“It’s not your fault,” I said. Even though I wanted to say that this is what happens when you step out of the bubble. No good could come of it. But the told-you-so speech didn’t seem right with tears in her eyes. How was I gonna get her to look over my English paper before class?
“What am I going to do?” She sniffed, her face wet.
I pulled her into a hug, and she buried her face in my shoulder, holding on tight. I squeezed her back, and she yelped.
“What? What’s wrong?”
She stood there for a moment, staring at me—deciding. Even after years of friendship, she measured my worthiness. Finally, with a sigh, she pulled back the collar of her shirt, exposing her chewed-up shoulder, throbbing red under her bra strap.
“Oh shit,” I whispered, inching closer to see the teeth marks. “What the hell happened to you?”
“August. He keeps having these . . . tantrums. Been attacking us out of the goddamn blue.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, slipping her shirt back up. “Just, don’t tell anybody, okay? I’ll worry about him later. But what am I going to do about Jacob?”
“Girl, just forget about him. He’s an asshole!”
“I can’t, Claudia.” Her face went hard. Her voice grew deep and the air changed around her. “I can’t. Not after . . . naw. I want to know why he’s trying to carry me like this. I need to know.”
The bell rang, and she collected her books off the floor and stormed out into the hall. Afraid of what she might do, I raced out after her.
Jacob stood in the hallway outside of English class, his braids in a fresh style, whispering in the ear of some girl leaning against the lockers. The sight of him was the match that lit Monday on fire.
I didn’t want her hurt more than she already had been, so I grabbed hold of her arm and pleaded. “Non-slipping plus. Him non-paying.” Don’t do it. He’s not worth it.
She gave me a dark look and knocked my hand off before charging toward him.
“Hey! We need to talk,” she snapped, bringing the entire school hallway to a stop.
Jacob grinned. “What we got to talk about?”
“You know exactly what. So you just gonna pretend we didn’t do anything this weekend?”
The girl standing next to Jacob glanced between them, backing out of the line of fire.
“Man, whatever,” he said, waving her off as he turned away.
“No,” Monday said, grabbing his arm. “You’re gonna fucking talk to me.”
He snatched his arm back. “Aye, get off me! I don’t know where you been.”
A circle formed around us, and my heart shifted up to my throat.
“Tell everyone who really did your hair, Jacob! Tell them how you called me up to come over your house this weekend. Tell them!”
“You lunchin’. That ain’t happened!”
“Ohhhh . . . you went over Jacob’s house?” Trevor asked, appearing out of the growing crowd, fake punching Jacob. “So, you hit that?”
Jacob grinned at him with a sly shrug. “Well, I don’t kiss and tell, but if she wants to put it out there that she came by my spot, I ain’t gonna lie.”
Monday gasped, her eyes growing huge. “How you gonna lie like that in front of my face?”
“So did you or didn’t you?” Trevor challenged.
“Of course she did,” Shayla said, busting through the crowd. “She a ’ho, just like her sister, fucking every dude on the courts.”
Monday jerked back, clutching her books to her chest while trying to mask her shock. No one had ever brought up April in school before. Even I felt the sting of her words.
“I didn’t,” Monday yelled, shaking her head.
I tugged on her arm, trying to pull her away. No one was going to believe her. Life outside our bubble was blunt and cruel, and I had had enough of it to know when it was time to retreat. Monday fought me off.
“Tell ’em, Jacob!”
Jacob huffed and rolled his eyes.
“Aight, she right. I didn’t bang her,” he relented with a slick grin. “She said she only like doing it with Claudia, ’cause they lesbians!”
The hallway erupted with laughter. Monday and I looked at each other, bewildered, the joke lost on us while Jacob high-fived his friends.
Lesbians? Because we were best friends? Boys can be so childish, coming up with the dumbest excuses for the foolishness that they do.
But for some reason, and I’ll never know why, something snapped in Monday. Maybe because he dragged me into his chain of lies and she wasn’t about to let him hurt me too. She charged at him, fist in the air, and conked the top of his skull and then slapped the hell out of him with her books. He went face-first into a locker and fell to the floor. An “Oooooo!” hissed from the other students.
