by Amir Abrams
I keep screaming at her. “I don’t care what you say! You can beat me all day! I am still going to be with him and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”
“Both of you. Stop it!” Daddy yells. “Stop this right now!”
Security comes bursting through the door. “Is everything all right in here?”
Mrs. Saunders looks over at the evil Witch, then looks at me like she’s feeling sorry for me. Two-faced trick! I roll my eyes at her.
“Missus Nichols, is everything fine?”
“Yes,” the Witch says, pulling herself together, then sitting back in her seat. “Everything’s fine.”
“Umm, y’all can stand right here at the door,” Mrs. Saunders says, glancing back at the two security officers. Oh, now she wants to be all scared. “Kamiyah, sweetheart . . .”
“Don’t sweetheart me,” I snap. “I can’t stand you.”
Daddy yanks my arm, clenches his teeth. I have never seen him like this. “Stop it.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m very fond of you. Your parents are upset; rightfully so. And it saddens me to have to tell you this, but we’re going to have to suspend you.”
My eyes almost pop outta my head. “Suspend me?”
“Suspend her?” my parents say at the same time.
She nods.
Daddy sighs. “For what?”
“For forging your wife’s signature on her two failed tests and on her absence notes.”
The wicked Witch stands up. Smooths out her skirt and grabs her handbag. I instinctively jerk, thinking she’s gonna attack me with it. “I’m done, Missus Saunders. Thanks for your time,” she says real calmly. “Erik, you take her home with you because we’ll be burying her if you don’t.”
She walks out. And just like that, my whole world comes crashing down around me.
31
I’m suspended for the rest of the week! NO Sincere! NO Halloween party! NO TV! NO computer! NO car! I have nothing! My whole life is ruined. Daddy has taken the rest of the week off from work to babysit me. I can tell he’s hurt and pissed. I feel so bad. All I can do is cry. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I sob. “I just wanted . . .”
He shuts me down. “All that crying isn’t going to change what you’ve done, Kamiyah. So stop with the tears. You made your choices and now you’ll have to deal with the consequences. Do you understand me?”
I nod, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands. “Yes.”
“I’m really disappointed in you.”
“I know you are, Daddy.” I know all the other times when I was crying it was all an act, but this time my tears are real. And I am hurting. Not because I’m suspended or because I’ve failed two classes, but because I can’t talk to Sincere. My cell phone has been disconnected. And I’m not allowed to use the house phone. I might as well find a bridge and toss myself over it. ’Cause my life is over! They don’t understand. Sincere is everything to me. I can’t stop crying. I start hyperventilating, clutching my chest.
“Daddy, you have to let me call Sincere, pleeeeeease. I beg you.”
He shakes his head. “No, I’ll call him for you. Give me his number.”
I scream. “Pleeeease, Daddy! Let me talk to him for five seconds, pleeeease!” Right now I am a hot mess. And I know it. But I will lose my mind if I can’t hear his voice. And I will keep screaming until I do.
“I’ll call him for you.”
“I wanna call him. Daddy, pleeeeease!”
“Look, Kamiyah. I’m not going back and forth with you. I understand you’re upset. But this is part of your consequence. Now, I’m nice enough to call him for you. That’s it.”
“No!” I scream at him. “I don’t want you to call him.”
I scream at the top of my lungs like a wild animal for almost thirty minutes until I am throwing up. Until my throat burns and my chest aches. I cry until my eyes are practically swollen shut. I keeping screaming and crying until I fall asleep.
It’s a little after 10:00 P.M., and I can’t believe I have slept for eight hours. My stomach growls and it dawns on me that I haven’t eaten anything since this morning. And I will not eat anything until I talk to Sincere. I am lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking. Trying to figure out how everything got so out of control. Trying to understand how I lost control. How I let my life fall apart.
I sit up when I hear yelling. My parents are arguing. I open my door, then tiptoe to the top of the stairs. They are both yelling back and forth. I step back toward Daddy’s bedroom, to the cordless phone on his nightstand. The one he keeps resting in its charger.
