by Angie Thomas
And who got taken down by a SWAT team who didn’t give a damn what their gender was.
“It’s just different, li’l momma. I ain’t make the rules,” Hype says. “My thing is, are we really supposed to believe you out here popping on folks like that? C’mon, now. Who wrote those lines for you?”
What the hell? “The song isn’t about ‘popping’ on anybody, and I wrote them.”
“You wrote the whole song?” he says. “And the freestyles in the battle?”
Seriously, what the hell? “I wrote the song, and I came up with the freestyles on the spot just like you’re supposed to do in a battle. What are you trying to say?”
“Chill, baby girl,” Hype says. “Look, ain’t nothing wrong with a ghostwriter, all right? My thing is, ghostwriters need to write authentically for the person. Ain’t no way you out here strapped like backpacks.”
You know what? Screw this. It doesn’t matter what I say or do. Everybody will have their own idea of me and of that song, regardless. I snatch the headphones off. “I’m out.”
“Whoa, we’re not done, Li’l Law.”
“My name is Bri!” Feels like every bone in my body yells that out.
“Okay, Bri. Look, it’s all good,” he says with a smirk. I wanna wipe it off his face, I swear. “We were having a good conversation. No need to get mad.”
“You accused me of not writing my own shit! How the hell is that good?”
“You must not write your stuff if you getting this defensive.”
The door flies open and Supreme rushes in. “Bri, calm down.”
“It’s all good, ’Preme,” Hype says. “If she strapped like she said in the song, she’ll handle me.”
He plays a laugh track.
I almost jump over the table, but Supreme holds me back. “Fuck you!”
“Aww, see? This why they kicked you out of the Ring. Baby girl PMSing up in here.” Hype plays a drum kick to cap off his “joke.”
Supreme has to practically drag me out. We pass all these station workers in the hallway, and they stare and whisper as Hype makes another “joke” over the speakers. I have no problem whooping all of their asses.
Supreme gets me to the lobby. I snatch out of his grasp.
He chuckles. “Goddamn. What’s got you riled up?”
Everything. I breathe hard and blink harder, but my eyes burn anyway. “Did you hear him?”
“I told you he would push your buttons. That’s what Hype does.” Supreme pats my cheek. “You’re a goddamn genius, you know that? You did exactly what I told you all those weeks ago. I’m surprised you remembered.”
I look at him as my breath finally catches up with my pounding heart. “What?”
“You played that ratchet hood rat role. You know how much publicity you ’bout to get from this?”
It’s like having a bucket of ice water thrown into my face.
Ratchet hood rat.
Thousands of people just heard me act like that. Millions more may see the video. They won’t care that my life is a mess and I had every right to be mad. They’ll just see an angry black girl from the ghetto, acting like they expected me to act.
Supreme laughs to himself. “You played the role,” he says. “Goddamn, you played the role.”
Problem is, I wasn’t playing. That’s what I’ve become.
Twenty-Eight
I ask Supreme to take me to Sal’s. I need my brother.
Supreme’s phone blows up the whole way. He can’t stay still for bouncing in his seat.
“Whooo!” He smacks the steering wheel like he’s giving it a high five. “We ’bout to get paid, baby girl! I swear, this the best shit you could’ve done! We on our goddamn way!”
Ratchet hood rat. Three words, four syllables.
Everybody’s gonna think I’m a hood rat, that’s good at
being ratchet and blowing gaskets.
The Closed sign is on Big Sal’s door when Supreme drops me off. It’s still morning, and the shop doesn’t open until noon. Sal spots me peeking in through the glass and lets me in the shop anyway. She tells me that Trey’s in the back.
It’s hard to say what Trey’s position is at Sal’s. Sometimes he waits tables, other times he oversees the orders in the kitchen. Today, he mops the kitchen floor.
Ms. Tique . . . I mean Kayla, watches nearby. She wears the hoop earrings like she wore in the Ring and a green apron. She’s much smaller than she seemed in the Ring though—she doesn’t even come to Trey’s shoulder. I guess the mic makes her larger than life.
