by Natavia
I opened the garage door and I could hear the sink running in the hallway bathroom. The bathroom door was opening as I opened the front door. I stormed away from the house once I made it outside. Before my grades dropped I was a track star. I ran like fire was at the bottom of my ass, making it over to the next neighborhood.
After I caught my breath, I called a cab. They told me I had to wait for two hours because there was a major accident and traffic was jammed throughout the city. My backpack was getting heavy because of the gun and I couldn’t chance roaming around looking suspicious. I couldn’t call my mother or Tryst because they were probably in distress about happened in school earlier.
Fuck it. This is my last option.
I sent a text to someone I haven’t talked to in months, telling him that it was an emergency and I could be on my way to jail. He responded back and told me to send him the street name and he’d be on his way, just like I knew he would.
Twenty minutes later…
I was sitting on the curb in front of my house, scrolling through my Myspace page when a white BMW crept up the street. I stood up so he could see me then walked over to his car and opened the passenger door.
“What are you doing over here?” Sebastian asked. The sound of his voice was pissing me off.
“I would’ve taken my chances getting locked up if I had known you were gonna ask me questions.”
“I miss you. You don’t know what it’s like walking past you in school,” he said.
I put my seatbelt on then twisted to my side, so I could stare out the window. Sebastian and I had gotten into a deep private relationship last year. It was his choice to keep it that way because he didn’t want to destroy his friendship with Tryst since they were best friends. I wasn’t bothered by it because I didn’t want Tryst to know myself. Well, let’s just say, I got pregnant and Sebastian told his father. I had a secret abortion that only us three knew about. Since that happened, Sebastian’s been pulling away from me. I know they say young people don’t know about love, but I loved Sebastian and still do. I’d be lying if I said only my parents contributed to my behavior but Sebastian dating someone else on my track team made me furious.
I ignored him while he tried to spark a conversation. When he grabbed my hand, I smacked him with my right hand. He almost swerved off the road before pulling over, holding his face.
“What the hell!” he said.
“Don’t touch me and don’t talk to me. I’m already plotting to shoot you.”
“I just want to talk to you, Deerie. I missed practice just to see you, you know I’ll have to pay for it later. We can’t keep ignoring this,” he said.
“Ignoring what?”
“What happened between us. I think about it every day. The reason I pulled away from you is because I was scared and ashamed for the pain you went through. We practically forced you to have an abortion and I never asked you how you felt about it even though we’re too young for that,” he said.
“And that’s how you ended up with Brittany? Why did it have to be someone on my team? But it doesn’t matter anyway, I have a boyfriend, a mature one at that.”
Sebastian’s handsome face was in a scowl. He had a pecan complexion with a small beard that he kept shaped-up and neatly trimmed. The waves on his head were deep, reminding me of finger waves without the gel. He was also thick but still had an athletic build.
“Do you really have a boyfriend?” he asked.
“Can you take me home?”
“Who is your boyfriend? Tell me,” he replied.
“Can you put the car in drive?”
“Naw, not until we talk about this. So, who have you been fuckin’?” he asked.
“Now you’re sounding like Tryst.”
“I don’t give a fuck! You called me to pick you up and I’m not supposed to talk to you? I still have feelings for you and you got me over here sweatin’,” he said, wiping his forehead.
“I’m just making you jealous.”
“Show me your phone,” he said.
“Muthafucka, I’ll show you my gun and shoot you before I do that! Put this car in drive or else I’ll get violent and you know I’ll do it.”
“Can we get something to eat first?” he asked.
“What if someone sees us?”
“We can grab it then take it to my parents’ other home in Chevy Chase. My parents are gone out of town until the day of my game, so I can stay out,” he said.
“Just get me out of here,” I replied.
Sebastian had finally stopped talking on our way to his parents’ other house. I wasn’t sure what to make of it because I couldn’t hate him in the way I wanted to. He was also my best friend at one point. Tryst always expressed how he’d beat up his friends if they ever wanted to be with me and I knew he meant it. I prayed he never found out about me and Sebastian.
************
Sebastian unlocked the door to his parents’ house. He went in first to deactivate the alarm. I followed him, and that familiar feeling came back. We spent most of our time in Chevy Chase, away from everybody. I took off my shoes and headed straight to the bathroom upstairs so that I could wash June Bug’s scent off me. There was no way in hell I was going back to him. I turned on the shower after peeling off my clothes. The bathroom’s door opened, and I covered my breasts. My backpack was wide open and Sebastian saw the money and the gun. I reached out to grab my backpack, but he already had snatched it off the sink.
“What is this?” he asked, going through my things. He bit his bottom lip when he saw the box of opened condoms.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m not the same person I was when we were together. Deal with it because I already accepted it.”
“This is your way of getting back at me by being a hoe? It hasn’t even been a year since I took your virginity. I see what you’re doing though. This is a cry for your father’s attention. I should’ve left you on the curb with the rest of the trash,” he said. Sebastian dropped my backpack on the floor before leaving out of the bathroom. I stepped into the shower, feeling dirtier than before.