I hurriedly dial Sincere’s number, thankful I know it by heart. Please pick up. I am relieved when he does. “Hello?”
“Sincere,” I whisper into the phone. “It’s me. I’m in big trouble.”
“What happened? I’ve been tryna call you all day.”
“My phone is shut off. My parents found out about me cutting school and they’ve grounded me, forever. I got suspended, too. And they’re really pissed.”
“Oh, damn. How’d you get suspended?”
I tell him.
“They must be really pissed at me, too.”
“She’s tryna stop me from seeing you.”
“That’s effed up.”
“I know. I don’t know what I’m gonna do not talking to you. I can’t even use the Internet.”
“How long are you gonna be on punishment?”
“I don’t know. I think until the end of the marking period. I have to get all As.”
The yelling downstairs is getting louder.
“Did you have to slap her, Kayla?” I hear Daddy ask.
I’m never speaking to her again!
“Excuse you? Since when do I have to answer to you about disciplining our daughter? The last time I checked, I am her mother.”
“And I’m her father. And I don’t appreciate you slapping and punching up on her like that. She has bruises all on her face.”
I try to block out their arguing and focus on Sincere’s voice. But I wanna hear what they’re saying, too.
“You can do it, baby,” he says. “You just gotta stay focused.”
“I know. But I’m not gonna be able to focus if I can’t see you, or even talk to you. If I have to run away, I will. I’m not gonna let her stop me from seeing you.”
“Miyah, baby, don’t talk like that. Running away is only gonna make it worse for you, and for us. We’ll figure something out, okay?”
I start crying, touching the necklace he gave me for my birthday. “Okay.”
“You have to do what they say, Miyah. And stop always fighting with your mom.”
“I hate her.”
“Don’t say that. She’s your mom.”
“She’s a hater.”
“She’s your mom, Miyah. I don’t like when you talk like that about her.”
“. . . I’m sick of you always taking up for that girl, Erik!” I hear her screaming downstairs.
“Unless you’ve forgotten, that girl’s our daughter,” Daddy yells back.
“I’ve gotta get out of here before I go crazy. You gotta come get me, Sincere.”
“That isn’t smart, Miyah. It’ll only make things worse.”
“Pleeeeease.”
“C’mon, Miyah, chill. You’re in enough trouble. All that’s gonna do is get you in more trouble.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do. I wanna see you, too. But I don’t want your parents any more pissed at me than they already are. Do it for me, a’ight?”
I keep crying.
“Stop crying, Miyah. It’s not gonna change anything. We’ll work it out.”
“You promise?”
“I got you, Miyah. I told you I’m not going anywhere.”
“You better not cheat on me, either,” I warn him, grabbing a tissue and wiping my face.
He sighs. “Don’t start that, Miyah. I’m not gonna cheat on you.”
“You better not.�
� I hear something smash downstairs. “I gotta go. I’ll try to call you again. Pick up when you see this number—it’ll be me.”
“A’ight.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. Don’t do anything stupid, you hear?”
“Yes.” He kisses me through the phone. I kiss him back, then hang up, putting the phone back where I found it. I tiptoe out of Daddy’s room back over to the edge of the steps. I finish listening.
“. . . She’s gotten away with murder. And I’m sick of it! I should have beaten her behind a long time ago.”
“Well, it’s a little too late to be putting your hands on her like that.”
“Well, maybe if you had been more of a disciplinarian, we wouldn’t be having all these problems.”
“No, maybe if you tried cutting her some slack, she wouldn’t be so rebellious. The two of you are constantly at each other’s necks because you’re too rigid. This has to stop.”
“Oh, excuse me, Mister Father of the Year! Just because you’d rather bribe her with trinkets and run out and take her on shopping sprees to get her to listen, do not try to put all of her mess on me. News flash, Erik: cutting her slack has her skipping school and failing tests to be out with some boy. Cutting her slack has her forging my name to notes and doing God knows what else. So you tell me, how much more slack should I give her before she ends up failing and gets herself pregnant, huh? So don’t you dare go there with me! Not tonight. Maybe if you started backing me up, we wouldn’t be having all these problems with her. That child gets away with murder. And you know it.”
