by Angie Thomas
Five years back with her, and yet I still dream about her leaving us. It hits me out of nowhere sometimes. But Jay can’t know I dream about it. It’ll make her feel guilty, and then I’ll feel guilty for making her feel guilty.
“It was nothing,” I tell her.
She sighs and pushes up off the bed. “Okay. Go ahead and get up. We need to have a little talk before you head to school.”
“About what?”
“How you could tell me you won in the Ring, but you couldn’t tell me your grades are dropping faster than Pooh’s sagging-ass pants.”
“Huh?”
“Huh?” she mocks, and shows me her phone. “I got an email from your poetry teacher.”
Mrs. Murray.
The conversation in ACT prep.
Aw, hell.
Honestly? I forgot. I was floating after my battle, for real. That feeling when the crowd cheered for me is probably what getting high is like, and I’m addicted.
I don’t know what to say to my mom. “I’m sorry?”
“Sorry nothing! What’s your main responsibility, Bri?”
“Education over everything,” I mumble.
“Exactly. Education over everything, including rapping. I thought I made that clear?”
“It’s not that big of a deal though, dang!”
Jay raises her eyebrows. “Girl,” she says in that slow way that sends a warning. “You better check yourself.”
“I’m just saying, some parents wouldn’t make a big deal out of this.”
“Well gosh golly darn, I’m not some parents! You can do better, you’ve done better, so do better. Only Cs I wanna see are pictures of seas, the only Ds I better see are deez grades improving. We clear?”
I swear she’s so hard on me. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. Get ready for school.”
She leaves.
“Goddamn,” I mutter under my breath. “Killing my vibe, first thing in the morning.”
“You ain’t got no vibe!” she hollers from the hall.
I can’t ever say shit in this house.
I get up, and almost immediately I wanna get back under my covers. That first feel of the chill in the air is always the hardest. Moving around helps.
The ladies of hip-hop watch from the wall beside my bed. I’ve got some of everybody, from MC Lyte to Missy Elliott to Nicki Minaj to Rapsody . . . the list goes on and on. I figure if I wanna be a queen, queens should watch over me when I sleep.
I throw my Vader hoodie back on and slip on my Not-Timbs. Nah, they’re not the real deal. The real deal costs a water bill. These cost twenty bucks at the swap meet. I try to pull them off like they are Timbs except—
“Shit,” I hiss. Some of the black “leather” on one has rubbed off, revealing white cloth. This happened to the other last week. I take a black Sharpie and go to work. Ratchet, but I gotta do what I gotta do.
Soon I’m getting some real Timbs though. I’ve been saving the money I make from my snack dealing. Aunt Pooh buys my stock and lets me keep the profits. It’s the closest Jay will let her get to giving me money. Thanks to the kids at Midtown, I’m about halfway to a pair of brand-new Timbs. Technically, we’re not supposed to sell stuff on school campus, but I’ve gotten away with it so far. Shout-out to Michelle Obama. That health kick of hers made the school take the good stuff from the vending machines and made my business very lucrative.
A horn blows outside. It’s seven fifteen, so it’s gotta be Mr. Watson, the bus driver. He claims that even when he’s dead, he’ll be on time. If his zombie ass pulls up in the bus one day, I am not climbing on board.
“I’m gone,” I call to Jay. Trey’s bedroom door is closed. He’s probably knocked out. He gets home from work when I’m almost gone to bed, and he leaves for work when I’m at school.
A short yellow bus waits out front. Midtown-the-school is in Midtown-the-neighborhood, where people live in nice condos and expensive historic houses. I live in Garden High’s zone, but Jay says there’s too much bullshit and not enough people who care there. Private school’s not in our budget, so Midtown School of the Arts is the next best thing. A few years ago, they started busing students in from all over the city. They called it their “diversity initiative.” Jay calls it their “they needed grant money and wouldn’t nobody give it to them for just a bunch of white kids initiative.” You’ve got rich kids from the north side, middle-class kids from downtown and Midtown, and hood kids like me. There’s only fifteen of us from the Garden at Midtown. So they send a short bus for us.
