On the Come Up

by Angie Thomas

  I scoot away from him, but no, that puts me closer to Malik. I move to the love seat instead. “I don’t wanna hear a word your cheating butt has to say.”

  “Wow, Bri. All these flavors out here, and you choose to be salty,” Sonny says. “This is serious.”

  Malik dusts cat hair off of his high-top fade. Aunt ’Chelle’s other baby, 2Paw, lurks around here somewhere. Malik named him that. “Yeah. The school is hiring cops to work as security at Midtown. My mom got an email about it and about the PTA meeting.”

  I unfold my arms. “For real?”

  Sonny disappears into the kitchen. “Yep! They want students, parents, and guardians to come to the meeting and voice their opinions.”

  “It probably won’t change anything,” I say. “They’re gonna do what they want.”

  “Unfortunately,” says Malik. “It’ll take something big to change their minds, and no, I don’t mean releasing that video of you, Bri.”

  “You don’t?” I ask as Sonny returns with a bag of Doritos, a pack of Chips Ahoy! and Sprite cans.

  “No. They probably would villainize you to justify it.” Malik bites his thumbnail. “Just wish we could use it some—Sonny, why are you eating up my food?”

  Sonny stuffs an entire cookie in his mouth. “Sharing is caring.”

  “I don’t care that much.”

  “Aww, thanks, Malik,” Sonny says. “Why yes, yes I will go back and help myself to that Chunky Monkey in your freezer, too.”

  I snort. Malik’s lips thin. Sonny goes back to the kitchen, grinning.

  Malik scoots to the end of the couch. “Bri, let me ask you something. Promise not to fly off the handle, okay?”

  “Fly off the handle? You act like I’m quick to—”

  “You are,” he and Sonny say together. Sonny’s not even in here.

  “Forget y’all. What is it?”

  “If there was a way to release that video on your own terms, would you?” Malik asks.

  “My own terms how?”

  “You said you’ve talked about what Long and Tate did to you already, in your song. Well, what if we use your song to show people what happened?”

  Sonny returns with the pint of ice cream and three spoons. I don’t have to hold my hand out for him to pass me one. “What? Like an artistic music video?” he asks.

  Malik snaps his fingers. “That’s it. We could go through every line, right? Show people what you mean, using footage I’ve shot for my documentary. Then when you talk about getting pinned to the ground—”

  “Show the video of when it happened,” I finish for him.

  Holy shit. That may actually work.

  “Exactly,” Malik says. “This way it explains the song to all of these idiots who come at you and it shows what happened at school.”

  I could hug him. Seriously, I could. Without saying he understands the song, he’s saying he understands the song, and really, he’s saying he understands me. That’s all I wanted from him. Okay, that and some less-than-PG-13 things at one time, but that’s not the point.

  Do I hug Malik? Ha! No. I punch him. “That’s for all the crap you said about my song!”

  “Ow!” He grabs his arm. “Damn, woman! I understood the song all along. I just didn’t want people to make assumptions about you. I won’t say I told you so, but—nah, forget it, I’m saying I told you so!”

  I tuck in my lips. Knew that was coming.

  “After thinking about how everyone reacted to it at school though, I realized you were right,” he says. “You already spoke up for us, Breezy. Not your fault if other people don’t get it. So”—he shrugs—“why don’t we use the song to stir some shit up?”

  Twenty-One

  So, stir shit up we do. It takes several hours, but Malik, Sonny, and I put together a music video for “On the Come Up,” using footage that Malik recorded for his documentary. Like when I say, “Whole squad got more heat than a furnace,” it’s a video of guns on some GDs’ waists. Malik blurred their faces out.

  “We don’t bust, yet they blame us for murder” brings on news clips from when that boy was killed last year.

  “I approach, you watch close, I’m a threat,” I rap, and there’s Malik’s secret footage of the clerk who followed us around the Midtown comic shop a few months ago.

  And just like we said, when I rap, “Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up,” Malik puts in a clip of the incident.

