he's not backing down. If anything, he's just getting started.
And me?
I've got a sinking feeling that rejecting a hot guy was the easiest part.
Because Rule Number Four? The one I forgot to write?
Never...and I mean never...let a hot guy decide you're his new favorite project.