“Look,” he says, raising his voice. Daddy hardly ever goes there. “First it was you and Erika at each other’s throats. And every time I turned around, I was playing referee.”
“Oh, here we go with this ‘referee’ mess again! Spare me, Erik!”
“Yeah, exactly, Kayla, here we go again—and now it’s you and Kamiyah. I’m sick of it!”
“So what exactly are you trying to say here?”
“I’m telling you that I’m sick of playing referee.”
“You’re sick of it?” she shouts back at him. “Are you serious? Well, guess what? I’m sick of it, too. And I’m sick of you. How about you start playing Kamiyah’s father instead of trying to be her damn friend and personal banker all the damn time! And how about you start playing my husband for a change and support me—your wife. How about you do that for a change, huh, Erik? Or is that too much to ask?”
“What would you like me to do? Run upstairs, grab a belt, and beat her down with it?”
“That would be better than what you’ve been doing, which is nothing at all.”
“I have never put my hands on our daughters and I am not about to start now. So get over it, Kayla.”
“No, you get over it! All you ever do is put that child before me. And I’m sick of it!”
“Look, you need to leave,” Daddy says.
“Oh, so now you’re throwing me out? Is that it, Erik?”
“No, I’m trying to prevent this from turning into a bigger mess than what it already is.”
“You don’t tell me when to get out. I leave when I’m good and damn ready!”
“Not when this house is in my name, you won’t. And not when I’m the one paying the bills up in here. Now get out!”
Okay, now I’m getting really nervous. Their arguing has gotten out of control. I hear something else smash. I wanna run down the stairs and tell them to stop, but if I do that, then she’ll corner me and start in on me. I don’t feel like dealing with that right now.
Daddy says something about not putting up with her mess anymore. She starts yelling and screaming and cursing at him, then I hear something I’ve never heard before. I cover my mouth with my hand in shock. Ohmygod! Someone just got slapped!
32
Daddy drops me off at school thirty minutes before the bell rings. I am sooo happy to be back in school. And outta that house! The last week has been severe torture. I’m not speaking to the Witch. She’s not talking to my dad. And Dad’s still pissed at both of us. This whole situation is crazy. And I’ve had to be locked in the house in misery. And you’re not gonna believe this, either: Daddy took the door off my bedroom and removed the doorknob from my bathroom door, ’cause I barricaded myself in my room for three whole days and refused to eat or come out or even talk to him until he let me see Sincere. Daddy thought I was playing, but I wasn’t. I screamed and yelled and cried. And I was going to starve myself and stay locked in my room if I had to. It took three whole days, but Daddy finally broke down. And as soon as I heard Sincere’s voice on the other side of the door, I dragged my dresser away from my door and swung it open, leaping into his arms. I cried so hard. It took Sincere two hours to calm me down.
Anywaaaayz, the Witch has stripped me of all of my fancy gadgets, and all of my handbags. But guess what? I don’t care. I still have Sincere and I still have dance. Daddy takes me. And Daddy sits and waits. Ohmygod, how embarrassing is that?! I’m seventeen, for Christ’s sake! And he’s treating me like I’m a baby.
“You brought this on yourself, young lady,” Daddy said when I whined about him sitting there and waiting for me. “Until we can trust you to do what you’re supposed to do when we’re not around, this is how you’ll get treated. Like a baby.”
And to add salt to my already gaping wounds, he’s been driving me around in my car! I can just die! Anywaaayz, I still don’t know who got slapped that night when Daddy and the Witch were arguing, and I don’t wanna know. But what I do know is, it really scared me. My parents have had their fights before. And the Witch has thrown and broken things when they’ve gotten into it. But I have never heard anyone getting hit. I hope I never experience that again. I look over at Daddy. I can’t imagine him ever hitting her. I don’t even wanna think it!
“I’ll be here at three o’clock to pick you up,” Daddy says, pulling up in front of the school. In my car! “And don’t have me waiting.”