Mr. Watson wears his Santa hat and hums along with the Temptations’ version of “Silent Night” that plays on his phone. Christmas is less than two weeks away, but Mr. Watson has been in the holiday spirit for months.
“Hey, Mr. Watson,” I say.
“Hey, Brianna! Cold enough for you?”
“Too cold.”
“Aw, ain’t no such thing. This the perfect weather!”
For what, freezing your ass off? “If you say so,” I mumble, and head toward the back. I’m his third pickup. Shana’s dozing up front, her head just barely touching the window. She’s not about to mess up her bun, nap or not. All the eleventh-grade dancers look exhausted these days.
Deon nods at me from his seat in the very back, his saxophone case propped up beside him. Deon’s a junior too, but since he’s in the music program, I only ever see him on the bus. “Hey, Bri. Let me get a Snickers.”
I sit a couple of rows ahead of him. “You got Snickers money?”
He tosses me a balled-up dollar. I toss the candy bar back to him.
“Thanks. You killed it in the Ring.”
“You know about that?”
“Yeah. Saw the battle on YouTube. My cousin texted it to me. He said you got next.”
Dang, I got folks talking like that? I definitely had the Ring talking. I could barely get out of there last night without somebody telling me how dope I was. It was the first time I realized I can do this.
I mean, it’s one thing to wanna do something. It’s another to think it’s possible. Rapping has been my dream forever, but dreams aren’t real. You wake up from them or reality makes them seem stupid. Trust, every time my fridge is almost empty, all of my dreams seem stupid. But between my win and Dee-Nice’s deal, anything feels possible right now. Or I’m that desperate for things to change.
The Garden passes by my window. Older folks water their flowers or bring out their trash cans. A couple of cars blast music on high. Seems normal, but things haven’t been the same since the riots. The neighborhood doesn’t feel nearly as safe. Not that the Garden was ever a utopia, hell no, but before I only worried about GDs and Crowns. Now I gotta worry about the cops too? Yeah, people get killed around here, and nah, it’s not always by the police, but Jay says this was like having a stranger come in your house, steal one of your kids, and blame you for it because your family was dysfunctional, while the whole world judges you for being upset.
Zane, a senior with a nose ring, gets on the bus. He’s stuck-up as hell. Sonny says Zane thinks he’s fine, but Sonny and I also agree that he is fine. It’s an internal struggle, being annoyed by his ass and being mesmerized by his face.
And if I’m real, being mesmerized by his ass. Boy’s got a donk.
He never speaks to me, but today he goes, “Your battle was fire, ma!”
Well, goddamn. “Thanks.”
How many people have seen it?
Aja the freshman saw it. She gives me props soon as she gets on. So do Keyona, Nevaeh, and Jabari, the sophomores. Before I know it, I’m the talk of the short bus.
“You got skills, Bri!”
“I was geeking the whole time!”
“Bet she couldn’t beat me in a battle. On God, bruh.”
That little dig is from Curtis Brinkley, this short, wavy-haired, brown-skinned boy who puts a lot of lies on God, bruh. In fifth grade, he claimed that Rihanna was his cousin and that his mom was on the road with her, working as he
r hairstylist. In sixth grade, he said his mom was on tour with Beyoncé as her hairstylist. Really, his mom was in prison. She still is.
Mr. Watson pulls up at Sonny’s and Malik’s houses. They live next door to each other, but they both come out of Malik’s front door.
I take off my snapback. My edges still need help, but I laid them as best as I could earlier. I put on some lip gloss, too. It’s stupid as hell, but I’m hoping Malik notices.
I notice way too much about him. Like the way his eyes sometimes get this glint about them that makes me think he knows every secret there is about me, and he’s cool with them all. Like the fact that he’s fine, and the fact that he doesn’t realize he’s fine, which somehow makes him even finer. Like the way my heart speeds up every time he says “Breezy.” He’s the only one who calls me that, and when he says it, he stretches it slightly, in a way that nobody else can really imitate. Like he wants the name to only belong to him.
All these feelings started when we were ten. I have this real clear memory of us wrestling in Malik’s front yard. I was the Rock and he was John Cena. We were obsessed with wrestling videos on YouTube. I pinned Malik down, and while sitting on top of him in his front yard, I suddenly wanted to kiss him.
