Something shifted in his face. Softer now. “Yeah I know. She texted me she was coming.”
“You know her new man?”
He looked at me straight. “That nigga Marcus?”
“Yeah.”
“I met him once. Maybe twice.” He shook his head. “Street I don’t know that nigga like that. Me and Bri don’t even talk like that no more since she got with him. She kind of fell back from everybody.”
I watched his face when he said it and Mazi had never been able to lie to me. Not once in his life. He had the kind of face that gave everything away before his mouth caught up. Right now his face was telling me he was being straight. He didn’t know Marcus. Wasn’t connected to him.
Whatever thread of a phone call I had heard in that corridor tonight, it wasn’t connected to my brother and I trusted that. Now, I felt something loosen slightly in my chest.
“You need to stay away from whatever you been into,” I said. “Whatever it is, whoever it is, you’re done. You hear me? And doing that shit at school is some stupid, idiotic ass shit. I know you ain’t no loser nigga! So you better stop acting like one. You got the whole world in front of you. Don’t fuck that up for nothing or nobody.”
“I hear you.”
“I need more than I hear you.”
“I’m done Street. I promise.”
I looked at him for a long moment and then I stood up and put my hand on the back of his neck the way I had been doing since he was little.
“Don’t call Mama about this,” he said. His voice dropped. “Please. You know what this is going to do to her.”
I stood there and thought about our moms sitting in that house that I had bought her, thinking her boys were safe and straight. Living the lives she had sacrificed everything for them to have. I thought about what this information would do to her at this stage of her life when she had finally been able to stop running herself into the ground.
“I’m not making any promises tonight,” I said. “But I’m thinking about it.”
He nodded like that was the best he was going to get which it was.
I squeezed his neck once and left. This big brother shit didn’t look like it would get easier soon.
—
Melo was still in the waiting room when I came out, he stood up and looked at me waiting to see which version of this was going to happen. I looked at him for a second. Disappointed as hell. These lil ass niggas had been sneaky and secretive their whole lives. One thing that they always did was covered for one another.
“We’re going to talk,” I said. “Not tonight. But we’re going to talk. Go on back there with yo partner in crime.”
He nodded and headed towards Mazi’s room.
I walked out of that hospital into the night air and stood by my car for a minute. I let everything breathe. My phone had been buzzing in my pocket the whole time I was in Mazi’s room. I pulled it out now and looked at the screen.
Brielle.
I stared at her name for a second.
Then I answered.
“I was hoping your number was still the same,” she said before I could say anything.
Her voice did what it always did to me and I hated that it still worked after everything and all this time.
“It’s the same,” I said.
“Can you come somewhere? I need to see you.” A pause. “Simone’s house. Can you come?”
I looked up at the sky and thought about Marcus and thought about BJ and thought about that corridor. I replayed the look on Brielle’s face when she introduced him like everything was normal and fine.
