by A. J. Byrd
I shrug. Since I’m on the freshman cheerleading squad, I don’t cheer at the varsity games. Not that I’m ready. “I don’t know.”
“Why not? I could use my own personal cheerleader.”
I roll my eyes at his little retarded ass. “Then why don’t you take your momma to the game?”
Shadiq and Romeo crack up.
“Funny.” Chris smiles and winks at me. “Why don’t you come over to my man Shadiq’s party afterward?”
“A party?” I perk up. My first high school party. Is he actually asking me out? “What kind of party?”
“A celebration party. What else? We’re going to kick Wheeler’s ass tomorrow night.”
“What if you lose the game?”
“We won’t,” he says, his smile growing cocky by the second, but I’m noticing for the first time how his light brown eyes sparkle. I still can’t believe that he’s trying to holler at me.
The BFFs may have made a pact about Romeo but we didn’t say anything about his friends.
“So what’s up, Kierra? Are you going to roll with me, or are you going sit here and try to make a brother beg?”
I arch my brows. “I don’t know. I might like to see you beg.”
His smile widens as he meets my gaze. “I don’t beg.”
I stare him down, determined to look unimpressed.
At long last, he laughs. “I guess there’s always a first time for everything,” he says. “Please come to the party.”
I can’t help but laugh now. “Boy, you’re a fool.”
When our laughter finally dies, he asks again, “So are you coming or what?”
“All right,” I say. “We’ll roll through with you. Me and my girls, right?”
“Sure. You can bring them. You just make sure you show up.”
Chris looks up. “Whoa! Looks like we got a catfight.”
I turn around toward the basketball court and see Tyler on her back and Anje glaring down at her. “What did I miss?” Instead of Anje offering a hand to help Tyler up, I’m stunned to see her turn away from her and go back to dribbling her ball.
“What the hell?”
“Looks like there’s some bad blood between your girls,” Chris says.
Tyler and Anje now have my full undivided attention. I watch as the girls go from practice jump shots to blocking techniques. The whole time, it seems Tyler and Anjenai go out of their way to stay away from each other. On the few times that they don’t, it looks like they’re seconds from killing each other. What the hell is that all about? I’ve never seen them like this before.
“This is not good.” Maybe Anje found out about the kiss. I glance back at Romeo and try to read his expression but couldn’t.
No surprise. Nicole is struggling. She made none of her jump shots, her sparring partner always stole the ball and she looks like she’s ready to pass out from the constant running. Poor girl.
My heart goes out to her. There has to be something she’s good at.
Anje and Tyler, on the other hand, are amazing—despite trying to kill each other. Anje makes every shot while Tyler only misses one.
“We’re watching the makings of a coupla superstars,” Chris says next to me.
I bob my head. “Those are my girls!” I clap and whistle. “Go, Anje! Go, Tyler!” and a little belatedly. “Go, Nicole!”
A few people snicker at the last cheer, and I have to fight back my impulse to cuss them out.
“Nicole needs to give it up,” Chris says.
“Shut your mouth,” I snap. “At least she’s trying.”
He holds up his hands. “I didn’t know you were that sensitive for the girl.”
“She’s my friend. I don’t appreciate people laughing at her. Didn’t your momma teach you that if you don’t have nothing nice to say then don’t say anything at all?”
Chris mimics zipping his lips and tosses away the key.
I smile. “Thank you.”
“I like it when you smile at me. You should do it more often,” he says.
“If you try to be nice more often then maybe I will.”
An hour later, practice finally draws to an end, and I jump up and run down onto the court to finally find out what’s going on between my two best friends.
Though the coach makes it clear the list of who made it won’t be posted until next week, I’m pretty certain both Tyler and Anje made the cut.
I made it over to Tyler but Anje apparently has a rocket launcher on the heels of her sneakers because she’s off the court in record time. “Good job!” I pat Tyler on the back. “You’re a shoo-in.”
She grunts.
“And guess what? We’ve been invited to our first high school party!”
I wait for her to be excited, but it’s clear I have a long wait ahead of me. “Oookay. Out with it. What the hell is going on with you and Anje?”
“Fuck, Anjenai! I don’t want to hear her name ever again.”
She storms off and leaves me and Nicole standing there, looking like idiots. “What the hell was all that about?”
“You’ll never believe it,” Nicole says and immediately launches into what happened earlier in the locker room. It’s enough to make my head spin.
So far this whole high school thing sucks.
chapter 28
Phoenix—There Goes My Baby
“What do you mean they were kissing?” I ask, glaring at Bianca and Raven at the foot of my bed. I stay home sick for one day and this shit happens?
“You should have seen them,” Bianca’s high baby-soft voice grows so high it actually squeaks. “They were all hugged up behind this bush. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first.”
I jump from bed and race to the adjoining bathroom. I drop to my knees and dry heave into the toilet. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
“Oh my,” Raven says from the bathroom door. “You really are sick.”
I remain on my knees hugging the toilet. Tears burn my eyes and try to escape, but I stop them in the nick of time. How could he do this? I’m going to be a laughingstock at school when everyone learns he left me for that…backward hood rat, Tyler Jamison.