  Will it change the minds of the Emilys though? Probably not. Honestly, nothing will. They’ll never truly understand because they don’t wanna understand someone like me.

  Regardless, I hope my video gives them heart palpitations.

  We’re uploading it to YouTube when Sonny’s phone buzzes. He takes it out and practically has a temper tantrum on the couch. “Dammit! My pops wants me to come home and babysit the gremlins.”

  I hit his face with a pillow. “Stop talking about your little sisters like that!”

  Sonny has three little sisters: Kennedy is ten, Paris is seven, and Skye is four. They are the absolute cutest, and if it was possible to adopt siblings, I would. Sonny loves them to death . . . except when he has to babysit them.

  “They are gremlins!” he claims. “I was talking to Rapid the other day and they—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out.” I make a T with my hands. “You can’t just slip something like that in casually! You’re talking to Rapid again?”

  Sonny’s cheeks get super rosy. “Yeah. I actually talked to him on the phone. This guy here convinced me to explain to him why I ghosted.” He points at Malik.

  Malik pretends to bow. “Happy to help.”

  “So, I messaged Rapid and told him that we found his IP address, and that I knew he didn’t live in the Garden,” Sonny goes on. “He asked if we could talk on the phone. I agreed. He reminded me that he never said he lived here, I just assumed. He understood why I was thrown off by it though. We talked a long time.”

  Um, I need more than that. “What else did he say? What’s his name? What does he sound like?”

  “Goddamn, I swear you’re nosy,” Sonny says. “I ain’t telling you all of our business.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “So y’all have business?”

  Malik wiggles his. “Sounds like they do.”

  “And you two clearly have none since you’re all in ours,” Sonny says. “We talked about everything and nothing. But it’s weird. We were so caught up in talking that I never got his real name. He didn’t get mine, either. We didn’t need them though. I knew him without knowing his name.”

  Am I grinning? Yes. I poke his cheek, the same way he did when it came to Curtis. “Look at you, blushing and shit.”

  He dodges my finger. “Whatever. What’s even weirder? I think I’ve heard his voice before. Just can’t figure out where I’ve heard it.”

  “At school?” Malik asks.

  Sonny pinches his top lip. “Nah. I don’t think so.”

  “Are y’all gonna meet up?” I ask.

  He slowly nods. “Yeah. I want y’all to come along when we do. You know, just in case his ass is a serial killer.”

  “What? So we can all end up dead?” Malik asks.

  “That’s what ride-or-die means, ain’t it?”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re lucky we love you.”

  “I am. And since you do love me”—he cheeses at Malik—“can I bring the gremlins over here? That way we can start another round of Mario—”

  “Hell no,” Malik says. “Your sisters need to stay at your house. I’m an only child for a reason.”

  “Dammit!” Sonny groans. He steps over Malik’s outstretched legs. “Rude ass.” He punches Malik’s thigh.

  “Ow! Hobbit-looking ass!”

  Sonny gives him a middle finger and leaves.

  Malik rubs his thigh. I smirk. “You okay?”

  Malik sits up, straightening out his basketball shorts. “Yeah. I’ll get revenge. The Punching Game is back on.”

  Not again. The
last one was in seventh grade and lasted for months. Just out of nowhere, one of them would punch the crap out of the other. Whoever got the best reaction was the winner. Sonny won after punching Malik in the middle of prayer at church.

  “You hungry?” Malik asks me. “I can fix us something.”

  “Nah. I should probably head home, too. Besides, you can’t cook.”

  “Says who? Girl, I can hook you up with the best Chef Boyardee you ever had in your life! Quote me on that. But for real.” He gently elbows me. “You can stay as long as you want.”

  I pull my knees up to my chest. I took my shoes off ages ago. I’m not dumb enough to mess up Aunt ’Chelle’s sofa like that. “Nah. I should probably go check on my mom.”

  “What’s wrong with Aunt Jay?”

  “I think everything’s getting to her. We didn’t go to church, and then she went in her room and stayed in there. I mean, that’s not a big deal, but that’s what she used to do back when . . .”