I was in there for fifteen minutes until I stepped out to dry off, with only a towel wrapped around me as I left the bathroom. Sebastian didn’t answer me when I called out to him. I heard the TV coming from the living room.
He was sitting on the couch with tears falling down his face. He wiped them, but they wouldn’t stop. Why was he crying when he stopped talking to me for almost six months? That’s how long it’d been since we broke up.
“This is lame. My boys would clown me if they saw that I was crying over my best friend’s little sister,” he said.
“You were right, I was acting out to see if my parents cared enough to notice. When I had you, it didn’t matter because you cared about me. Then I had to deal with everything by myself. I used to walk around my mother with puffy eyes from crying all day and she was too drunk to notice. Tryst was always with Jonna or hanging out with his friends so I couldn’t bond with him much like I used to, so I started having sex, thinking someone would care about me.”
Sebastian scooted over on the couch so that I could sit next to him. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer.
“I guess I deserved it but where did you get all that money from and why do you have a gun?” he asked.
“I stole some of it from my sugar daddy and the other half he gave to me. When I saw the gun lying on his table, I got curious about it, so I took it.”
“Please don’t bring that up again. How old is this sugar daddy by the way?” he asked.
“Thirty-seven.”
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“He’s wayyy smaller than you. I didn’t feel a thing.”
Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief, “Okay, I just need to know one more thing. Who is he?” he asked.
“June Bug.”
“WHAT!” he said, and jumped off the couch.
Sebastian paced back and forth across the li
ving room. He called me so many names it made my head spin. He even threatened to tackle me.
“Bruh, your ass got me hot! You were fuckin’ your godfather? He’s like your father’s brother! What type of shit are you smokin’?” Sebastian asked.
“You had sex with Brittany and she was my team sister!”
“Brittany is a virgin. We don’t have sex and we don’t do much. Every once in a while, we’ll study together or go to a movie,” he said.
“And that’s why you brought me here? You think I’m supposed to give you some?”
“NO! I don’t want it, you fucked June Bug! Cross-eyed June Bug with a catfish face. You have no morals. I’m taking my pizza upstairs to eat then take a nap. I’ll take you home when I wake up or you can catch the bus,” he said. Sebastian left out of the living room.
“You better not tell Tryst!”
“Fuck you, hoe!” he yelled back.
“You wish you could!”
I laid across the couch without an appetite. On the table was a picture of Sebastian and his family. I put the picture face down because I couldn’t sleep in front of them. It always seemed like someone was watching me sleep. It was a habit I had since I could remember. I closed my eyes to take a quick nap before going home where I couldn’t get much sleep…
An hour later…
“Wake up, Deerie! We have to go!” Sebastian shook me.
“Give me fifteen more minutes,” I mumbled.
I was in a sleep so deep my body seemed to have bricks weighing me down to the couch.
“We gotta go! Your father is in the hospital!” he said, lifting me up.
“What?” I asked.
Sebastian had my belongings in his hands. I was shaking, and my head was pounding. Sebastian had to help me get dressed. I couldn’t stop hyperventilating. First, Tryst was accused of rape and now our father was hurt. My legs were like noodles while I tried to force myself out of the house.
Tryst
An hour ago, I was taking a nap when my mother barged into my room and told me my father was shot. From that moment on, I couldn’t remember anything else as I kept hearing my mother telling me the news over and over again. I texted Sebastian and asked him if he could look for my sister because we needed her at the hospital. My mother was crying on my shoulder, saying how she regretted everything she ever did or said.
“Ma, calm down. It could just be a graze or something.”
“We have been in the waiting room for thirty minutes!” she cried.
We were at Shock Trauma in Baltimore. They flew my father on a helicopter, which is why I knew it wasn’t a graze, but I kept telling myself it was because he couldn’t leave us like that. All we knew is that he was at a red light when a car with fake tags pulled up next to him and began shooting. Almost every five minutes it seemed the police or detectives were asking us questions especially me. A white woman approached us this time, introducing herself as Detective Cruise.
“I understand this is a very tough time and my prayers go out to your family, but my job is to make sure you all are safe. We want to know if Mr. Christianson had any known enemies?” she asked.
“No, now can you please ask us later?” my mother asked.
“Your vehicle was stolen last night, correct? Do you think that can be tied to your husband? Do you know anything about that?” she replied.
“Vehicles are stolen every day. How about you investigate his son, Quyntrell Christianson but he might use his other last name, Spellman,” my mother said.
“Are you stupid? My father is in there fighting for his life and you want to lie on his son? Trell didn’t do it!”
“Can you confirm that?” the detective asked me.
“That’s your job,” I replied.
The detective thanked us for cooperating before she left. I lied because I wasn’t sure where Trell was at, but I believed he wouldn’t do anything like that.
“I don’t trust Trell, he’s a bad kid. His behavior and your father needing to tend to him is what caused our marriage to crumble,” she said.
I scooted far away from her, she was a toxic person. She hated Trell more than she hated the person who betrayed her which is David.
“Christianson family,” a doctor said when he came into the waiting area.
