Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)(74)

Lisa sighs heavy. “Mav, I appreciate what you did today, but I told you there’s no us.”

“Wait. So corny Connor give you a teddy bear and he good, but I give you this—”

Lisa sit all the way up. “Whoa, hold up. First of all, I didn’t ask you to do anything. You did this on your own. Secondly, who I’m with has nothing to do with what I can ‘get’ outta them. I’m not a gold digger like your other baby momma.”

The car go silent.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Lisa says.

“It’s okay. You mad and—”

“It’s not fair to Iesha. You were the idiot who had sex with her. What, did you think doing stuff for me would make me have sex with you?”

“Of course not! I don’t think of you like that, Lisa. But goddamn, I am doing a lot. I buy you stuff, pick you up every day, bring you food. You won’t even give me a chance.”

“That kinda shit doesn’t matter to me!” she snaps. “What are you doing with your life?”

“My bad. I’m sorry I ain’t got it figured out like you do. Some of us tryna make it day-to-day. Not that you’d understand.”

“That’s what you wanna do? Play the ‘Lisa’s too bougie to understand the struggle’ card? Don’t give me that bullshit, Maverick. You don’t have to have it figured out. You should at least wanna better yourself. But nooo, you’re still in a gang. And I should wanna be with you?”

“This what I be talking ’bout! You don’t know how it work,” I say. “I can’t just walk away from the set. I gotta either put in some major work like taking a big charge for somebody or get jumped out. Dudes end up dead and close to it after them beatings. It ain’t worth it.”

“You could distance yourself from them!” Lisa says.

“But they my boys! King, Junie, and Rico look out for me more than you’ll ever know.”

Lisa stare at me real hard. “You’re selling drugs with King again, aren’t you?”

I sigh. “Man, look—”

“You know what? Don’t answer that,” she says. “Do whatever you want, Maverick. Me and my baby will be all right.”

“There you go, acting like I won’t be around.”

“Because you won’t!” Lisa says. “I make plans, knowing that. My baby needs one of us to think about the future.”

She don’t get it. She really don’t get it. “Lisa, hear me out—”

She turn her back to me and pull her blanket over her head. “Leave me alone, Maverick.”

We don’t speak for the rest of the drive.





Twenty-Five


I ain’t shit.

I’m a drug-dealing, gangbanging, high school flunk-out—that’s worse than a dropout. I got two kids by two different girls at seventeen. I hurt my momma, and I hurt Lisa, two of the main people who care about me only ’cause I made them think I’m somebody I’m not. Truth is, I’m the kinda dude who end up in the news or in one of them PSAs they show at school on what not to be.

Since I ain’t shit, I ain’t got shit to lose. I may as well kill the person who killed Dre. First, I gotta make sure that’s really Red.

Monday morning, I look for Bus Stop Tony. It can be easier to find crack around the Garden than it can be to find a crackhead. They stay on the move. I go to Tony’s bus stop first, and I find his shopping cart and a dirty blanket. No Tony.

I walk over to the swap meet. Tony known to ask folks for money in the parking lot, but he ain’t there today. I go to Magnolia next. He sometimes offer to wash windows at the intersections for money. No Tony. I got one other option, the White House.

Not the one in DC. I mean this run-down crack house over on Carnation. It used to be white, the paint peeling now, so everybody in the Garden call it the White House. Let’s be real though—half these politicians act like they on crack anyway, selling pipe dreams and shit. Calling it the White House make perfect sense.

I used to be scared to walk by it when I was little. All the people coming in and out had red eyes and scaly skin, like dragons. I came up with this story in my head that it was a dragon dungeon, and I was a knight, Sir Maverick, Prince of Garden Heights. I figured I was royalty too, since my pops was the crown of the King Lords. My mission every day was to sneak past the dungeon without the dragons spotting me. Them crackheads ain’t care ’bout me, but I would hide behind trees and bushes. It was my own li’l game.

I miss my wild imagination.

Today, I walk right up to the house. The yard been missing grass for a minute. These days it’s just dirt covered in trash. A lady in dingy clothes curled up in a corner of the porch. I’m glad she snoring. As still as she is, I almost thought she was dead.

The White House don’t belong to any one person, it’s more like the neighborhood’s spot for junkies to hide. I walk right in, and goddamn, the stench hit me head-on. It’s the strongest piss mixed with this burning plastic smell. I pull my shirt over my mouth and nose.

Several people lie around the dim living room on raggedy couches and in corners on the floor. Wisps of smoke rise in the air near some of their mouths and their skin scaly like the dragons I used to imagine.

Now, I’ve seen crackheads before, like on a corner acting a fool or around the neighborhood asking for money. I done laughed at plenty of them and sold product to a couple. I ain’t laughing now.