  “Oh,” Malik says.

  “Right.”

  We’re quiet for a while.

  “It’s gonna get better one day, Breezy,” Malik says.

  “Will it?” I murmur.

  “You know what? I got something for this. I bet that I can make you smile in less than two minutes.” He gets up and scrolls through his phone. “Actually, I bet I can do it in a minute.”

  He taps his screen. “P.Y.T.” by Michael Jackson starts playing. It’s no secret that MJ is the key to making me smile. So are Malik’s attempts at dancing. He lip-synchs, “‘You’re such a P.Y.T., a pretty young thing,’” and does some kinda move that looks more like he’s itching.

  I bust out laughing. “Really?”

  He goes, “Uh-huh,” and dances over to me. He stands me up and somehow gets me to lip-synch and dance with him. I gotta admit, I am smiling.

  He does a moonwalk that’s worse than anything Trey’s ever attempted. I lose it laughing.

  “What?” he says.

  “You can’t dance, boo.”

  “The shade.”

  “The truth.”

  He wraps me up in a tight hug, resting his chin on the top of my head. “If it’ll cheer you up, Breezy, I’m game for whatever.”

  I wrap my arms around him too. I look up at him, and he stares down at me.

  When he inches his lips toward mine, I don’t move away. I simply close my eyes and wait for the fireworks.

  Yes, fireworks. Like in all those cheesy romance movies that I low-key love. This kiss is supposed to sweep me off my feet, make my heart leap from my chest, and give me all the tingles.

  But, um, this kiss? This kiss ain’t none of that.

  It’s wet, awkward, and tastes like all those Cheetos Puffs Malik ate a little while ago. We can’t even get our noses in the right places. My heart isn’t racing—there’s no boom. Hell, no bam. It’s weird. Not that me or Malik are bad kissers; nah, we know what we’re doing. It’s just not . . .

  Right.

  We step away from each other.

  “Umm . . . ,” Malik says. “I, um . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “That wasn’t . . .”

  “No.”

  It gets uncomfortably quiet.

  “Umm . . .” Malik holds the back of his head. “Want me to walk you home?”

  We haven’t said a word for three blocks now. Dogs bark back and forth in the distance. It’s completely dark out and cold enough that most folks are inside. We pass one house that has voices coming from the porch, but the people are sitting in the dark. The only sign of them is the orange flicker coming from the end of a cigarette. Wait, no, that smells like weed.

  “Bri, what happened back there?” Malik asks.

  “You tell me. You’re the one who kissed me. You’re also the one with a girlfriend.”

  “Shit,” he hisses, like that part just crossed his mind. “Shana.”

  “Yeah.” She may have caught an attitude with me, but this is foul, regardless. “You seem to really be into her, so why’d you kiss me?”

  “I don’t know! It just happened.”

  I stop walking. We’re far away from the voices on the porch, and it’s so quiet, I sound louder than I am. “It just happened? Nobody just kisses anyone, Malik.”

  “Whoa, hold up. You kissed me back.”

  No point denying it. “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “The same reason you kissed me in the first place.”

  Truth is, there’s something between us, even if we’re not sure what it is. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s like a bad puzzle. The pieces are all there to create what could be a perfect picture, but after that kiss, what if they don’t fit together?

  A gray Camaro passes us.

  “All right, yeah. I’ve got feelings for you,” Malik says. “I have for a while. I kinda figured you felt something for me, too, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “Yeah . . .” I trail off. No point denying that either.

  “Look, I know you’re upset that I’m with Shana,” he says. “But Bri, you don’t have to flirt with Curtis to make me jealous.”

  I squawk. Actually, I don’t know if the sound I make can be called a squawk. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “On the bus, you were all in his face,” Malik says. “Then you defended him after the riot. You were trying to make me jealous.”

  I look him up and down. “Wasn’t nobody thinking ’bout you!”

  “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Bruuuh,” I say, slapping the back of my hand into my palm. “Oh my God, that had nothing to do with you. Straight up.”

  “Being all in his face had nothing to do with me?”

