Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)(25)

See, this what I’m talking ’bout. He so hard on me. “C’mon, Mr. Wyatt. It was only fifteen minutes. You act like I was an hour late.”

“It wasn’t a life-or-death situation. You were hanging out with your friend and showed up late on your first day of work. Then you tried to lie about it.”

“I’ll make up for it. I’ll stay an extra fifteen minutes and—”

“No, you’ll stay an extra hour.”

I almost cuss. “An hour?”

“Yep. For every fifteen minutes you’re late, you gotta work an extra hour without the extra pay.”

“That ain’t fair, man!”

“Who said anything about fair? It’s the rules, son, and I make the rules. You’ve got a problem with it, you’re more than welcome to quit.”

Shit, I’m tempted to.

Then I think of the light bill Ma couldn’t pay and the extra hours she thinking of working to help provide for my son.

Quitting ain’t an option. “What you need me to do, Mr. Wyatt?”

“Roll up your sleeves,” he says. “We’re planting roses today.”

The sun go down, and I’m still working in the garden. You’d think once it’s dark it wouldn’t be so hot, but dang. I’m sweating bullets. I catch a whiff of myself, and I know what Ma mean when she say I “smell like outside.”

I dug up plots for the roses. Mr. Wyatt got these big bags of garden soil, and we poured them out. Soil got this almost sweet scent to it. It remind me of when the sun come out after a rainy day, and everything smell fresh, like the whole world took a shower.

We taking a break now as Mr. Wyatt go to get us some water. Mrs. Wyatt came out a little while ago and told me she getting Li’l Man ready for bed. Said he’ll be knocked out when I take him home. I appreciate it ’cause I can’t imagine dealing with that boy now.

Mr. Wyatt hand me a glass of ice water. “Don’t drink fast. Might make you sick.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, and try to take small sips. I’m thirsty as hell.

He sip his water and wipe his forehead with his arm. “Make sure you put them gloves on before you pick up them rosebushes. Otherwise the thorns will get you.”

Bushes? Them things look like twigs. “You only putting roses in this bed?”

“That’s the plan. Roses need space to grow. Why you ask?”

He got greens, green beans, tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries—all kinds of fruits and vegetables out here. “Seem like a lot of space to give something you can’t eat.”

“You might be right,” he admits. “I like to be reminded that beauty can come from much of nothing. To me that’s the whole point of flowers.”

I smack my arm. These mosquitoes ain’t playing. “Summer gon’ be over soon. You ain’t worried they’ll die?”

Mr. Wyatt slip on some gardening gloves. “No. We’re planting them well before the first frost. That’ll give them time to grow some roots before they go dormant. There’s a small chance they’ll die. Roses, they’re fascinating li’l things. Can handle more than folks think. I’ve had roses in full bloom during an ice storm. They could easily survive without any help. We want them to thrive. We’ll have to prune them, things like that.”

He may as well speak French. “What pruning mean?”

He grunt as he get down on his knees. I’ll know I’m old when I start grunting. He set a rosebush in a hole and pack dirt around it. “Pruning means getting rid of what they don’t need. Thin canes, dead canes, damaged canes. If it doesn’t help them grow—” He does his fingers like they’re scissors. “Snip it off. Hand me another bush.”

I slip on the gloves and grab one. “Why you call them bushes? They look like twigs.”

Mr. Wyatt chuckles. “I suppose it’s like the Word says: ‘Calleth those things that be not as though they were.’ Romans 4:17. Hmm!” His shoulders shiver like he caught a chill. “That’s a good one.”

Mr. Wyatt is a deacon at Christ Temple Church. He’ll throw a scripture into a conversation in a minute. Hope he don’t go into one of his mini sermons. We’ll be here all night.

He grunt again as he straighten up. “These knees can’t handle a lot more of that. Plant the rest of them for me.”

I do like he did—set a bush in the hole and pack dirt around it. Then another.

Mr. Wyatt watch me. “Looks like you’ve got the hang of it. Here I was, thinking you would give me some lip about messing up your clothes.”

“Nah. This nothing compared to what I dealt with earlier with my son. He pooped on me before school.”

Mr. Wyatt laughs. “Sounds like you had a rough morning.”

“Rough day more like it.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

I look up at him. Nobody ever really asked me that. “I’m a’ight, Mr. Wyatt.”

“I didn’t ask if you were. I asked do you wanna talk. I can tell something on your mind.”

I been tryna shake Lisa outta my head for hours, and I can’t. Like I’ll get caught up in something else, then I remember that crack in her voice, and it’s all I can think about.

“I saw Lisa earlier,” I say. “She refuse to give me another chance.”