They’re the only two in the kitchen. Usually, this place is bustling as employees toss pizza dough in the air, yell out orders, and slide pies into the oven. It’s almost too quiet and still today. I guess everybody else hasn’t come in yet. Leave it to Trey to show up early.
Trey wrings the mop in the bucket and starts rolling the bucket toward the storage room, but Kayla goes, “Uh-uhn. I know you’re not leaving that floor looking like that.”
“Like what?” he says.
“Like that.” She points to a spot. “There’s dirt on the floor, Trey.”
He squints. “That li’l speck?”
Kayla takes the mop herself. “See, this is why you don’t need to clean.”
“Oh, I don’t?”
“Nope!”
Trey smiles as he sneaks a quick peck to her lips. “But do I need to do that?”
“Hmmm . . .” She taps her chin. “The jury’s still out.”
Trey laughs and kisses her again.
I’m probably not supposed to see this, but I can’t look away. Not on some creeper shit, but I haven’t seen my brother this happy in a while. His eyes are bright, and his smile is so wide when he looks at her that it’s contagious. Not saying he was depressed or anything these past few months, but compared to how he is right now, it’s hard to say he’s been happy.
Kayla looks away from him long enough to spot me in the doorway. “Trey.”
He follows her gaze. The brightness leaves his eyes and his smile disappears. He focuses on mopping again. “What you doing here, Bri?”
I’m suddenly feeling like I shouldn’t be here, and I’ve never felt like that around Trey. He’s been my home when I wasn’t sure what “home” was. “Can we talk?” I ask.
He won’t look up from mopping. Kayla takes his arm to stop him. “Trey,” she says. Firmly.
He looks at her. There’s an unspoken conversation between them—it’s all in their eyes. Trey sighs out of his nose.
Kayla stands on her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. “I’m gonna go see if Sal needs help up front.”
She gives me this sad smile as she passes, like somebody does when you’re in mourning.
What’s that about? Aunt Pooh?
Trey mops, and it’s like I’m invisible to him. Even as I inch closer, he doesn’t look up.
“Is something wrong?” I ask. I’m almost afraid to know though. His response could turn my life even more upside down. “Is Jay—”
“Mom,” he corrects, focused on the floor.
I don’t know why that word won’t come easily for me. “Is she okay?”
“She was in her room when I left.”
“Oh.” Messed up that I’m sorta relieved by that. “Any word on Aunt Pooh?”
“They’re still processing her. What you want, Bri?”
What’s that about? I’ve never had to explain why I wanted to see him before. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“You haven’t done enough talking today?”
It’s a verbal slap of the worst kind.
He heard the interview. Of the thousands of people who listened in, I never considered that one might be my brother. “Trey, I can explain.”
He sets the mop in the bucket and looks at me. “Oh, so you have an explanation for acting a damn fool on the radio?”
“He pushed my buttons!”
“Didn’t I tell you that you don’t have to respond to everything? Huh, Bri?”
<
br /> “I’m not gonna just take shit that’s thrown at me!”
“You can speak up for yourself without acting like that!” he says. “First that Instagram video, now this? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I stare at this person who claims to be my brother. It looks like him, but it doesn’t sound like him. “You’re supposed to have my back,” I say, just above a whisper. “Why are you so pissed at me?”
He damn near chucks the mop. “Because I’m busting my ass for you! I drag myself into this job for you! Work long hours to make sure you’re good! And here you go, ruining any shot you have at making any goddamn thing of yourself by showing your ass every chance you get!”
“I’m just trying to save us!”
Somehow my voice is weak and loud all at once.
The fury leaves his eyes, and it’s my big brother staring at me again. “Bri—”
“I’m tired, Trey.” Tears prickle my eyes. “I’m tired of not knowing what’s gonna happen next. I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired!”
There’s a shuffling of feet, and two arms wrap around me tightly. I bury my face in Trey’s shirt.
He rubs my back. “Let it out.”