Jacob jumped up, enraged. He shoved Monday into a locker, pinning her. Monday dropped to the floor with a scream as he pulled her hair. The wind went out of me. At that moment, seeing my best friend dragged and thrown around like a doll, something turned inside me, bursting through my skin, and I saw nothing but red.
“Get off her,” I screamed, tackling his back like a monkey, hitting his head with my balled-up fists. But none of my blows felt strong enough to crack through his thick skull. I dug my freshly painted nails deep in his neck and scratched.
“Ahhh, stop,” he hollered, releasing Monday to swat me off. His hand caught my cheek, and I fell to the floor with a pathetic thud. Monday sprung up at the sight of me on my knees.
“Don’t you touch her!” she screamed, and kicked him in the nuts. He cried out, falling to the floor before she swung her leg back and kicked him again. She kicked and kicked—each kick to the gut more powerful than the last. Everyone’s laughter turned into hushed whispers and then silence.
“Aren’t you gonna help him?” someone said to Carl, frantic.
“Naw! My momma would kill me for touching a girl.”
Light bounced off the sweat on her brows as she straddled him. She slammed against his head and I caught the unfamiliar glimpse of rage in her eyes. Stunned, I couldn’t make myself move. I’d never seen her so . . . violent.
“Well, someone has to help him,” Shayla hollered behind me. “She’s gonna kill him!”
But no one moved, all too mesmerized by the scene of the most popular boy in school being overpowered by a girl—a girl who up until that moment had never made much of a fuss, who some barely noticed. That is, until she stepped out of our bubble.
Jacob’s grunts turned into whimpers, then full-out cries as he spat blood. A teacher finally broke through the crowd, and just as we were a package deal in the ass whupping, we were a package deal being dragged to the principal’s office kicking and screaming.
“It’s okay. She’ll understand,” I whispered on the bench.
“No. She won’t,” Monday said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, her clothes askew, buttons lost, tights ripped, with hair pointing in every direction. “She’s going to kill me.”
I had only been to the principal’s office once before, when a boy touched my butt in front of Ms. Valente. She’d dragged him by the ear to the office and Ma almost lit the school on fire.
This time, though, we’d ganged up and attacked a boy in the hallway. We sent him to the hospital bleeding. I expected Ma to be the first one flying in screaming. Instead, Mrs. Charles entered the office like a prowling lioness, glancing at us on the bench by the door. If looks could kill, we’d be a hearty dinner for maggots. Monday shifted closer to me, her color draining. I mean, what kid isn’t scared of their mom? Hell, Ma still jumps when Grandmamma calls after her. But the look on Monday’s face, you’d swear Lucifer had walked in the way her eyelids pulled back. Quickly, we linked pinkies.
“Oh boy,” Ms. Clark muttered behind her desk, and called the principal.
The principal stepped out of his office with a heavy sigh.
“Hello, Mrs. Charles,” he greeted coldly. Mrs. Charles held a blank face.
“We will see if the Millers plan to press any assault charges, but for now . . . there is a mandatory suspension for fighting.”
Mrs. Charles didn’t flinch at the statement like we did. She turned to us and asked, “So what happened?”
Monday could barely breathe, so I jumped in first.
“Jacob Miller was spreading lies about Monday, and she told him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Lies? What kind of lies?”
“Saying that . . . they were . . . doing it,” I said.
Mrs. Charles frowned. She glanced at Monday, whose eyes were locked on the floor. For a moment, I thought I had said too much, that I had only made the situation worse, but Mrs. Charles turned back to the principal. “Listen, I don’t know what you heard, but I know my child. She would never lay hands on some boy unless she had reason. She knows better.”
The principal crossed his arms. “We were told she assaulted him first. That she approached him in the hall.”
“I SAID I don’t care what the fuck you heard happened. Did you ask her WHY?”