“Okay.” I climb out of my car, slinging my bag onto my shoulder, and shut the door. Zahara, Ameerah, and Brittani see me and come running out of the school’s glass doors. I smile, happy to see my three besties.
“Miiiiiyah!” Ameerah screams, running up to me. “Ohmygod, what happened to you? We’ve missed you. Ohmygod, ohmygod, we have sooo much catching up to do. Guess who asked Zahara out?” She gives me a hug.
“Oh, shut up,” Zahara says, pushing her out of the way, “and get out of the way.” She gives me a hug, too. “I heard your mom snapped out in the guidance office and beat you down. Please tell me you didn’t get a beatdown in front of Missus Saunders. Did you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Ohmygod,” she continues, “I woulda been too through if my mother came up here and got it crunked like that. I bet you won’t be cutting school no more, will you?”
I shake my head. “Oh helllll no. I’m gonna be here every single day.”
They laugh at me. And I don’t care. I’m just so happy to see them.
“Good,” Ameerah says, looping her arm through mine as we walk inside the building. “Now guess who pressed up on Zahara and asked her out?”
Zahara sucks her teeth.
“Who?”
“Stix!” Ameerah and Brittani yell out in the stairwell as we’re climbing the stairs to get to our lockers.
“Ohmygod, for real? When?”
“At the Halloween party,” Ameerah says. “Ohmygod, you missed it. They were all up on each other.”
I eye Zahara. “You and Stix, really?”
She shrugs. “It was the Nicki costume, girl. It turned ’im on. And now I’ma turn ’im out. You know how I do it, boo.”
I laugh. Ameerah tells me she went as Beyoncé and Brittani dressed up as Rihanna.
“But she looked more like a straight-up crackhead than a singer,” Zahara adds.
I crack up laughing.
“Welcome back, Kamiyah.” It’s Mrs. Saunders. I roll my eyes at her, tu
rning my head. “Hopefully that won’t last long. It’s good to see you, too.”
Whatever! I ignore her. But, keeping it real, I’m not really that mad at her. I mean, I was. But I know she was only doing her job. Still, she shoulda at least given me a heads-up before she threw me under the bus like that. That was real low-down and dirty how she did me. So she’s gotta be put on ice until I feel like apologizing to her.
“Anywaaayz,” I say, turning my attention back to my girls. “Somebody let me use their phone real quick.”
“Mine doesn’t have any more minutes left on it,” Brittani says.
Ameerah shakes her head, handing me her BlackBerry. “Poor thing. Who you calling, your boo?”
“Who else,” Zahara says.
“Oh, please. I’m in a crisis. Y’all know I’m on shutdown, so I gotta talk to my man however I can.” He doesn’t pick up. I leave him a message. “Hey. It’s me. I was hoping you would answer. Anywaaayz, I’m calling you from Ameerah’s phone. Don’t call it back. I’ll try to call you later. Make sure you pick up. And you better not be somewhere up in some chick’s face, either. I love you.”
They look at me like I’m crazy. Well, shoot. Maybe I am, just a little. “What?”
“That boy has you strung real bad,” Brittani says, laughing.
I shut my locker. “Yup, he sure does. And I have him strung, too. Trust.”
“All right, I’ll see y’all fourth period,” Zahara says, walking off. “I can’t be late for homeroom anymore or Mister Jones says he’s gonna give me a week in detention.”
“Yeah, I gotta go, too,” Ameerah says, walking off. She heads in the opposite direction.
Brittani and I keep walking.
“Listen, I need a favor.”
“Sure,” she says, eyeing me. “What is it?”
I stop in front of my homeroom door, then dig in my handbag, pulling out my wallet to make sure I have enough money on me. I count out five twenties and a fifty-dollar bill from money I took outta my hidden stash in the back of my closet. Daddy has shut down my allowance and he took his credit card away from me. Well, I can’t blame him. He was real pissed when he went through his bill. Daddy never goes through his statements, but he did this time and flipped. I had charged up over six hundred dollars buying Sincere sneakers and stuff. He’s not giving me any more money until I pay him back.