I scream until my throat is raw. I’ve lost Aunt Pooh. I may be losing my mom. I lost my cool so bad that I’ve lost more than I realize. I’m lost. I’m so lost that I’m exhausted from trying to find my way.
Trey leads me over to this little corner in the back of the kitchen that he calls his. Sometimes when I visit, I’ll find him sitting on the floor over here, wedged between the refrigerator and storage-room door. He says it’s the one place he can get away from the chaos.
Trey lowers himself to the floor and helps me sit down with him.
I rest my head in his lap. “I’m sorry I’m a burden.”
“Burden?” Trey says. “Where you get that from?”
From our whole lives. When Jay first got sick, she would disappear into her room for days on end. Trey couldn’t reach into all of the kitchen cabinets, but he always made sure I ate. He’d comb my hair and get me ready for preschool. He was ten. He didn’t have to do any of that. Then when we moved in with Grandma and Granddaddy, he still took care of me, insisting that he read me stories every night and walk me to and from school every day. If I had a nightmare about those gunshots that took Dad, Trey would run into my room and comfort me until I fell asleep.
He gives up so much for me. The least I can do is make it, so he doesn’t have to give up anything else. “You’ve always taken care of me,” I say.
“Li’l Bit, I do that because I want to,” Trey says. “A burden? Never. You’re too much of a gift to me.”
Gift. One word, one syllable. I don’t know if it rhymes with anything because it’s a word I never thought could be used when it comes to me.
Suddenly, it’s as if a cage has been unlocked and all of these tears I’ve had stored up inside fall down my cheeks.
Trey brushes them away. “I wish you’d cry more.”
I smirk. “Dr. Trey is back.”
“I’m serious. Crying doesn’t make you weak, Bri, and even if it did, there’s nothing wrong with that. Admitting that you’re weak is one of the strongest things you can do.”
I turn and look up at him. “That sounds like something Yoda would say.”
“Nah. Yoda would say, ‘Weak, strength is admitting you are.’” He kisses my cheek with a loud, sloppy “Muah!”
I quickly wipe the spot. I know I felt some of his spit. “Ill! Getting your germs all on me.”
“Just for that—” Trey kisses my cheek again, even louder, even sloppier. I squirm to get away, but yeah, I’m laughing, too.
He smiles at me. “I know you think I’ve done a lot for you, Li’l Bit, but you’ve done just as much for me. I think about everything we’ve been through, and if I’d gone through it by myself, I’d probably be where Pooh is right now.”
Damn. Aunt Pooh did say she became a GD because she didn’t have anyone. Now she’s in a jail cell without anyone again. I never realized that Trey could’ve been like her, with a record instead of a diploma. I know there’s so much else that made their lives turn out differently, but he makes it sound like the difference between them was me.
Maybe it’s not on me to save Aunt Pooh. Maybe it’s on Aunt Pooh to save herself for me.
Maybe it was. “She’s not getting out for a long time, huh?” I ask.
“Probably not.”
“What do we do?”
“Live,” he says. “I mean, we’re gonna support her through this, but you gotta remember that she made choices, Bri. She always knew there was a chance this would happen and did it anyway. This is on her. Period.”
The kitchen door opens just barely, and Kayla peeks in. “Trey? Sorry to bother, but Sal needs your help with something up front.”
I take that as my cue to sit up. Trey stands and gives me a hand up, too.
“No more radio interviews, all right?” he says. “Having one DJ on my list is enough.”
“What list?”
“My ass-whooping list. If I see him in the streets, I’m whooping his ass.”
I laugh as he kisses my cheek. Fact is, even when he’s mad at me, even when he’s so disappointed that he yells at me, my brother will always have my back.
Twenty-Nine
Monday morning, I knock on my mom’s bedroom door.
I’ve been up a while. Gotten dressed, had some cereal, and cleaned up my room a little. Jay hasn’t come out of her bedroom yet.
The first two knocks don’t get a response. I try again, and my heart knocks even harder against my chest. It takes two more tries before I hear the small “What is it?”