It. Freaked. Me. Out.
So I punched him and said in my best the Rock voice, “I’m laying the smackdown on your candy ass!”
Basically, I tried to ignore my sexual awakening by imitating the Rock.
I was so weirded out by the whole thing. Those feelings didn’t go away either. But I told myself over and over again that he’s Malik. Best friend extraordinaire, Luke to my Leia.
Yet here I am, using my phone to check my Pink Pursuit lip gloss (who comes up with these names?), hoping he’ll see me some kinda way, too. Pathetic.
“Why won’t you admit I whooped that ass?” Sonny asks him as they climb on board.
“Like I said, my controller was acting funny,” Malik claims. “We gotta rematch.”
“Fine. I’ll still whoop your—Briiii!”
Sonny dances down the aisle to a beat nobody hears. When he gets close, he bows like he’s worshipping me. “All hail the Ring queen.”
I laugh. “Queen I am not.”
“Well, you killed it, Yoda.” We slap palms and end with the Wakanda salute. Wakanda forever.
Malik shrugs. “I won’t say I told you so. But I won’t won’t say I didn’t tell you so, either.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I tell him.
Sonny sits on the seat in front of me. “Nope!”
Malik plops down beside me. “It’s a double negative.”
“Um, no, Mr. Film Major,” I say. “As a literary arts major, I can assure that’s just a mess. You basically said that you won’t say you told me so.”
His eyebrows meet and his mouth drops slightly open. Confused Malik is so damn cute. “What?”
“Exactly. Stick with filmmaking, boo.”
“Agreed,” says Sonny. “Anyway, that battle was ridiculous, Bri. Except when you just stood there that first round. I was about to pull a Mariah Carey ‘I don’t know her’ on you.”
I punch his arm. Troll.
“But seriously, you killed it,” Sonny says. “Milez, on the other hand, needs to stop rapping.”
Malik nods. “He Jar Jar Binksed that.”
Malik insists that Jar Jar Binks should be a verb, adjective, and an adverb to describe whack stuff because Jar Jar Binks is the worst character in the Star Wars universe.
“Bruh, you know that’s never gonna catch on, right?” Sonny asks him.
“But it makes sense! Wanna say something is whack? Call it a Jar Jar Binks.”
“Okay. You’re a Jar Jar Binks,” Sonny says. “Got it.”
Malik thumps Sonny’s forehead. Sonny punches Malik’s shoulder. They go back and forth, punching and swatting at each other.
Totally normal. In fact, a Sonny and Malik fight is one of the few things guaranteed in life, right up there with death, taxes, and Kanye West rants.
Sonny’s phone buzzes, and suddenly Malik no longer exists. His face lights up almost as bright as the screen.
I sit up a little and stretch my neck. “Who you texting?”
“Dang, bish. Nosy ass.”
I stretch some more to try and see the name on the screen, but Sonny dims it so I can’t. I only catch the heart-eyes emoji next to the name. I raise my eyebrows. “Is there someone you’d like to tell me about, sir?”
Sonny glances around, almost like he’s afraid somebody heard me. Everybody’s having their own conversations though. Still he says, “Later, Bri.”
Considering how he’s on edge, there must be a guy. When we were eleven, Sonny came out to me. We were watching Justin Bieber perform at some awards show. I thought he was cute, but I wasn’t obsessed with him like Sonny was. Sonny turned to me and blurted out, “I think I only like boys.”
It was out of nowhere. Sorta. There were little things here and there that made me wonder. Like, how he’d print out pictures of Bieber and secretly carry them around. How he acted around my brother—if Trey liked something, Sonny suddenly loved it; if Trey spoke to him, Sonny blushed; and if Trey got a girlfriend, Sonny acted like it was the end of the world.
But I can’t lie; I didn’t really know what to say at the time. So I just told him, “Okay,” and left it at that.
He told Malik not long after and asked if they could still be friends. Apparently, Malik was like, “Long as we can still play PlayStation.” Sonny told his parents, too, and they’ve always been cool with it. But I guess sometimes he’s afraid of how other people will act if they know.
