Nightcrawling(51)

The past few days a series of tingles have coursed across my forehead like that feeling when you’re blindfolded, but your body feels the eyes. Trevor and I go to the basketball court for Thursday evening pickup games and they are lurking. Couldn’t tell you where, but my forehead says they’re watching.

We lose the first game and Trevor’s face is patches of knots. He doesn’t say more than a couple words to me. We win the second game and the latch on his tongue undoes itself.

My forehead prickles in spirals and the grass fades to a stale green. I survey every corner: street to courts to grass and those eyes must hide good because they have completely bypassed my vision. I grab Trevor’s shoulder to maneuver him back toward home.

“Can’t we stay a little?” Trevor asks, and he don’t even know how the eyes are carving into his back. “Ramona say they getting popsicles.”

I glance around, lean down to him so I only gotta whisper for him to hear. “We gotta get home, Trev. Somebody following and you not safe where they can see you.”

I start pushing him into a full sprint and he’s turning around to whisper-yell at me, “You done lost your mind? Acting like Mama.” I don’t got time to let Dee’s face do more than flash through my head. Dee never tried to protect her baby like I do.

We are running again, like usual, but it isn’t no play sprint this time. There are moments along the race where I don’t feel the tingle, short spurts of street that we are free again. Then they come back. Chasing. The entire way home, Trevor groans and complains about how I’m ruining everything and I stay silent, but the moment we are inside the Regal-Hi gates, I grab the string of his sweatshirt, pull him toward me so he can taste my breath. “Boy, don’t you go calling me yo mama when I’m out here protecting you. Better get your ass upstairs and read a book before I really go acting like yo mama and bring out the belt.”

Trevor races up the stairs, bony behind sticking out in those shorts. I follow him up, go into my apartment, shut the door, close all the blinds until we are standing in darkness.

“How am I supposed to read if you gonna make it all dark?” his voice whines from maybe five feet in front of me.

“Use your head and cut on a light.”



* * *





It took less than twenty-four hours for the suicide note to be plastered all over the local news, article after article popping up in the Google search. As promised, Purple Suit blacked out the line that says my name in it. Still, it’s been less than two days and I’ve had eyes tracking me every moment I step outside, following me. I should’ve known the cops would figure it was me, that they wouldn’t just let me off. Only gonna be so long before they make themselves seen. Daddy always said fuck the cops, but don’t fuck with them, unless you got a reason. Guess I fucked some cops, fucked with some cops, and now I’ve been reduced to a paranoid buzz.

I’ve been too scared to go out at night and I don’t got much more money than Mama must. I called Lacy, asked if she could hook me up with a job, but she said she couldn’t, not after what Marcus did. Dee’s still leaving twenty bucks on the counter every week or so and Trevor and I have started buying cereal and ramen, exclusively. My stomach feels like a straight-up sponge, sitting in the dark. Trevor fell asleep as soon as he started reading and I’m on my own, slowly gaining night vision.

I don’t want to get too close to the windows in case they’re there, watching, but I’m hungry. Eat every part of the chicken hungry.

I stare at my phone for a while before I finally dial Alé’s number. She picks up, says, “Hey.”

“Hey.” I know she doesn’t talk much, but the silence makes my stomach bubble. “Glad you picked up.” I try to sound nonchalant, except there’s nothing chill about me right now and my voice cracks.

She coughs. “Yeah. What you need, Kiara?”

I pause. Maybe I shouldn’t run to Alé when everything else starts shattering. She done picked up enough pieces. “I’m hungry.” I whisper it into the phone, sort of hoping she won’t hear.

Alé’s laugh is a familiar jingle. It recedes into her voice. “You hungry. Damn, aight, come in and I’ll cook you something.”

I suck in my breath. “Can’t leave the apartment.”

“What you mean?”

“Listen, I’m being followed and I can’t leave and I need you to come here because I don’t got no money and I gotta feed Trev and I’m so hungry, Alé. Please.” My words are so tangled I don’t know if she heard right.

“Give me twenty.” She hangs up and I don’t have the guts to say I love you first.

Twenty minutes turn into an hour real quick and my vision is now sharper in the dark than it is in the light. I sit by the door, knees to chest, watching Trevor across the room curled into a ball sleeping.

The knock rocks my diaphragm and I raise my hand up so quick it hits the wall. I cuss, wave it around until the initial shock of the collision reduces to an ache, then stand.

“Who is it?” I call, ear to door.

“Alejandra, who else?” Her voice fades to a mumble she probably doesn’t think I can hear. “No seas cabeza hueca, ay.”

I open the door enough that she can slip through. She’s carrying a bag that smells like her mama’s kitchen and all I wanna do is snatch it out of her hand and begin devouring, but then I take a second to stare at her. Alé is a picturesque image of herself, the whites of her eyes the brightest thing in the room. She is scared.