I slowly crack the door open. There’s no smell. I know, that’s a weird thing to look—well, sniff—for, but I still remember the odor that would come from her room when she first got sick. It was like rotten eggs and burning plastic mixed together. Crack reeks.
The room is covered in darkness—the lights are off, and the blinds and curtains are closed. But I can make out the lump beneath a mound of bedding that’s my mom.
“I just wanted to say bye,” I tell her. “The bus will be here soon.”
“C’mere.”
I inch over to the side of the bed. Jay’s head pokes out from under the comforter. About half of her hair is protected by a silk bonnet. It partially slid off at some point, and she doesn’t seem to care enough to fix it. Her eyes are puffy and pink, and there’s balled-up tissues on the nightstand and scattered around her pillow.
She reaches up and runs her fingers through my baby hairs. “You’re starting to outgrow these braids. I need to do some new ones soon. Did you eat?”
I nod. “You want anything?”
“No, but thank you, baby.”
There’s so much I wanna say but don’t know how to say. I mean, how do you tell your mom that you’re scared you’re losing her again? How selfish is it to say, “I need you to be okay so that I’ll be okay”?
Jay cups my cheek. “I’m okay.”
I swear, moms are equipped with mind-reading abilities.
Jay sits up and pulls me closer. I sit on the edge of the bed. She wraps her arms around me from behind and kisses the back of my head, resting her chin on my shoulder.
“It’s been a dark couple of days,” she admits softly. “But I’m getting through it. Just needed some time. I’m thinking about going downtown to see Pooh tomorrow. You wanna come? We can go after your ACT prep.”
I nod. “Any word from Dr. Cook yet?” It’s been over a week since she gave him her résumé at the PTA meeting. I get it, that’s not a long time, but days feel like years lately.
“No,” Jay says, and sighs. “Those folks at the school district probably don’t want a former drug addict working with them. It’ll be okay. I gotta believe that.”
“But will you be okay?”
I sound five. I feel five. I sat on her bed once back then, stared into red eyes hazy from
drugs, and asked her that same question. A day or so later, she left me and Trey at our grandparents’ house.
She stills when I ask it now. Several moments pass before she responds.
“I will be,” she says. “I promise.”
She kisses my temple to seal the deal.
My mom’s up and getting dressed when I go outside and wait for the bus.
She’s doing it for me, I know it. Making herself be strong so I won’t be scared.
I sit on the curb, slip my headphones over my ears, and hit Shuffle on my phone. J. Cole’s “Apparently” starts. I rap along as he talks about all the hell his mom went through. Then that part where he says he wants his dream to rescue him? I don’t think I’ve ever repeated truer words. It’s like he knew I’d be sitting on a curb in front of my house, listening to this song and needing it.
I used to say I wanted to do that for some kid. Have them listen to my music and feel every single word, as if I wrote it just for them. Lately, though, I just wanna make it.
The song stops as my ring tone goes off. Supreme’s name appears on the screen.
“Li’l Law!” he says the second I answer. “I got big news.”
“Another radio interview?” I’d rather eat all the leftovers in the world, and I hate leftovers.
“Bigger!” he says. “I got some execs that wanna meet you.”
It’s like I’ve suddenly broken into a sprint, that’s how much my heart speeds up. I almost drop my phone. “Ex—” I can’t even say it. “Execs? As in record execs?”
“Hell yes!” Supreme says. “This is it, baby girl! This is your chance!”
“Wait.” I hold my forehead. This is too fast. “How—why—when—”
“When? This afternoon,” he says. “Why? The interview! The song! How? They hit me up. Thing is, they wanna hear what else you can do. I know you don’t have any other songs recorded, so I thought we could meet them in the studio, right? Let you record some shit while they’re there. Then they can really see what you’re capable of. A contract will be as good as ours!”
Ho. Ly. Shit. “You’re serious?”
“As hell.” He laughs. “I can pick you up after school and bring you to the studio. Sound good?”