I don’t get it. What the hell does she have that I don’t have?
“Please. I say it’s time we teach these girls a lesson,” Raven vents. “For the past two weeks they have been nothing but pains in our asses. Taking our tables, taking our men. What’s next?”
“But do what?” Bianca asks. “They already broke one girl’s nose,” she says, touching her own. “A broken nose is not cute.”
“Okay. Maybe not fight-fight, but we’ve got to do something,” Bianca reasons. “We’ve tried spreading rumors, but people actually like them because of what they did to Billie and us. Last year, we were the most popular girls in the school. Now that position is being threatened. We can’t just let that shit go. Maybe if we say they all have some kind of STD or something. Make it so no guy would ever step to them.”
“Yeah and then after that, that Tyler chick beats us up. That girl has anger-management issues. I thought Billie Grant was bad,” Raven says. “People aren’t going to want to spread rumors about those girls because they fear that Tyler.”
“With good reason,” I add. “She’s always ready to fight on the drop of a dime.” I climb onto my feet and walk over to the sink to splash water on my face. Patting my face dry, I glance into the mirror and think about my ex. I can’t lose him. We’ve been together for so long.
I love him.
And he loves me. He’s told me so a thousand times.
I almost break down in front of my girls and start crying, but that would be a mistake. Bianca and Raven were my best friends, but I know they are just looking for any signs of weakness. Loyal, they’re not.
I draw a deep breath and take in my reflection in the mirror. Despite my nausea, I know I still look better than Tyler Jamison—or any other girl at that school.
“It’s okay, girls. I’ll get him back,” I
promise them as well as myself. I turn and face them. “This is war.”
“All right,” Raven says, smiling.
“Maybe a good time to talk with him is at Shadiq’s party tomorrow night,” Bianca suggests.
“Party?” I ask. “What party?”
“You didn’t know about the party?” Bianca asks.
I didn’t, but I’m not about to let them know that. “Oh, that party.” I wave them off. “I’ve been so sick today that I forgot.”
“You’ll be all right in time for the game tomorrow night, right?”
“Oh, for sure. And you’re right. The party will be the perfect place to confront Romeo.” I give them a confident smile, but inside I’m dying. I have to get Romeo back. I just have to. There’s no way I’m having this baby without him.
chapter 29
Nicole—Unwanted
I hatemy life, I keep chanting inside my head as I storm into my house. I totally sucked at basketball tryouts. I can’t even run and dribble a ball at the same time. There’s not a chance in hell I made it onto the team. Tears burn my eyes as I slam the door behind me. I make a beeline toward the kitchen.
“Nicole, is that you?” Mom yells out.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I answer, rolling my eyes. I wonder if she even bothered to get out of bed today. Mom always sinks into a deep depression whenever she breaks up with a guy. Her pity party consists of ice cream, pickles and cigarettes. It’s very weird.
The last rich guy promised to take mom away from all this. Give her a ring and set up in a house as big as the one my dad lives in. Now that our plans of leaving a life of mediocrity has fallen through, she’ll spend the next six months in bed, glued to her soap opera.
No wonder I’m pathetic. It’s in the genes.
I grab a frozen pizza out of the freezer and preheat the oven to four-fifty. I know the last thing I need is to eat a whole pizza, but I need something to cheer me up after the disastrous day I had. I grab the two-liter root beer bottle and the carton of vanilla ice cream. If I’m going to break my new diet, I might as well go all out.
Of course I wouldn’t need any of this stuff if I was anywhere near perfect like my half sister, Phoenix. Everyone thinks she’s beautiful.
It’s not fair. Nothing is fair for a bastard daughter of a multimillionaire. Is it too much to ask that every once in a while I get some fabulous clothes, a decent car or my own credit card? Doesn’t his blood run through my veins just like Phoenix?
Of course it would also be nice if my mother finally lands a husband instead of a sugar daddy all the time. I give myself an extra scoop of vanilla ice cream and don’t rule out the possibility of coming back for more later.
The oven beeps, letting me know that it’s time to put the pizza in. Afterward, I take my root beer float and shuffle my way into the living room. I spend about as much time in here alone as I do my own bedroom. I plop down on the sofa, grab the remote and quickly search to see whether 106 & Park is on yet.
I reach the channel just when the crowd is going wild. A few minutes later, my favorite rapper Lil Jon struts out, and I start bouncing on the sofa. The veejay, Rosci, is greeted with a kiss on the cheek, and I’m instantly jealous. She’s tall and skinny, too. Maybe when I finally lose this weight, I’ll be able to get a boyfriend.
Everybody else seems to have a boyfriend. Hell, at this point I’d be happy with one of those science nerds with thick glasses and an acne problem just so I can have someone to stroll with me to my locker or walk me to class.
Lil Jon catches my attention again and I smile. He’s my fantasy boyfriend. His long dreads, tattoos and thug style is just off the chain. Rocsi’s small ass is flirting up a storm and irritating me.
I jump off the sofa and race back into the kitchen to grab a bag of Cheetos. I return in time to see Lil Jon introduce his latest video. “Aww. This my jam!” I close my eyes and start shaking my hips to the beat. In my mind, there’s a skinnier version of me dancing with Lil Jon. Everyone from school is there, whispering, pointing and wishing they were me.
