“I’m gon’ see you,” Tiana warned, picking her bookbag up to leave as Diamond tilted her head and looked at Kayla then back at the girl.
“Fuck you mean,you gon’ see her?Man, Kayla, clean this bitch up,” Diamond demanded as Kayla dropped her bag to the floor.
Tiana had no choice but to fight because Kayla threw the first punch and connected to her jaw. Tiana swung wildly while Kayla stood in one spot with her feet planted and her fist putting in work. By the time security came, Tiana was bleeding from the nose and mouth.
Diamond knew Kayla was about to be suspended, but she would be there to vouch for her when their parents found out.
By the time they walked outside, Mia was at their school, and it was usually the other way around.
“What the hell took y’all so long?” she asked as if she was their older sister.
“Kayla got suspended and I got a detention for instigating.”
“You was fighting, Kayla? Did you win?”
Both of her sisters paused and gave her a stale face because Mia knew better.
“Helllll yeah, I won! I rather tell Daddy I got suspended a million times before telling him I lost a fight,” the three of them laughed and made their way up 16th Street toward their house.
The sun was still shining bright, and kids still covered the streets. Their gym shoes kicked up dust as they walked and laughed together.
“Kayla, what’s up? You coming out tonight?” Jatara appeared with her little crew.
“Nah, she got school in the morning, catch her on the weekend,” Diamond answered before Kayla could.
“Who is that walking up in a crowd?” one of the other girls asked as everyone else followed her eyes.
Diamond saw Tiana walking front and center with her sisters that went to Collins High School. Those bitches came all the way across the park and to the hood to get beat. Diamond didn’t have a nervous bone in her body.
“Oh shit, that’s Tiana and her people. This about to be good!” Jatara boasted as Diamond made a mental note to tell Kayla she couldn’t hang with that bitch anymore. That right there let Diamond know that her sister wasn’t safe around her, she didn’t trust Jatara.
Diamond turned around and dropped her bag in the process as her sisters followed suit. She could hear laughter and whispers as the girls moved closer to them. Tiana stopped first, her lips bruised and swollen from the beating she took earlier that day.
“So y’all thought y’all was gon’ put y’all hands on our sister and walk home in peace?” Tiana’s sister asked.
“Ain’t noy’all, I beat her ass by myself, and I’ll do it again. I supposed to be scared because she brought y’all?”
“Too much talking, Kayla,” Diamond told her.
Diamond didn’t like all of the catty shit, they walked up so apparently, they wanted to fight.
“Yeah, too much talking, Kayla, run my sister her fade. One on one,” her oldest sister said, opening the crowd.
“And you better beat her,” Diamond told Kayla as she got in the circle.
The crowd started to go wild, the hood loved a good fight. Diamond watched every single person out there because one false move, she was going to lose it.
“Man, y’all can take that shit back across the park,” a voice came from the crowd, a voice that heldpowerbecause the crowd parted and let him through.
Diamond saw that it was Cameron Stone, but everyone called him Cam for short, a senior at her school and by far one of the most handsome guys in the hood. His father ran the streets of Chicago, and he was the heir to the biggest drug business, or so she had heard. All she knew was that every girl wanted Cam, well almost every girl because she wasn’t studding him, but he was eye candy. His smooth skin, gold chain, and fly clothes always stood out.
Everyone looked at him, Cam stepped forward, he wasn’t hiding. He stopped between Kayla and Tiana, “Ain’t gon’ be no fight, y’all can move around.”
“Mannnn, they jumped my sister.”
“They didn’t jump her, I was there. Tiana started that shit and got her ass beat, by one person. Take her home and teach her how to fight.”
Tiana’s sisters looked like they wanted to say more, but everyone knew Cam’s family wasn’t the kind you wanted problems with. His reputation carried weight, quiet, but heavy as a two ton brick. On top of that, everyone knew he belonged to the flyest girl in the hood, Farrah. She was the female version ofhim, her father, too, was in the game and best friends with Cam’s dad. Her and Cam were the only two teenagers in the hood driving new cars. She didn’t play about Cam and wasn’t scared to let anyone know.
