“Still can’t stay by yourself, huh?”
“Not really.”
Since Emani was a child, she couldn’t stay alone. That was her trauma. The home invasion and her mother’s disappearance. Her father’s gang involvement that landed him in prison by the time she was fifteen. Emani had spent so many years alone that she opted for sleeping on the floor of her aunt’s home. Donnée had the couch, her mother and boyfriend had the bedroom. To this day, Emani found herself laying on the floor to find comfort. Malik didn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand in full why she needed reassurance so much.
“I’ll stay as long as you promise to hang out with the crew. It’ll be good for you. Your light is dimming. We can see it.”
Emani looked at Donnée and spoke just above a whisper. “I’m scared that if I go through with this, I’ll lose me.”
“You is all you got, E. You can’t lose God and you can’t lose you. Don’t wait until it’s costing you millions to escape.”
Joanna joined them almost twenty minutes later, clearly flustered.
“What’s wrong?” Emani asked.
“Malachi needs to see a specialist for his speech. And the insurance I have doesn’t cover it and his father is refusing to put him on his insurance,” Joanna shared. There had always been a huge mystery around who Malachi’s father was but Emani didn’t dwell on it because it wasn’t her business.
“How much is the specialist?” Emani asked.
“E, no,” Joanna huffed.
“I’m his godmother. How much is it?”
“Twenty-five hundred,” Joanna replied. “That’s the first six visits, they want him to do three rounds.”
“Have them send me the invoices. I’ll get them paid. My baby boy needs it, he’ll have it,” Emani stated and watched the weight fall from Joanna’s shoulders. Most of the weight anyway. “Let’s get into these homecoming looks. You’re going to be available right?”
“Yes, I got everything set up.”
6 /JAHLIL
“Hey!”Andrew huffed, pausing his flexing in his mirror. “You got to knock.”
Jahlil strolled in cooly, looking around. “I don’t have to do shit in my house. I find it amazing that you can unpack your room and have everything in place but when it comes to the rest of the house, you slackin’. But you want people over and you send me a JoyCash request every thirty minutes.”
Andrew groaned and curled his lip. “I got needs.”
“You about to have no door fuckin’ around with me,” Jahlil stated, taking a seat in Andrew’s gaming chair. “I heard you had a little girl up here.”
Andrew’s light face flashed red. “Sanaa is a snitch. I’ma go pop the head off one of her dolls.”
“You’re not going to do shit. You fuckin’? In my house?”
Andrew’s face frowned. “No!”
“You lying to me?” Jahlil charged. They had a rule – never lie. There was honor between brothers. Jahlil would go to war for Andrew but lying to him was off of the table.
“No, I don’t even have condoms,” Andrew huffed, sitting on his bed and looking at the open door. “Aunt V here?”
“No, I sent her and Sanaa out because I got to have a real ass conversation with you. I get you’re fourteen and you got urges to get your little dick wet. You wake up, the shit is at attention, a little girl smiles at you and you ready to blast off-”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Andrew replied, embarrassed by Jahlil’s testimony.
“You don’t get it because if you did, you wouldn’t be sneaking that little girl up in here and kissing her. Your immature dick is going to get you into trouble you can’t get out of.”
“Like a baby?”
Jahlil nodded. “Babies, juvenile detention centers. You’re fourteen. You don’t even have the wherewithal to make a rational decision, let alone have sex. That shit comes with consequences and responsibilities.”
