Page 27 of Just Like Summer

“Crazy how we laugh off the fucked up shit about life,” he muttered, taking her tray out the bag and placing it on the small table.

Kamilla took a seat and waited until he sat across to open up her tray. “I gotta laugh to keep from crying. When my dad was around, everything seemed stable, oddly enough, because him and my mother were so rocky but there was never a lack of anything. But when he was gone, stability left too. But in hindsight, I think my mother depended on him so much that she couldn’t catch her footing without him.”

“What happened to him?” Cairo asked, studying her and putting the pieces together she refused to talk about.

Kamilla started to shrug but then stopped herself. “He was killed. Street shit, I guess.”

“Street shit in Greenwood?” Cairo asked with a raised brow.

“I guess it’s dangerous anywhere you go,” Kamilla offered in finality. “Enough about me. Why are you comfortable alone and on the floor?”

“I’ve been down with Azul since I was ten.”

“Ten?”

“Ten. By then, no parents and my grandma took me in. This is the house that shielded me when I sought it out. There was a lot of nights where the floor was the only place of comfort. So, we aren’t too different, K.”

“Maybe not,” she hummed. “I’m kinda curious about how a ten-year-old becomes an Azul Heart.”

“Caught a body.” He answer was to the point as he stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth.

Kamilla’s heart was empathic to him. “I won’t make you elaborate.”

He lifted his eyes to her. “K, I’d tell you whatever you want to know. You just got to ask.”

“Why?”

“I was tired of him putting his hands on my mother. There’s some shit I don’t stand for. I’ll sell drugs, I’ll drop bodies, I’ll rob a muhfucka blind. But I’ll never tolerate a woman being beat and niggas standing there letting it happen. And I won’t stand for pussy ass niggas thinkin’ violating a woman is entertaining.”

She slowly nodded. “Is that the beef between you and Martez?”

“Me and your play cousin got some real shit. And the only thing keepin’ life in his body right now, is you. I’m not trying to be another person in your life that traumatized you.”

She slightly frowned. It was that evident. Kamilla wore it. “You can see it?”

“Trauma sees trauma.”

Her frowned deepened. “Guess I gotta figure out a way to get it off of me.”

“We can figure that out together.”

Warding off the seriousness of this moment, she rolled her eyes. “Did you study French in school? It’s a whole lot of we in your vocabulary.”

“Got kicked out eleventh grade, and they didn’t offer French in Kenneth Husten High School. So nah. I speak with intention. You’re going to keep hearing it too. Eat up. A cranky Kamilla ain’t fun.”

“I’ve never been fun. Hence the no friends thing.”

“You got me, don’t worry we can be boring together.”

She rolled her eyes and softly laughed. “Until you find some real fun.”

“I don’t want real fun, K.”

Before she could process the comment in her head, it came out of her mouth. “What do you want then?”

Cairo offered her a loaded expression before motioning to her tray of food. “For my friend to eat before I take her to work.”

Kamilla conceded. “I’m eating. I’m eating.”