I felt the past snap its teeth.
This is like fucking high school all over again.
Back then, it had started with whispers in class.
Then eye rolls.
Then jokes."Your Daddy's in jail. Right? Aren’t you worried he’ll be somebody’s bitch?"
When they found out about the mistresses—especially the seventeen-year-old, the one who wasmy age—they had a ball with that. They’d printed out the headlines and taped them to my locker.
Left me notes that said,"Maybe your dad wanted to fuck you. Or did he? Are you a true Daddy’s girl?"
This went on for months.
I begged my mother to let me leave. She didn’t hear me at first—too busy drowning in legal fees and press releases, pacing the kitchen while screaming about how “the Feds were setting up a prominent Black man,” how “they made that seventeen-year-old girl up,” how "they were trying to destroy our beautiful family.”
By the third month, I didn’t argue.
I just packed my bags.
Eventually, she signed the forms and I moved down to South Carolina to live with my grandmother.
There, I finished high school in silence. No friends. No prom. No distractions. Just shadows, church, soul food and the slow, steady ache of finding comfort in being invisible.
Graduation day came and went. I didn’t walk across the stage to get my diploma.
I didn’t want to be seen.
Instead, my grandmother made deviled eggs, mac’n cheese, greens, ribs, and cornbread, invited a few of her church ladies, and we sat by the river with red solo cups and bellies full of her bourbon-glazed pound cake, laughed about everything and nothing at all.
I wore a sundress and sandals.
She wore her best church dress and pearls.
It was the best celebration I ever had.
But here I was again.
Back in my high school’s hallway.
Back in the war of vile whispers.
Except now I wasn’t the ashamed daughter of a scandal.
I was the woman standing outside the Dragon’s war room.
I was stronger now and while I wouldn’t slap maybe-baby mama, I would knock out her crew if they kept it up.
Lord, please help me not start a brawl out here in this hallway.
I hated how my body betrayed me. My nerves flickered under my skin, itchy and tight. My hands curled into fists at my sides. My lips ached from the pressure of keeping them still.
If Reo came out and told me I couldn’t go in—especiallyin front of her—I didn’t know what I would do.
Unfortunately, it would feel like losing.
I knew it was childish. This wasn’t some high school hallway. This was a Japanese mafia compound on a private island with murderers, assassins, and men who turned cities into ash.
