by A. J. Byrd
“Makes sense to me,” I say, wanting to be supportive.
“Sure!” Anjenai adds.
“Whatever floats your boat.” Tyler shrugs.
The buzz in the cafeteria changes. I look up and see Romeo and his crew finally gracing us all with their presence. I still think the boy is fine as hell. I can’t help but sigh and allow my gaze to roam over his tall athletic physique. If I could be so lucky.
My eyes narrow on Tyler. There’s something funny about her gaze.
“Too bad we sanctioned him as off-limits,” I say, shaking my head and watching the way his face lights up when he laughs. “The things I want to do with him.”
“Kierra!” Anjenai snaps.
“What? I’m just being honest.”
“Off-limits?” Nicole asks. “What kind of crazy talk is that?”
I quickly bring Nicole up to speed with the pact the BFFs made.
Nicole laughs. “Are you guys for real?”
“Oh, yes,” I tell her. “No guy is worth our friendship, right girls?”
“Right.” Tyler crosses her arms and then glares at Anjenai.
I glance over at Anje who’s busily stuffing chips into her mouth. “Am I missing something?”
“No,” Anje answers despite her full mouth, and shakes her head.
I blink at her while the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Is Anje actually lying about something? Before I can question her, we get an unexpected visitor at the table.
“Hello, ladies.”
I look up and nearly swallow my tongue. Here’s Romeo smiling and talking…to us.
“Hi, Romeo,” Nicole says breathlessly.
“What’s up, Nic?”
Behind him Shadiq and Chris are rolling their eyes and looking impatient.
“You girls ready for the basketball tryouts this afternoon?” Romeo asks.
“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” Anje answers without looking at him.
I feel those hairs rise again.
“I’m going to try out, too,” Nicole informs Romeo. Her eager, puppy-dog eyes give her emotions away.
Chris and Shadiq snicker from behind him.
Nicole’s smiling face falls.
“You guys cut it out,” I snap. Before I can truly put their heads on the chopping block, Romeo jumps in.
“You clowns behave,” he tells them.
Chris and Shadiq sober immediately and stare at their friend as if he’d just grown an extra head. Then Chris catches me shaking my head and asks, “What?”
“You’re a real piece of work,” I tell him. “Didn’t your momma teach you manners?”
Chris’s eyebrows shoot skyward as his lips quirk unevenly. “Nah, but if you’re teaching, li’l ma, sign me up.”
“Boy, I ain’t got time to upgrade you.”
“Oh, shit,” Shadiq barks. “She just told you.”
Chris laughs and actually strikes an adoring pose, causing my stomach to flutter beneath his amused gaze. “Yeah, maybe she did.” He looks me up and down, and I feel myself fight back a smile.
“Well, good luck at tryouts, girls,” Romeo says, breaking my spell. He pops Chris on the collar and then they roll out.
Nicole slumps back in her chair. “Maybe I shouldn’t try out.”
“What? Sure you should,” I tell her. “Don’t let those knuckleheads get to you.”
“Yeah,” Tyler and Anje chime in.
“Forget them,” Anje adds. “What do they know? You’ll do great.”
“You think so?” Nicole asks, perking up. I swear the girl’s emotions swing like a pendulum.
“We know so,” Anje says with a reassuring smile.
Tyler crosses her arms. “You two looked pretty chummy.”
“What? Me and Chris?” I gasp.
“Not you,” Tyler says, turning toward Anje. “I meant you and Romeo.”
She looks as if she’s swallowed a frog. “What do you mean?”
“Come off it. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you.”
Anje averts her gaze. Something is up. I hadn’t imagined it.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Anje says.
“Don’t you?” Tyler asks. “It’s pretty weird for him to just come over here and ask about tryouts, especially since he never gave you those lessons he promised, right?”
My gaze ping-pongs between them. “What is going on?”
“Nothing,” Anje says.
“Are you sure?” Tyler asks. “Sure didn’t look like nothing to me.”
“What’s with the inquisition?” I jump in, feeling like I need to come to Anje’s defense against whatever craziness that’s going on in Tyler’s mind this week.
“It’s not an inquisition,” Tyler says, but still looks irritated. “I’m just asking a simple question about a simple observation.”
“It sounds more like an accusation,” I tell her. “If there was something going on, Anjenai would tell us. She would never hold out on us.” I turn to my girl. “Right?” Secretly I’m hoping she comes clean.
“Right.” Anje licks her lips and swallows.
I feel a rush of disappointment, but I struggle not to show it. “See?” I say turning back to Tyler. “So chill out.”
“Whatever.” Tyler jumps up from her chair and storms away from the table.
I shake my head. “That girl really needs to do something about her anger issues.”
Anjenai stuffs another chip into her mouth. “Yeah. Definitely.”
chapter 23
Tyler—What About Your Friends?
“I can’t believe that heffa lied to my face!” I stomp my way around the school grounds trying to calm the hell down until lunch ends. “This is so foul.” I try to come down, but I can’t. After all the messed up things that have happened in my life, the two people I thought I could always count on and who would always tell me the truth were my two best friends.
