Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)(36)

“I need to go.”

“Iesha, hold up!”

She done ran off.





Thirteen


“Yo, Mav!” Rico wave in my face. “Where you at, dawg?”

My body in the school cafeteria having lunch with him and Junie, but part of me stuck on that conversation with Iesha yesterday.

She feel guilty that she couldn’t handle taking care of our son, and it made me think of how much I struggle. Sometimes I wanna give up, man. Like that night I walked out on him and left him crying in my room. This stuff get real overwhelming.

So I get how Iesha feel. Man, do I get it. I just wish we could figure this out.

Lisa on my mind too. I can’t call her since my number blocked, and I don’t have time to go over there, so what the hell I’m supposed to do?

The biggest part of me keep thinking on Dre. This my first day back at school since he died, and it’s rough. It started this morning when I passed Aunt ’Nita’s house and didn’t see him or his ride in the driveway. I teared up. Once I got to school, seem like everybody said “Sorry ’bout your cousin” instead of the usual “whaddup.” Condolences just constant reminders that Dre ain’t here no more.

The coward who killed him is sitting across the cafeteria, laughing and talking with the rest of the GDs. Every class we got together I know where Ant sit. In the halls, I spot him. I don’t know how I’m gon’ kill him, but best believe I’m gon’ kill him. Forget Shawn and his orders.

“Since Mav not paying attention, I’ll help a brother with them fries.” Junie try to pick one off my tray.

I smack his hand. “Man, if you don’t take your greedy ass on—”

Rico almost spit out his Sunkist.

“I was making sure you here,” Junie says.

“I’m here.” Well, I’m tryna be. I finally notice everything around me, and damn, the cafeteria off the chain. A boom box play at one table, and a rap battle go down at another. The girls from the cheerleading squad do the U-G-L-Y chant at some dude who tried to holla at one of them. I feel bad for homeboy.

The cafeteria split up almost like the neighborhood. You got King Lords on one side and Garden Disciples on the other. People who don’t claim sit in the middle. That mean it’s a lot of people between me and Ant. I spot him like it’s nothing.

“Dawg, what you keep staring at?” Rico turn around and look.

I can’t tell him and Junie that Ant killed Dre. The whole school would know before the day over. “Nothing. Zoning out. You know how it is.”

“I feel you,” Junie says. “Probably got Dre on your mind, don’t you?”

Rico let out a slow whistle. “That shit hard to shake, dawg. I be remembering what happened to my brother outta nowhere sometimes.”

“Same with me and my auntie,” says Junie.

When Rico was nine, his twin brother, Tay, was killed by a stray bullet while they slept in their bunk beds. Junie’s aunt got stabbed at a block party freshman year. The Garden take somebody from everybody, and we still go hard for it. I guess it’s ’cause it’s all we know.

“Keep pushing, Mav,” Rico says. “Tough situations don’t last. Tough people do.”

“Ooooohwee,” Junie says into his fist. “That boy dropping knowledge on ’em.”

Rico pop his collar. “On my Gandhi shit.”

I crack up. I can always count on these two to make me laugh. “Y’all a trip.”

“We got so much to catch you up on, Mav,” Junie says. “Cortez got sent to juvie again. It wasn’t for that big lick him and DeMario hit though. This was something else.”

“What big lick?” I ask.

“You know, that suburb thing they had going,” Rico says. “When they was hitting different houses every day?”

“Oh yeah. That,” I front. I’m so lost.

“We got our own lick now though,” Rico says.

“Yeeeeah.” Junie rub his hands together. “King brought us in on his shit.”

I look away from Ant. “What?”

“He told us you had to step away from it,” says Rico. “He needed some help, and we needed some cash. We doing the damn thing.”

This my first time hearing any of this. “How come none of y’all told me?”

Junie take a bite of his second burger. He eat a lot on days he got ball practice. “You not around, Mav. We figured stuff like that don’t concern you no more.”

That hit hard. Or I could be tripping ’cause I’m still pissed with how Shawn did me the other day. Speaking of . . . “Y’all ain’t scared of Shawn and the big homies finding out?”

“Man, it’s like King say: forget them,” Rico claims. “They don’t look out for us the way they should.”

“Don’t get it twisted, I ain’t on their side or nothing, but they do watch our backs.”

“My back ain’t hurting. My pockets are,” Junie says. “Them fools drive Benzes and Beamers. You see any li’l homies in Benzes or Beamers?”

“Nah,” I gotta admit.

“Exactly. We out here hot-wiring hoopties and taking the bus,” says Rico. “We gotta look out for ourselves. And if they come at one of us ’bout it, they gotta come at all of us.”