The bus pulls up at an intersection, beside a cluster of bleary-eyed kids. Their breath turns to smoke around them as they wait for the bus to Garden High.
Curtis lets his window down. “Ay, Basics! Talk that shit you were saying yesterday!”
School pride turns us into gangs. We call the kids from Garden Heights Basics ’cause we say they’re “basic as hell.” They call us short-bus nerds.
“Man, fuck your li’l lollipop-head-looking ass,” a boy in a bubble vest says. “Bet you won’t get off that bus and say shit to my face.”
I smirk. Keandre tells no lies.
He looks at me. “Ay, Bri! You did your thing in the Ring, baby girl!”
I let my window down. Some of the other kids nod or say, “Whaddup, Bri?”
If school pride makes us gangs, I’m neutral thanks to my dad. “You saw the battle?” I ask Keandre.
“Hell yeah! Props, queen.”
See? Around the neighborhood, I’m royalty. Everybody shows love.
But when the bus pulls up at Midtown, I’m nothing.
At Midtown you have to be great for anyone to notice you. Brilliant, actually. And it’s like everybody’s trying to outdo everyone else. It’s all about who got the lead in this play or that recital. Who won that award for their writing or their art. Whose vocal range is the best. It’s a popularity contest on steroids. If you’re not exceptional, you’re a nobody.
I’m the exact opposite of exceptional. My grades are so-so. I don’t win awards. Nothing I do is enough. I’m not enough. Except for when I’m too much for my teachers to handle and they send me to the principal’s office.
On the school steps, a couple of boys do the “Wipe Me Down” dance as Milez goes “Swag, swag, swag” on one of their phones. Don’t know why they’re torturing themselves with that garbage.
“So . . .” I grip my backpack straps. “What are y’all doing at lunch?”
“I’ve got SAT prep,” Sonny says.
“Damn, you’re doing both?” I ask. Sonny’s more obsessed with this college stuff than Jay is.
He shrugs. “Gotta do what I gotta do.”
“What about you?” I ask Malik, and suddenly, my heart beats super fast at the idea of lunch alone with him.
But he frowns. “Sorry, Bri. Gotta go to the lab and work on this documentary.” He holds up his
camera.
Welp, so much for my idea. I probably won’t see either of them until we get back on the bus. See, Sonny and Malik have their groups at Midtown. Unfortunately for me, Sonny and Malik are my group. When they’re with their groups, I have nothing on top of being nobody. They’re both pretty damn brilliant, too. Everybody in visual arts loves Sonny’s graffiti pieces. Malik’s won a couple of awards for his short films.
I just gotta get through one more year in this place. One more year of being quiet, unassuming Bri who stays to herself as her friends get their glow-ups.
Yeah.
We get in line for security. “Think Long and Tate have calmed down since yesterday?” Sonny asks.
“Probably not.” They’re always power tripping. Last week, they put Curtis through an extra security screening, even though the metal detector didn’t beep when he went through. They claimed they wanted to be “sure.”
“I’m telling y’all, the way they do security is not normal,” Malik says. “My mom doesn’t do people like this, and she deals with criminals.”
Malik’s mom, Aunt ’Chelle, is one of the security guards at the courthouse.
“Y’all do realize they’ve gotten worse since last year, right?” says Malik. “Seeing that cop get away with murder probably made them think they’re invincible too.”
“You might be on to something, Malik X,” says Sonny.
That’s been our nickname for Malik since the riots. The whole situation shook him up. It shook me up too, can’t lie, but Malik’s been on another level, always talking about social justice and reading up on stuff like the Black Panthers. Before the riots, the only Black Panther he cared about was T’Challa.
“We need to do something,” he says. “This isn’t okay.”
“Just ignore them,” says Sonny. “They’re more talk than anything.”
Curtis goes through the metal detector with no problems. Then Shana, Deon, the three sophomores, Zane. Next it’s Sonny, followed by Malik. I stroll through after him.
The metal detector doesn’t beep, but Long puts his arm out in front of me. “Go back.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he said so,” says Tate.