  “Hell nah! I didn’t even notice you were on the bus! You got some nerve, Malik. For real. This is such a fuckboy move.”

  “Fuckboy?” he says.

  “Yes! Here you go with all this talk of feelings and kissing me, but you never once even hinted that you liked me before. But now, because I like somebody else, you suddenly have feelings? Get outta here, bruh. For real.”

  Malik’s forehead wrinkles. “Wait. You like Curtis?”

  Oh.

  Damn.

  I like Curtis?

  Tires screech. That gray Camaro makes a U-turn. It races back up the street and skids to a stop beside us.

  “What the hell?” Malik says.

  The door on the driver’s side flies open, and a guy hops out. He grins at us with a mouth full of silver teeth. He’s got a gun in his hand.

  It’s the Crown from the Ring.

  “Well, well, well,” he says. “Look what we got here.”

  I can’t watch him for watching the gun. My heart pounds in my ears.

  Malik stretches his arm out in front of me. “We don’t want any problems.”

  “I don’t want any either. I just want baby girl here to hand over her shit.”

  I don’t know whether to focus on him or his piece. “What?”

  He motions his gun toward my chest. “I want that chain.”

  Shit. I forgot to tuck it.

  “See, your daddy was real disrespectful, walking around with that crown on his chain and calling himself the King of the Garden while rolling with them Disciple bitches,” the Crown says. “So, you gon’ right his wrong and hand that shit over.”

  “I can’t—” I’m shaking like I’ve got chills. “It’s my—”

  He points his gun at me. “I said hand it over!”

  Some people say that your life flashes before your eyes in moments like this. But for me, all the stuff I haven’t done flashes before mine. Making it big, getting out of the Garden, living past sixteen. Going home.

  “I . . . I can’t . . .” My teeth chatter. “I can’t give this up.”

  “Bitch, did I stutter? Hand that shit over!”

  “Man, chill—”

  The Crown rams his fist into Malik’s face. Malik hits the ground.

  “Malik!” I start for him.


  Click click. The gun cocks.

  “Please?” I blubber. “Please don’t take it.”

  I can’t lose this thing. My mom could’ve pawned it by now and taken care of bills, filled our fridge, but she entrusted it to me. Me. I know she said she wouldn’t get rid of it, but I always figured if things got really hard, we could sell it.

  Losing it will be like losing a safety net.

  “Oh, look who crying,” the Crown mocks. “What about all that disrespectful shit you talked on your song, huh?”

  “It’s just a song!”

  “I don’t give a fuck!” He points the gun directly between my eyes. “Now you gon’ make this easy or make it hard?”

  Malik groans near my feet. He holds his eye.

  I can’t risk his life or mine. Not even to make sure my family is okay.

  I straighten up and look the Crown dead in his eyes. I want this coward to look in mine and see no fear.

  “The chain,” he says through his teeth.

  I lift it from around my neck. The pendant glistens, even in the dark.

  The Crown snatches it out of my hands. “That’s what I thought.”

  He keeps his eyes on me, and I keep mine on him as he backs up to his car. He doesn’t lower his gun until he’s in his Camaro. He speeds off down the street, taking my family’s safety net with him.

  Part Three

  New School

  Twenty-Two

  I almost got killed by a Crown. So I call my aunt, the Garden Disciple.

  Soon as she hears “robbed,” she’s on her way.

  Malik and I wait on the curb. His eye is starting to bruise and swell. He claims he’s okay, but that’s all he’s said since the Camaro sped off.

  I wrap my arms around myself. There’s a tight knot in my stomach that won’t go away. Not sure I want it to. It’s like it’s holding every inch of me together and the moment it comes undone, I’m screwed.

  Aunt Pooh’s Cutlass races down the street. It barely stops beside us when she and Scrap hop out. They both have their guns.

  “What the hell?” she says. “Who did this shit?”

  “That Crown who messed with us at Jimmy’s,” I bite out.

  Malik whips his head at me. “Wait, you’ve dealt with him before?”