“I know you pledged while in college too,” that’s when she got my attention.
It only caught my attention because that wasn’t something that everyone knew about me. I wasn’t overly loud with that. People make being a part of a sorority or a fraternity their whole identity. I didn’t go out of my way to make sure that everyone knew that. Shit, I pledged, I crossed, and I have brothers all over the country.
“What fraternity?” I was quick, wanting to know if she remembered it off the top of her head.
“Omega,” she said, and I laughed. I expected her answer to be wrong.
“How you remembered that?” I was curious.
“My dad pledged Omega too,” she said, and when she said that, the smile was quickly wiped off my face.
Not because she said something out of pocket, but because I knew the story about her father. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew he was no longer here. I’m sure she probably still felt pain behind that, and I didn’t want to continue sitting here smiling, as if it was funny.
“Yeah? I didn’t know that,” I responded.
“Yeah. He did. He wasn’t loud, and in your face with it, but he definitely repped it,” she said, and hearing that, he sounded like me. I repped my fraternity but just didn’t do the most about it.
I took a few moments before I responded. I didn’t want to make her sad with what I was getting ready to say, but at the same time, I also didn’t want to choose to ignore it.
“I never got the chance to tell you that I’m sorry about what happened to your dad,” I kept it simple, not wanting to dig too deep with it.
“It’s okay. Thank you though. I appreciate it,” she said, and I dropped it after that.
I finished my food, and Amina finished hers. There was a trash can next to us, so I grabbed our plates, and tossed them in the trash. Next, we stood, and Amina unwrapped her candy apple, eating it while we walked.
“You get on rides?” I asked her.
As if I was speaking a foreign language to her, she tilted her head to the side, staring at me for a second, as if she was trying to figure out if I was serious or not.
“Me? Get on a ride that they fold up, put on the back of a trailer, and drag it from city to city? Hell no,” she said to me, and hearing that, I shook my head.
That sounded like some shit that my sister would say. Gianna was scary as hell and never wanted to get on the rides. When we were kids, she would only get on rides that stayed on the ground, and that didn’t go too fast.
“You wouldn’t even get on the Ferris wheel?” I asked, knowing that the Ferris wheel was my favorite ride of all time.
“Hell no. Especially not the Ferris wheel,” she said.
“Why though?” I wanted to know.
“It’s too high,” she was quick. She had a fuckin response for everything.
“That’s the point of the Ferris wheel. That’s a good feeling being up there, rocking back and forth, looking down at what’s beneath you,” I tried to convince her, but you could see it in her eyes that she wasn’t going for it.
“Aight, let’s make a bet. What’s something you’re confident you can beat me at?” I wanted to know.
She looked around until her eyes landed on one of the carnival games. She pointed at the water race game. I remember playing that game as a kid too. I knew I could beat her ass in that game, so I had no idea why she even picked it.
“That game over there. I’m good at it. I know I’ll beat you in it,” she went on to say.
“Aight. Come on. I never played it before,” I lied, knowing damn well that I’ve played it multiple times, and I’ve never lost.
“If I win, you gotta get on the Ferris wheel with me. If you win, you don’t have to. That’s cool?” I asked.
“You’re not beating me in that game, Gemini. I’m telling you, you’re not. I’m competitive as hell. I don’t like to lose,” she said, sounding like me because I was competitive my damn self, not liking to lose, either.
“Aight. Come on. Let’s see,” I said, leading the way.
Man, we made it over to the game, and I really was putting on that role, acting like I didn’t know shit about the game. I had the worker explain to me how it worked and everything.