“It makes no difference,” he stated. “We have strict rules about fighting on school property.”
She pointed to Monday. “You let that little nigga spread lies about my daughter . . . have her looking like some ’ho and you gonna tell me . . . wait. What the hell is that?”
Mrs. Charles marched over to us and I held my breath, my soul fleeing. Monday flinched and leaned away with a whimper before Mrs. Charles snatched and yanked at her collar. My heart slapped against the floor like a heavy sponge. I hadn’t noticed the speckles of blood on her shoulder, leaking through her shirt.
“The fuck is this?” she asked Monday before turning to the principal. “Why she got bite marks on her shoulder?”
Monday’s whole body shook as she whimpered. She tried to cough out words but couldn’t even spit out air. The look on her face . . . all I could think about was saving her.
“It was Jacob,” I cried. “He was biting her!”
Monday’s mouth dropped as she turned to me.
Mrs. Charles released Monday, storming toward the principal.
“You talking about that boy going to the hospital—why hasn’t MY daughter been looked at?”
The principal stammered. “We didn’t . . . I mean, she didn’t say . . .”
“That little nigga gonna spread lies about my daughter, chew up her shoulder, and you busy talking about what SHE did? She’s a female! He shouldn’t be touching no damn female! PERIOD!”
Mrs. Charles’s screams brought the entire office—maybe the whole school—to a standstill.
“She ain’t never acted up in this school before. EVER! She was defending herself! I should be pressing charges too.”
The principal glanced at me. “Claudia, you can go back to class now.”
“No! She’s staying right here since she’s the only one here decent enough to defend my child. A school full of fucking adults and you letting some boy, some MAN, touch my child!”
Mrs. Charles went on like this for another twenty minutes, and by the time she was done, Ma had arrived, and we were excused for the day—with no more talk of suspension.
“So explain to me what happened again, ’cause I’m still not understanding,” Ma said once we were outside. Even though Mrs. Charles had saved us from suspension, there was no stopping Ma from tearing into me.
I lowered my head. “Sorry, Ma.”
“What were you thinking? That boy could have hurt you. Then what?”
“They fine, Janet,” Mrs. Charles said, waving her off. “Girls fight. No big deal.”
“Hmph. Not my daughter,” Ma snapped, the words slicing through the air.
Mrs. Charles raised an eyebrow and shifted back to take a hard look at Ma. “Oh really, now?”
Ma’s eyes widened. “And not her best friend, either,” she added, trying to clean it up. But it was too late. Clearly, she expected that sort of behavior from Monday, but not from me. And it took nothing for Mrs. Charles to recognize that. A thick moment passed between them.
“Let’s go,” Mrs. Charles hissed at Monday before storming off. “Come on!”
Monday jumped at the bite in her voice. Her lip trembled as she looked at me, then Ma, then back at me again.
“I said come on!” Mrs. Charles barked. “I ain’t got all day!”
Monday flinched, her eyes closing as tears ran down her face. With slumped shoulders, she dragged her feet after her mother.
Ma and I watched them walk off in silence, my nerves prickling. The fear Monday had of her mother didn’t seem normal. The fear I had for Monday didn’t feel normal. Nothing about the moment felt normal.
“Ma, maybe—”
“Not one word, Claudia Mae,” Ma snapped, glaring at me. “Let’s go!”
Between the million and one chores Ma laid on me over the weekend, I snuck a few secret calls to Monday’s house, but no answer.
On Monday morning, she stumbled into school, dazed, eyes glossy, lips white and chapped. Her uniform wrinkled and filthy, her flat twists in the same unraveling wreckage that they had been after Thursday’s fight. No one would have noticed her condition, except for the fact that she smelled soaked in piss.
“Ew, you stank,” Shayla sneered in homeroom. “They don’t give you soap over at Ed Borough.”
“Shit, you smell like one of them crazies on the Metro,” Trevor cackled.
Monday walked through the halls like a zombie that day. Kids heckled, pinching their noses as she passed, and by third period, Ms. Valente brought her down to the nurse’s office and gave her a fresh pair of school sweats to wear for the rest of the day.