Now that, just like everything else, is just one big-ass lie. Staying after school to study for a biology test my ass. I should’ve busted her dead in her mouth.
But you know what? This ain’t even worth it. I don’t need them. I don’t need anybody.
“Hey, Tyler. Wait up.”
I close my eyes and keep marching.
“Yo, girl. I know your ass hears me.”
I stop and turn around. “What, Michelle?” I give her a look that makes it clear that I’m not in the mood for any bullshit, but apparently the girl is blind because she doesn’t pick up the hint.
“Where you off to?” she asks.
“Why?”
“’Cuz I wanted to see if you want to tag over to the school’s bleachers for a smoke. I know my ass needs to relax before Ms. Hauss’s chemistry class. She’s a real bitch.”
I laugh. “You take chemistry?”
“What? I can’t help that I’m smarter than some of these dumbasses roaming around here.” She smiles, and it occurs to me that she might even be pretty if she ever bothered to wear makeup.
“So what about it? You down?”
I pull a deep breath and then see Anjenai and Kierra exit out of the school building, laughing. In no time at all I feel my anger rising to the surface.
Michelle turns to see what I’m looking at, and then asks, “What? You and your girls beefing?”
“Mind your own business,” I tell her.
“Whatever.” She tosses up her hands. “You down or what?”
Anjenai and Kierra look up and see me standing with Michelle. Their smiles suddenly fade.
“All right,” I say to Michelle. “Let’s go.”
I hate liars. I always have. Against my will an image of my mother at our apartment door flashes inside my head. The words I’ll be back in a minute, are still hanging in the air. The thing is I knew that my mom was lying then just by the way she refused to look me in the eyes. Still, I waited on that sofa for two days, only getting up to go to the bathroom a couple of times. To my dad’s credit, he waited by my side. I think w
e were both in denial.
Then he started drinking again, and I started blaming him for not going after her. I mean, why didn’t he? Couldn’t he see that she was just testing him?
Parents.
They can be really stupid sometimes.
It slowly occurs to me that Michelle is just steadily yapping away about some nonsense and I find myself just ready to light up and forget about all the b.s. that pollutes my life.
When we get to the bleachers, I see it’s the same crowd that hangs out at the playground.
“Yo.” Trisha glances up. “You two attached at the hip now?”
“Shut up and give me a hit.” Michelle laughs.
Someone else asks me if I’d seen the damage I’d done to Billie’s nose yet. “I’m sure it’s better than the one she use to have.” That actually gets me a few laughs. I try not to smile and then accept the lumpy joint that’s being passed to me. This time there’s no hesitation on my part. After a couple of tokes, I pass the joint to Michelle. By the time the joint passes around the second time, I’m high as a kite and loving it.
This is exactly what I needed.
A few jokes are told and I laugh. But a minute later, I can’t remember the punchlines.
“Shit. I better head back,” Michelle says. “Lunch is almost over, and class is all the way on the other side of the damn school”
A few of the kids bob their heads and start to peel off. I, on the other hand, feel like just hanging out here by the bleachers for a while. Maybe I should skip class.
I lean back on the steel steps, close my eyes and enjoy the feel of the afternoon sun on my face.
“Girl, don’t go to sleep,” Trisha warns. “Nance patrols out here on the regular. She’s worse than a drug-sniffing dog on the police force.”
I groan and force myself to stand.
Trisha giggles.
“What?”
“Your ass weaving and shit.” She shakes her head as she climbs down the stairs. “You’re gonna get busted.” Trisha shakes her head and marches off.
I stick out my tongue behind her back. I then continue to flirt with the idea of skipping class but finally decide against it. No more Saturday detentions. Those things suck. I head up toward the school, expecting the end lunch bell to ring at any moment when my name is called out again.
I know the voice without having to turn around. A second later, I hear expensive sneakers slapping the ground.
“Yo, Tyler.” Romeo rushes around to block my path.
I try to move around him.
“Okay. You’re angry.”
“Get out of my way.” I move to my right, but once again, he blocks.
“Yo, chill. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I snap. This asshole is killing my high.
“Why are you so angry all the time?”
“Because people are always making me angry. People are always hiding things and lying and then stabbing me in the back. And you know what? I’m tired of it.” I swallow, feeling tears coming. After taking a few deep breaths, I realize that Romeo is frowning and staring at me. I suddenly feel like a moron.
Drawing a deep breath, I force myself to calm down. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“No problem,” he says tentatively. He suddenly looks as if he’s frightened to talk now, but he plunges ahead anyway. “I wanted to talk to you about…you know. What you saw the other night.”
The memory of him and Anjenai kissing in his car resurfaces in my mind like it has a million times in the last two days. “What about it?”
“Well.” He hesitates.
We both notice a few more people milling about the school grounds. Lunch must be almost over. He pulls me off to the side in front of a large bush.
“I, um, really like Anjenai,” he begins, his words stabbing my heart. “She’s cool.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, so?”
“Sooo…as you know, we’ve been sort of hanging out this week, and she seems to really want us to keep a low profile. I was kinda thinking it was because she fears her friends not liking me or something.”
I can’t help but laugh at that shit. “So what? Are you asking for my permission or something?”
