Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)(59)

“Yeah, we got our own drug thing on the low,” I admit. “I refuse to work for that idiot P-Nut. This temporary for me, Dre, I swear. Once I get a regular job and get on my feet, I’m done slinging.”

I imagine him twisting his mouth like, Yeah right.

“I mean it, man. I don’t sell a lot no way. Only enough to make sure I ain’t struggling. Too much money would make Ma suspicious. I can easily hide a couple extra hundred a week from her.”

I run my hand along the grass. “This some damn good grass you got growing on top of you. Look like centipede grass. That shit real low maintenance. Mr. Wyatt call it ‘mighty fine.’ He talk ’bout plants like they women sometimes, man. I still work for him. It help keep Ma from knowing I sling. She on my back ’bout school enough as it is.”

Knowing Dre, he’d be like, Your grades that bad?

“Yeah, I can’t lie. It’s hard to stay on top of them and everything else. I bet I’ll have to do summer school. I dread it already.

“Let me not think on that. I gotta give you these updates. Your folks and Keisha doing okay. They taking it a day at a time. It’s wild how fast Andreanna growing. She and Keisha came over the other week. Andreanna wanted to see her ‘Sevy.’ Ma say you were the same way with me.”

My lips start to tremble, and my eyes burn. “Fuck.” I pull my shirt over my mouth, but before I know it, I’m crying. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Mr. Wyatt says grief hit you in waves. Sometimes it pull me out to sea and take me under. No wonder it’s hard to breathe as I cry.

This the moment Dre would clasp the back of my neck and go, It’s all good, cuz.

“No, it ain’t,” I say. “This ain’t fair, Dre. Don’t tell me that ‘Life ain’t fair’ bullshit. It don’t count with this.”

Says who? he’d ask.

“I say so, fool.” I laugh a little and wipe my face on my arm. “I miss you so much. I don’t got nobody to talk to or hang with. Seem like I’m on a different planet from Rico and Junie. Me and King, I guess you can call what we got a work relationship. Ever since he moved Iesha in and didn’t tell me . . .” I shake my head. “We not cool like that no more. I oughta be used to losing people. Pops, you, Lisa, King. The list long as hell.”

I try to laugh at my own joke. Can’t.

I clear my throat. “A’ight, back to the fam. Let’s see, Granny good. Nothing gon’ ever slow that woman down. Ma good. Working all the time as usual. Pops a’ight, I guess. I haven’t talked to him much after that stunt he pulled when we visited. He shouldn’t have come at me sideways, Dre. He the last person who can parent anybody, you feel me?”

Nah, I don’t, Dre would probably say.

“Whatever, man. I don’t need a father. I am a father. I wish you could see Seven. He getting so big. Iesha visit him every Sunday, but the day-to-day stuff still on me, and it’s still a lot. I’m scared to death ’bout having another one.”

I pluck a blade of grass and run it between my fingers. “Lisa pregnancy going real good. We find out what she having soon. If it’s a boy, we giving him your name, Andre Amar. He gon’ know all about you, especially how I beat you at ball.”

I can almost hear Dre laughing and saying, Lying ass.

“Don’t worry, Lisa probably gon’ set the record straight. Me and her just friends. She say we don’t got a chance long as I’m into this street stuff. Yeah, a’ight, we’ll see. I got a surprise planned this weekend for Valentine’s that I think gon’ change her mind. I’m taking her to Markham for a tour of the campus. She gotta give me a chance after I pull this one off, right?”

I glance at my watch. “Speaking of Lisa, I better bounce. She had school today, and I like to ride the bus back to the Garden with her. I’ll holla at you later. Tell Granddaddy I said hey.” I give Dre’s headstone dap. “Love you, man.”

Leaving him here, that be the hardest part. My life still going on and he just something for grass to grow on top of.

For some reason I stick that blade of grass in my pocket.

Students pour outta Saint Mary’s and onto the sidewalks. I post up near a pay phone at the end of the block. It probably look like I’m waiting on Lisa, but my customers know the deal.

Forget what you heard; drug addicts don’t only live in the hood. I mostly sell to people who ain’t in the Garden—white college students who pull up ’cause they wanna try something new, businessmen from downtown who want a “wild” weekend, these rich kids at Saint Mary’s who will spend their entire allowance to get high. I got this one customer, Jack, who got two kids, a wife, and going to law school. Law school. Meaning he know more than anybody that weed illegal. Yet he come to the Garden every other week for some green. Had his li’l boy, Simon, with him one time, asleep in his car seat in the back of the minivan. Not the kinda dude people expect to buy weed.

It kinda peeve me how life set up. Here I am, tryna make money to keep my momma’s lights on. Meanwhile, some rich brat might hit me up tomorrow, offering to spend a couple hundred for an “experience.” He never think what that money mean to somebody like me. Then who gotta watch out for the cops? Not him. Nah, I’m the one who gotta glance over my shoulder 24-7.

I learned to be real slick with my shit so I won’t get busted. For instance, these two Puerto Rican dudes from Lisa’s school come over to me. We slap palms, and that’s when they slide me the money. We talk a minute or so, in case anybody watching. I slap palms with them again and pass them the weed baggies, their usual. They go their way, and that’s that.