The After
Dear Monday,
Ma hired Ms. Walker to tudoor me. Think she gonna let them put me in the Learning Centr! Were our you? How could you ghost on me like ths?
“Ma, please,” I cried.
“Claudia, you making all this fuss for no reason,” Ma said, running a knife along some red ribbon tied around a tray of frosted sugar cookies for the church Christmas auction to curl it. “Now, come on, we late.”
I stood by the door, wool tights itching under my charcoal dress.
“You gonna let them put me in the stupid kids’ class!”
Dressed in a rose-color skirt suit, she slipped on her coat and headed for the door.
“For the last time, there’s no such thing as ‘stupid kids’ class.’ The Learning Center will be good for you. You just . . . need a little extra help, that’s all. Ain’t no shame in that, Sweet Pea.”
The name Sweet Pea felt like a pacifier—a rattle shaking in my face. She was so busy treating me a like a baby that she wouldn’t even try to understand that walking into the Learning Center was school suicide.
“I ain’t doing it,” I snapped.
Ma stopped short to glare at me. “Listen here, I’ve taken enough sass from you today. You want me to call your father? I’m sure there are heaps of other chores he’d like to give you. You will do as you’re told and mind how you speak to grown folk. Put on your coat and get in this car. Now!”
Balancing the cookies, she flew out the door, leaving it open for me to follow.
I climbed in the back seat. Ma huffed, turned on Good Hope Road, and headed for church.
“Claudia,” Ma finally said after about five minutes of silence. “Your father and I . . . we ain’t out to get you. We just want what’s best for you. I thought you wanted to go to high school.”
It didn’t matter where I wanted to go anymore. It was always Monday’s plan, and now she wasn’t around to help me. Or protect me. How could she just abandon me like this? What did I do to her?
“Now, Ms. Walker, she used to working with students just like you and knows a bunch of tricks to help you. We’re lucky to be able to afford her at all. So take it seriously, you hear? I don’t want to hear nothing about you carry
ing on like this up in her house. You hear me?”
“Yes, Ma,” I mumbled.
Southeast twinkled brighter in December, with folks dressing up their houses for Christmas. Monday and I used to vote on the best-dressed house, always picking the ones with the big inflatable snowmen and icicle lights.
The houses by Ms. Walker looked straight out of a Christmas picture book with massive wreaths, red and gold bows, and roofs covered in lights. If Monday were still around, she’d vote for the house next to Ms. Walker’s with an inflatable Snoopy in a Santa hat sitting in the middle of their yard.
Ms. Walker lived about three blocks from church, an easy walk from school. Ma drove me on the first day, just so I could become familiar with the route. She lived in a town house with thousands of pictures of her family hanging up on every square inch of wall space, next to portraits of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Her kitchen was filled with well-used pots and pans, and her living room was a spotless shrine for her cream sofas. The sharp edges of the plastic covers on her dining room table chairs ripped holes in my stocking every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after school. I mean, she wasn’t a bad lady or nothing. She always offered me orange juice and biscuit cookies before we started. It’s just every time I stepped foot in her house, it reminded me of why I had to be there in the first place.
On the first day, Ms. Walker gave me a pack of these plastic gel filters, the size of loose-leaf paper, tinted in various colors: aqua, coral, celery, and apricot. They’re supposed to help me read better when I lay them over pages in books and stuff. I held them close over my face and watched the whole room turn blue, like we were sitting at the bottom of the river.
We practiced reading and writing using work sheets and games. Some were easy, some were hard. Hard enough for me to shove the books clear across the table. But knowing what awaited me at home if I acted up, I tried my best.
Ma also asked Ms. Walker to help me with my essay for Banneker. Once again, the prompt haunted me. That’s why I had to practically drag myself up to Ms. Walker’s. But that day, when I opened the gate, I found the strangest surprise waiting on her stoop.
“What are you doing here?”
Monday's Not Coming Page 9