Romeo ducks his head but holds on to this adorable goofy smile. I swear I want to slap it off his face.
You liked me first!
I grind my teeth together and count to ten before I speak again. “Look, do whatever the hell you want. I don’t care,” I lie and try, once again, to get around him before tears creep down my face.
Escaping Romeo isn’t as easy. His hand whips out and grabs my arms before I can take two steps. I swing back around. “Get your hands off of me!”
He drops my wrist and shoots his hands up into the air as if he was surrendering. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on and maybe I made a mistake by trying to talk to you, but whatever I did to offend you…my bad.” He lowers his hands back down. “Let’s just forget this conversation ever took place. Anje didn’t want me to say anything, and I don’t want to make her angry.”
“Ha! Now you want me to keep a secret from my best friend?”
“Well, you haven’t said anything so far, and I know you saw us.”
I think about this for a moment. “All right. I’ll keep a secret if you keep one.”
He frowns. “What kind of secret?”
Without thinking I launch up onto my toes and kiss him.
chapter 24
Romeo—More Girls More Problems.
Whatthe hell?
This is nice.
But what the hell?
I’m trying to collect my thoughts, but the passion in Tyler’s kiss is blowing my mind. Just as I’m getting into it, Tyler pulls back. Still stunned, I stare at her.
“You just kissed me,” is the only thing I can think to say.
“OH. MY. GOD.”
My heart freezes at the sound of Bianca’s voice. I turn around for confirmation, and sure enough, it’s both Bianca and Raven. Jackson High’s two biggest gossips. The shit is really going to hit the fan now.
The two girls march over to me and Tyler. Their faces stern, their eyes blazing.
“This is who you dumped our girl for?” Raven snaps, her accent thicker than normal.
“Why don’t you two bitches just go mind your own business?” Tyler squares off toward them.
“This is our business,” Bianca’s high voice climbs even higher. “Romeo, tell us that you didn’t play our girl so you could go slumming. They have better hookers downtown.”
“Oh, is that where you work at night?” Tyler challenges.
Raven jabs her hands onto her waist. “No. But I saw your mother there last night.”
“Yo, yo.” I jump in between the girls, hoping to stop something from poppin’ off. “Look. It’s not what it looked like.”
“Really?” Raven laughs. “Because it looked like you were cramming your tongue down her throat.”
“Yeah,” Bianca says, her neck swirling.
What can I say to that? It was sort of like that.
“Save the lies,” Bianca says. “We saw you with our own eyes. You’re probably contaminated now.”
Tyler drops her backpack and launches—almost in the same movement. Luckily I’m fast enough to catch her in midswing.
Bianca ducks and then has the nerve to look startled. Doesn’t she know not to play with fire? “That bitch is crazy!”
A few people walking in between the buildings stop and gawk at us.
“Y’all are making a scene. Chill,” I bark.
“Whatever,” Raven says. “C’mon, Bianca. This shit isn’t over by a long shot. Believe that. When Phoenix finds out it’s gonna be on and poppin’. Trust.”
“Bring it on, ho,” Tyler yells. “Ain’t nobody scared of your bourgie-ass! Who cares about Phoenix finding out? I’ll tell her myself.”
I groan. How in the hell did I get in the middle of
this? “Cool it!” I yell at Tyler, feeling my own frustrations. But Tyler is off the chain. She’s still trying to jump out my arms to get to Raven and Bianca. Damn, she’s strong. The girl definitely has a lot of passion stored.
“Whatever,” Raven says unimpressed. “Just remember you brought this shit on yourself.” She then turns her gaze to me. “And you. You know this shit is foul.” Finally, they storm off.
“Let go of me,” Tyler growls.
“Are you going to calm down?”
“Romeo, I ain’t playin’. Get your hands off me.”
“Promise me you’ll calm down first.”
She wiggles a few more times before finally giving up. “All right. All right. I promise.”
I weigh whether to believe her and then cautiously let her go. She steps back and tugs angrily at her clothes. When she glares up at me, I’m turned on by the fire simmering in her eyes.
What the hell? How can I be feeling something for her when I like Anjenai?
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She bends down and picks up her backpack. “Those girls aren’t going to be happy until we finally have it out.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of turning the other cheek?” I ask.
“Why? So someone can punch me in the other one? No thank you.”
“So you gotta be tough all the time?”
“What are you—the last Boy Scout? I said I was fine. Now leave me alone.”
I shake my head. I’m through trying to figure this chick out. “Whatever. You do you, boo. I just walked away from a relationship with too much drama. I’m not looking for more. The kiss, it was nice. But, umm, I think I’m still gonna kick it with Anjenai for a while. Peace.” I toss deuces at her and roll out.
chapter 25
Kierra—Oh, snap!
I don’t believe it. I literally have to rub my eyes twice, and even then I still can’t believe I’ve just witnessed Tyler and Romeo kissing from the window of my algebra class. I had gotten to the classroom early so I could give my excuse to the teacher why I didn’t do last night’s assignment; I forgot, but I’ll say I left it at home. I had just plopped my books down onto my desk when I looked out the window.