The Hate U Give(107)

“Whoa, now, wait a minute, Mr. Lewis,” Daddy says.

“Wait nothing. I got insurance, and I’m gonna get more than enough from that. Ain’t nothing I can do with a burned-up shop. You can build a nice store, give folks something to be proud to shop in. All I ask is that you put up some pictures of Dr. King alongside your Newey Whoever-He-Was.”

Daddy chuckles. “Huey Newton.”

“Yeah. Him. I know y’all moving, and I’m glad, but the neighborhood still needs more men like you. Even if you just running a store.”

The insurance man arrives a little later, and Daddy gives him a tour of what’s left. Momma gets some gloves and garbage bags from the truck, passes them to me and my brothers, and tells us to get to work. It’s kinda hard with people driving by and honking their horns. They yell out stuff like “Keep y’all heads up” or “We got your back!”

Some of them come and help out, like Mrs. Rooks and Tim. Mr. Reuben brings us ice-cold bottles of water, ’cause this sun ain’t no joke. I sit on the curb, sweating, tired, and one hundred percent ready to be done. We aren’t anywhere near finished.

A shadow casts over me, and somebody says, “Hey.”

I shield my eyes as I look up. Kenya’s wearing an oversized T-shirt and some basketball shorts. They look like Seven’s.

“Hey.”

She sits next to me and pulls her knees up to her chest. “I saw you on TV,” she says. “I told you to speak out, but damn, Starr. You took it kinda far.”

“It got people talking though, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. Sorry about the store. I heard my daddy did it.”

“He did.” No point in denying it, shoot. “How’s your momma?”

Kenya pulls her knees closer. “He beat her. She ended up in the hospital. They kept her overnight. She got a concussion and a whole bunch of other stuff, but she’ll be okay. We saw her a li’l while ago. The cops came, and we had to leave.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They raided our house earlier and wanted to ask her some questions. Me and Lyric gotta stay with Grandma right now.”

DeVante struck already. “You okay with that?”

“I’m relieved, actually. Messed up, huh?”

“Nah, not really.”

She scratches one of her cornrows, which somehow makes all of them move in the same back-and-forth motion. “I’m sorry for calling Seven my brother and not our brother.”

“Oh.” I kinda forgot about that. It seems minor after everything that’s happened. “It’s all right.”

“I guess I called him my brother ’cause . . . it made it feel like he really was my brother, you know?”

“Um, he is your brother, Kenya. I honestly get jealous of how much he wants to be with you and Lyric.”

“Because he thinks he has to be,” she says. “He wants to be with y’all. I mean, I get why. He and Daddy don’t get along. But I wish he wanted to be my brother sometimes and didn’t feel like he had to be. He ashamed of us. ’Cause of our momma and my daddy.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Yeah, he is. You ashamed of me too.”

“I’ve never said that.”

“You didn’t have to, Starr,” she says. “You never invited me to hang out with you and them girls. They were never at your house when I was. Like you ain’t want them to know I was your friend too. You were ashamed of me, Khalil, even the Garden, and you know it.”

I go quiet. If I face the truth, as ugly as it is, she’s right. I was ashamed of Garden Heights and everything in it. It seems stupid now though. I can’t change where I come from or what I’ve been through, so why should I be ashamed of what makes me, me? That’s like being ashamed of myself.

Nah. Fuck that.

“Maybe I was ashamed,” I admit. “But I’m not anymore. And Seven’s not ashamed of you, your momma, or Lyric. He loves y’all, Kenya. So like I said, our brother. Not just mine. Trust, I’m more than happy to share if it means getting him off my back.”

“He can be a pain in the ass, can’t he?”

“Girl, yes.”

We laugh together. As much as I’ve lost, I’ve gained some good stuff too. Like Kenya.

“Yeah, all right,” she says. “I guess we can share him.”

“Chop-chop, Starr,” Momma calls, clapping her hands as if that’ll make me move faster. Still on her dictatorship, I swear. “We’ve got work to do. Kenya, I got a bag and some gloves with your name on them if you wanna help out.”

Kenya turns to me like, seriously?

“I can share her too,” I say. “Matter of fact, please take her.”

We laugh and stand up. Kenya glances around at the rubble. More neighbors have joined in on cleaning up, and they form a line that moves trash out the store and into the trash cans on the curb.

“So what y’all gon’ do now?” Kenya asks. “With the store, I mean.”

A car honks at us, and the driver yells out to let us know he has our back. The answer comes easily.

“We’ll rebuild.”

Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug.