When we made it back around the corner to the whip, I got in, and she got in right after, steady talking the same shit. She was wasting her words. Explaining for nothing because I didn’t have shit for her. Not conversation. Not understand. Nothing. The only thing I had for her was her phone, which I tossed into her lap.
She looked down at it, went to the photo gallery and tapped on the short ass video she got of him. Sucking her teeth, she mumbled under her breath about how she promised them a video today.
I sped off, in the direction of home.
“We still going to Steak 52?” She asked.
I glanced over at her, huffed, and turned Sada Baby’s Activated up to the max.
CHAPTER 3
SEREIA
“You sure?”asked my favorite cousin, Lakeland, looking over her shoulder at me with raised brows.
“Yeah,I’m sure,” I said with a frown, looking her up and down. “Why you say it like that?”
She shrugged, turned around, and went back to adjusting her shirt. “You know why I said it like that. Meech?—”
“I need my lace fixed. Walk over to Zariah’s with me,” I interrupted, pushing up from the chair I was sitting in to walk over to the mirror she was at. Leaning forward, I touched the lace. “Yeah, my shit lifting.”
Lakeland looked over at me and shook her head. “After I make RJ something to eat.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see her staring at me. I ignored it. She was worried about me and had every right to be. But I didn’t want her to. Meech died three days ago, and I hadn’t sat down and sat with it since. I didn’t want to. Didn’t feel like I needed to. He was dead—what more was there to sit with? The day after he died, I was at work. And as soon as I got off, I was outside with my cousins. I hadn’t been home. Not for real. Iwent there to shower and sometimes to sleep. Hadn’t sat at the kitchen table to eat since dinner the night he passed away.
Being in that fucking apartment depressed me. Before Meech died he was barely there, yeah. But he always came home at some point. I missed hearing his keys rattling at the door. Shit was weird. And very fucking unsettling. Not to mention, since everybody knew Meech was dead, I had to sleep with a fucking weapon. Last night, I slept with the biggest knife from the kitchen. I didn’t have the protection of my big brother or his gun anymore. For the most part, I’d been good and I felt like I would be. But things had changed and I just didn’t know anymore.
After Lakeland fed her son, we left. As soon as we stepped foot outside of the apartment, her baby daddy, Five, looked up from the dice game he was in the middle of. With his nose turned up and a cigarette sitting on his bottom lip, he sized us up. Here we go.
“Where the fuck you about to go?” He asked, the stench of cheap liquor on his breath overpowering the smell of cigarette smoke.
Lakeland sucked her teeth. “Around the corner. Cass is watching RJ so don’t even say shit.”
Lakeland and Reginald—Five—had been together since we were kids. They were fourteen when Lakeland got pregnant with RJ. Nobody in the hood was shocked when it came out that she was pregnant neither. Not even her mother. Teenaged pregnancy was a common thing in The Woods. Shit, a big chunk of the residents over here were teenaged mommas, living off welfare, low income, and section eight.
Lakeland was of no exception to that. She stayed in a two-bedroom apartment with Five, her momma Danielle, and her twin sisters, Cassidy and Caydence. They were ten and kept RJ more than his damn daddy. Five was the typical ain’t shit nigga, but he was worst because he was the broke kind. He gotthe nickname Five from constantly asking muthafuckas for five dollars to get in on dice games he rarely ever won.
“The fuck is around the corner? I need you to wash my fit for tonight,” Five said, before pulling from his cigarette that was damn near down to its filter. He gave fiend, very fucking bad. What the hell was my cousin doing with him?
Lake rolled her eyes. “I did wash them, nigga. I ain’t yo damn maid neither. The fuck?”
She said she wasn’t his maid but that’s exactly what it gave. I hated that Lakeland got involved with him so young. He didn’t deserve her. My cousin was beautiful with a bright ass spirit, and a big heart. She deserved beautiful, healthy love that poured into her. Meanwhile, she was constantly being mistreated by a bum ass nigga who barely had two nickels to rub together. If it weren’t for my auntie and Lake, he would be homeless. Yep. Cuz paid the majority of the bills with the money she made as a cashier at Food Value grocery store, up the street.
“Yeah, okay! I said what the fuck is around the corner, Lake?” He asked, averting his eyes between me and Lakeland.
I sighed, rolled my eyes and zoned out, ignoring them as they started to argue. While they were going at it, Hood, this cool ass nigga that stayed a couple of doors down from me, chucked his chin at me, speaking.
“What up doe, Rei-Rei? How you holdin’ up?” He asked.
My chest tightened and I stuffed my hands into the back pockets of my light rinsed skinny jeans. I hated that question. Mainly because hearing it always made me think about reality, and losing Meech. On the other end, I hated it because I didn’t knowhowI was holding up. I was just existing. On auto pilot, cruising through this fucked up life.
“I been straight,” I lied.
He twisted his lips up as to say, ‘yeah right’. “You ever need to kick it, you know where to find me, sis,” he offered up, grippingthe wheels of his wheelchair to roll closer to the dice game. With his blunt pinched between his lips, he reached down, grabbed the dice and tossed them on top of the pile of money sitting by his wheels.
Hood was cool. Like me, he’d been in The Woods since pampers. Before he was shot and put in that wheelchair, he used to run around The Woods terrorizing shit like most of the niggas over here. The wheels didn’t do anything but slow him down a little. He was in a gang, and got active like the rest of them, still.
“You ready?” Lakeland asked with a frown, her right brow cocked.