“What on earth are you doing?”
I freeze and glance over at the living room arch to see my mother in her blue silk robe, frowning at me. “Nothing. I was just dancing,” I say, my face hot with embarrassment.
“You look like you were having an epileptic fit,” she tells me and then shuffles off into the kitchen.
I roll my eyes and return to the sofa, feeling disgusted with myself.
“You’re having pizza, again?” my moms asks. “What’s wrong with these Lean Cuisine you begged me to buy? I thought you said you were going on a diet?”
Here we go again.
“I don’t know why you always have me wasting my money on this stuff. You keep telling me that you want to lose weight, but you keep eating food like it’s going out of style.”
I roll my eyes.
“Does your book bag belong on this counter?”
“No, ma’am.” I get up and go to the kitchen to get my stuff.
At the sink, Mom is lighting up a cigarette. She’s the only person in the world I know who only smokes hanging over the kitchen sink and tapping ashes down the drain. For a brief moment, I glance over her slim figure and wonder why I didn’t inherit her metabolism. No matter what she eats, she stays slim.
She looks at me dispassionately. “Did you learn anything at school today?” she asks, her words slur.
I guess that means that she’s been drinking.
I don’t answer. I just grab my bag and return to the living room. Unfortunately, my mother follows behind me.
“You’re eating Cheetos, too…and a root-beer float? My God, Nicole. You keep this up and I’ll have to scrape up money to send you to fat camp.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” I mumble.
“Don’t give me that,” she sasses with her hands on her hips. “I always encourage you. You just don’t listen.”
Tears are starting to well as I glare at the television. Lil Jon has lost all effect on me. For a few long seconds, neither one of us says anything. When she finally finishes glaring a hole into my head, she tells me, “Your father called today.”
I glance up at her. Suddenly her bitter behavior makes sense: her tear-stained face, her unkempt hair and the alcohol.
“He says that he wants you to come out and stay with him this weekend.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t want to go.”
My response gives my mom her first genuine smile. She loves the fact that I don’t like my father.
“I told him that, but you’re going to have to go anyway. It’s the only way I can get him to pay the rent. He spends time with you and I get a check.”
Lucky me. I weigh whether I should protest again, but what’s the point? She’s going to make me go anyway, which also means when he shows up there’ll be another fight between the two of them. They might even land up in bed together. That’s usually how it works.
He’ll show up, and Mom will be wearing her best clothes and her hair and makeup will be flawless. I’ll put my bags in the car and then wait until they either finish fighting or having sex before being driven to Phoenix’s house. At one time, I think my mom really did love my dad. I wish I could say the same for him.
Once at his house, my stepmother and sister will treat me like shit for even being born for a couple of weeks. I’m a reminder of his infidelity. Sometimes I think that’s exactly why he wants me there. The bottom line is my father is a mean bastard. And he gets off on it. He loves keeping my mom and his wife down.
The person that is the absolute apple of his eye is Phoenix. She can do no wrong. He lavishes money and gifts on her. Then again, maybe that’s his way of being mean toward me. His always buying her things in front of me, constantly reminding me of my place in life.
God, I hate my life. How much longer until that pizza is done?
chapter 30
Tyler—I Get So Lonely.
“No wonderyour mother left you. You’re not wo
rth sticking around for.”
I can’t believe Anje said that to me. Every time I think about it I just want to…cry. Is she right? Is it my fault that everyone leaves me? Am I so unlovable?
I think about the kiss I shared with Romeo and then the humiliation of him telling me that he wants Anje over me. What the hell was I thinking? Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe that joint was stronger than I thought. I chuckle and think about the dime bag I bought and stuffed in my top drawer. A hit would be nice now so I can just forget about this.
I’m trying to act like it doesn’t hurt, but it does.
Big-time.
For the first time in my life, I’m angry at the person who I normally run to when I’m in pain. I should’ve opened up and told Anje why I kissed Romeo. I was jealous. She has what I want…or who I want.
What Anje said was true. I deliberately set out to hurt her. I deliberately tried to steal her new boyfriend. I frown, thinking about that. It’s actually pretty messed up. I’m messed up. My tears swell.
Why would I do that?
“Hey, baby girl.” My dad peeks inside my bedroom.
“Daaad!” I pull the covers up over my head. “You’re supposed to knock first.”
“I’m sorry, but isn’t it time for you to get up? You’re going to be late for school.”
“I’m not going,” I mumble and roll over.
“What—are you sick or something?” He walks over to the bed and sits down on the edge. “What are your symptoms?”
Why can’t he just leave me alone? Maybe go hook up with Kierra’s sister like I know he wants to. “I don’t know. An upset stomach, I guess.”
“No fever?” He reaches over and places his hand against my forehead.
“Dad, please. Go away.”
“What? I’m just trying to check on you. It’s not like you get sick often,” he says.
By the tone of his voice, I can tell I’ve hurt him. Even though I know he’s trying, I just want to be left alone. I roll away and wait for him to take the hint.