“What happened?” she asked, pulling herself up, and she put the car in drive, and pulled out. Something was wrong with her because she didn’t curse me out about getting to the car late, and I just knew that that was coming.
“You sick?” I asked, reaching my hand over to put it on her forehead, trying to see if she had a fever or something. I touched her forehead, but she was fine. She didn’t feel warm or anything.
“I’m just tired. I have to go back to the office for a couple of hours, so you can just do your homework and stuff there. Put on your seatbelt, and what happened at school?” she asked.
“When I was coming from my last period, Vivian walked up on me, wanting to talk. Everybody in the hallway was looking. I was too busy trying to get her from out of my space, that I really didn’t pay attention if people were recording what took place, but I’m sure they were, so it’ll probably be on social media soon. Ma, she really trying to pretend like she has no understanding as to why I’m upset, and why I’m choosing not to talk to her. I appreciate how she looked out for me on social media, but I just feel like it’s nothing for us to talk about. You feel me?” I asked, and turned in my seat, waiting to hear her response.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before she felt like you owed her some kind of conversation. Her looking out for you on social media, I’m sure she did it because she knew that it was the right thing to do, but I’m sure in the back of her mind, there was a piece of her that was waiting for you to thank her for it. Whatever you do Creed, just don’t entertain that girl. You see what it almost cost you the first time when you were sneaking around, dealing with her,” she responded.
“Yeah, you don’t have to worry about me talking to her. I want to take my braids out tomorrow. You’ll wash it and braid it for me? Pops said that we going to the barber shop Saturday morning, so I want to already have my braids in,” I said, changing the subject, and when I said that, she groaned, sucked her teeth, rolled her eyes, all that shit.
“Dang. Why you gotta do all that extra stuff?” I jokingly asked her.
“You don’t want to cut your hair like your brother? You’ll look even more handsome,” she tried to convince me.
Every time that I needed her to wash my hair, and braid it, she always tried to convince me to either get a curly taper likemy brother, or waves like my pops. I just think that’s how much she hated doing my hair. My hair was long, and curly. When she washes it for me, and then blow it out, it went past my back. A lot of work, and time would have to go into her doing my hair, and even though she would complain about it, she didn’t want me going to anyone else to get it braided because she properly treated my hair, trimmed my ends and shit, so she wanted to be the one to continue keeping up with the maintenance of it.
“I feel like the braids is what gives me my own identity from Legend. Me, and him got the same exact face. The braids is how people can tell us apart. I’ll pay you. I got money. How much you want?” I asked, and she laughed, waved me off, telling me to keep my money because she didn’t need it.
I talked her ear off the entire time that we were in the car. I told her about everything that happened in school, how excited I was for summer to come up in a few weeks, the trips that I wanted us to take for summer break, and shit like that.
Before we went to her office, she stopped atPopeye’sfor me so that I could get something to eat. It’s what I requested. She knew the order that I would get, so when we pulled up to the drive- thru, I didn’t have to tell her. Once she paid for it, and she got the food, and when she passed it to me, her ass started gagging. She ended up rolling all the windows down in the car, as if she was trying to air out the smell.
“What you got going on?” I asked, looking at her like she was crazy, really trying to see what was wrong with her.
“Nothing,” was all she said.
“You sick or something? You got Covid? Let me know something. Whatever you got, I’m not trying to get it. I’m getting my braids tomorrow, and my line up, so I’m trying to be outside this weekend, so the girls could see me,” I said, going in the bag, pulling out a few fries, and putting them in my mouth.
All the shit that I was talking, she didn’t respond back to anything that I was saying.
She just pulled out of the drive- thru line, and five minutes later, we were pulling up to her building. She parked the car up front, shut it off, and stepped out. She opened the back door because that’s where her purse was. Once she had that, she closed the door, and I stepped out, grabbing my bookbag, my food, and my drink. I allowed her to lead the way, while I walked behind her, being her bodyguard. Once we reached the door, I jogged to get in front of her, opened the door for her, and she stepped in first, and I walked in behind her.
“Eat that in the breakroom. I don’t want my office smelling like that,” she told me.
“Aight. Who all here?” I asked, wanting her to give me a rundown of her employees that was here, and if she mentioned any of the fine women, I was going to make an excuse to walk past their office, and see them.
It’s as if she knew that that was the reason why I was asking because her ass didn’t even answer my question. She walked away, and I went for the large breakroom that was here. No one was in here because by this point in the day, I’m sure that everyone had already taken their breaks.
I sat my bookbag and my food down on one of the tables, and I went over to the sink that was in here, so that I could wash and dry my hands. I went back over to my food, where I pulled out the chicken sandwich, fries, and the two biscuits that I would always add. I placed my straw inside the frozen strawberry lemonade that I had, and like always, I went onTikTok,going to let that entertain me while I ate my food.
I had only been onTikTokfor a few moments, laughing at some shit that came up on my timeline when my phone started ringing with a facetime call. It was my boy Quay, hitting me. Quay was my homeboy that I had since I was a little kid, that Itold ya’ll about. The one that was in the streets, making dumb decisions. I was surprised to see him calling me because we haven’t seen each other in a while. The last time I saw him was at the skating rink, and I’d got on him about the lifestyle that he was living and telling him that I wish he would make better choices. Since then, we’ve texted and shit like that, but it was every blue moon. When he saw the shit that was trending with me on the blogs, he hit me, just to see how I was holding up, but that was in the beginning, when it first happened. I haven’t heard from him since then. Quay had social media, but he wasn’t on there a lot. With the way that he was out here living, he told me before in the past that he was too afraid to post like that on social media, thinking that the feds were watching him.
“Yoo,” I answered the facetime call. From his surroundings, I could tell that he was outside, sitting on the porch.
I knew that porch from a mile away, so I could tell that he was at his mama’s house. Just like me, he had top and bottom gold teeth in his mouth. I could see his when he flashed a smile once the call connected. Both of ours were pull- outs grillz though. Ever since that shit happened at Vivian’s crib, I haven’t been wearing mine. I was trying to clean up my image, and shit.
Quay had a short cut, and I could tell from the white chalk look that he had surrounding his line up, that he must have just gotten his hair cut.
“What’s good stranger?” he asked me.
“Shit, that’s you. I texted you a couple of weeks ago and asked you if you wanted to go fishing with me, and my pops. You didn’t respond. You too Hollywood for me,” I told him, propping my phone up on my drink, so that I could use both my hands to eat my food.
“I had some shit to take care of that day. I was supposed to text you back, but I got tied up. Where you at?” he asked, changing the subject.
“At my mama job. I’m sitting in the breakroom. You didn’t have school today?” I asked. I was still in my school uniform, but he wasn’t in his, and even though we went to different schools, I know that we still got out at the same time.
“Shit, I got expelled about a week ago,” he told me, and I shook my head.