When he told us my father died, I couldn’t hear him. His voice faded in and out reminding me of being under water. I felt like I was drowning, and the water was sitting on my chest.
“No, no, my father is strong. He ain’t dead from no weak-ass bullet,” I said.
“You can spend time with him before we take him downstairs. Let me know if there is anything we can do to make you all comfortable,” he said. He forced himself to sound sincere, but the truth is, doctors are used to death. My mother held onto my arm as we followed the doctor through the double doors. The doctor stood in front of the room where my father was while me and my mother slowly stepped beside him. He asked us if we needed a chaplain but we shook our heads no and I walked into the room. My father laid still on the bed with bandages on his chest, arms, and head. His eye was swollen, and his lip was badly bruised. If I knew last night was going to be my last time seeing him, I would’ve told him I loved him. My eyes stung from the tears that were pouring out. My father was my superhero when I was young, and he told me superheroes don’t die.
“After he was shot, he crashed into a tree. If he had lived, he would’ve been in a vegetative state. His hip bone was shattered, he had a spinal injury and he has a cracked skull where the eye is swollen,” the doctor said. He stepped out of the room, so we could be alone.
“I can’t see him like this,” my mother said.
I grabbed his hands and they were cold, still, lifeless.
My mother held on to me while I cried. I couldn’t let his hand go, even if I wanted to pull away from it. Without my father, I couldn’t be a man. I died with him.
“You can let his hand go,” she said.
“I can’t. I won’t. It’s stuck.”
“No, it’s not, Tryst. You can let it go,” she said.
“Father, wake up! He’s not dead, Momma. He’s holding on to me.”
I held his hand long enough, so he could feel warm again. Deerie came into the room with two nurses. She rushed to me and I hugged her with my free arm. My sweatshirt was wet from her tears and mine. Twelve minutes later, the nurses covered his whole body with a sheet. I finally let his hand go because reality set in, my father was dead.
Three days later…
I was stuck inside my bedroom. The school reached out to me a few times to check on me, but I wasn’t going back. I heard Jonna told the principal the truth about Amanda, but I wasn’t in the clear yet until Amanda come forward. The house has been quiet since David’s death, not one single word has been spoken. June Bug and a few other of my father’s friends came to visit but we didn’t let them in. The house phone constantly rang, and the voicemail had over a hundred messages, thirty of them were from my coach. The doorbell rang again, and I didn’t budge. It was probably Sebastian at the door. He stopped by for three days in a row, bringing me notes from my classes.
“Tryst, a girl named Dream is here to see you,” my mother said.
I got up and opened my bedroom door. My mother was standing in front of me wearing the same clothes she had on the night at the hospital. She reeked of alcohol and cigarettes.
“Who is Dream? She said she knows you but I’m not buying it. Go down there and see what she wants. She was probably fuckin’ your daddy. Y’all ain’t slick,” my mother said. That was the only reason she decided to let someone in. No matter what, Kimberly would always think the worst.
“I know Dream. I met her a few days ago.”
“She’s waiting by the door and I will be listening. Your father was an ass man and that girl has a lot of it. You can’t fool me, Tryst. You have been messing with the same flat-ass little girl for years,” she said.
I walked away from her and headed for the stairs. Dr
eam could’ve shown up because something happened to Trell. I wouldn’t be able to live with my mother if Trell was locked up behind her accusation.
Dream was standing by the door looking at the pictures on the wall. Her fragrance lingered throughout the foyer, it was a fresh soap scent mixed with vanilla. Her jeans looked like paint on her body and her hair was freshly done.
“What’s up?” I finally said.
“You scared me. I was busy lookin’ at the pictures on the wall, beautiful family. Chrome actually looks different here, in a good way of course,” she said.
She stretched her arms out for a hug, but I didn’t hug her because I hadn’t showered in days.
“I ain’t gonna lie, I’m smellin’ a lil’ foul right now.”
“I’ll hold my breath,” she said.
I wrapped my arms around her and I think I squeezed her too tight, smothering her. Her feet were barely on the floor, so I pulled away.
“I came here because Trell said he’s not allowed. He gave me your address. He’s really going through it. A detective came to his house and questioned him about Chrome. Also, the hood is having a candle light vigil for your father tonight. You should come if you’re up for it. We’re going to do it outside of his corner store. Trell will be there,” she said.
“I’ll holla at him there. I’m not in the mood to talk on the phone.”
My mother came downstairs and mumbled “umph” under her breath when she went into the kitchen.
“Your friend has five more minutes before she gets out of my house!” Kimberly shouted.
“Go sit in the living room. I’m going to take a quick shower then we can bounce. She’s doing too much and my father ain’t even buried yet,” I told Dream.
“Okay, but I’m going outside if she says something to me,” she replied.
I showed her to the living room then turned the TV on for her. Dream stared at the couch for a minute.
“You’re not supposed to sit on white furniture,” she said.
“Says who?”
“Black folk, especially when wearing dark jeans, it can leave a stain,” she replied.
“My mother gets the furniture shampooed every month, you’ll be alright.”