The Hate U Give(59)

I point in his face. “Don’t call him that. And what dudes? Nobody in Garden Heights is checking for me. Hardly anybody knows my name. Hell, even you called me Big Mav’s daughter who work in the store.”

“’Cause you don’t come around,” he says. “I ain’t never seen you at a party, nothing.”

Without thinking, I say, “You mean parties where people get shot at?” And as soon as it leaves my mouth, I feel like shit. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He stares at the countertop. “It’s cool. Don’t worry about it.”

We quietly nibble on graham crackers.

“Um . . .” I say. The silence is brutal. “Uncle Carlos and Aunt Pam are cool. I think you’ll like it here.”

He bites another graham cracker.

“They can be corny sometimes, but they’re sweet. They’ll look out for you. Knowing Aunt Pam, she’ll treat you like Ava and Daniel. Uncle Carlos will probably be tougher. If you follow the rules, you’ll be okay.”

“Khalil talked ’bout you sometimes,” DeVante says.

“Huh?”

“You said nobody knows you, but Khalil talked ’bout you. I ain’t know you was Big Mav’s daughter who—I ain’t know that was you,” he says. “But he talked ’bout his friend Starr. He said you were the coolest girl he knew.”

Some peanut butter gets stuck in my throat, but it’s not the only reason I swallow. “How did you know—oh. Yeah. Both of y’all were King Lords.”

I swear to God whenever I think about Khalil falling into that life, it’s like watching him die all over again. Yeah, Khalil matters and not the stuff he did, but I can’t lie and say it doesn’t bother me or it’s not disappointing. He knew better.

DeVante says, “Khalil wasn’t a King Lord, Starr.”

“But at the funeral, King put the bandana on him—”

“To save face,” DeVante says. “He tried to get Khalil to join, but Khalil said nah. Then a cop killed him, so you know, all the homies riding for him now. King not ’bout to admit that Khalil turned him down. So he got folks thinking that Khalil repped King Lords.”

“Wait,” I say. “How do you know he turned King down?”

“Khalil told me in the park one day. We was posted up.”

“So y’all sold drugs together?”

“Yeah. For King.”

“Oh.”

“He didn’t wanna sell drugs, Starr,” DeVante says. “Nobody really wanna do that shit. Khalil ain’t have much of a choice though.”

“Yeah, he did,” I say thickly.

“No, he didn’t. Look, his momma stole some shit from King. King wanted her dead. Khalil found out and started selling to pay the debt.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That’s the only reason he started doing that shit. Trying to save her.”

I can’t believe it.

Then again, I can. That was classic Khalil. No matter what his momma did, he was still her knight and he was still gonna protect her.

This is worse than denying him. I thought the worst of him. Like everybody else.

“Don’t be mad at him,” DeVante says, and it’s funny because I can hear Khalil asking me not to be mad too.

“I’m not—” I sigh. “Okay, I was a little mad. I just hate how he’s being called a thug and shit when people don’t know the whole story. You said it, he wasn’t a gangbanger, and if everybody knew why he sold drugs, then—”

“They wouldn’t think he was a thug like me?”

Oh, damn. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“It’s cool,” he says. “I get it. I guess I am a thug, I don’t know. I did what I had to do. King Lords was the closest thing me and Dalvin had to a family.”

“But your momma,” I say, “and your sisters—”

“They couldn’t look out for us like King Lords do,” he says. “Me and Dalvin looked out for them. With King Lords, we had a whole bunch of folks who had our backs, no matter what. They bought us clothes and shit our momma couldn’t afford and always made sure we ate.” He looks at the counter. “It was just cool to have somebody take care of us for a change, instead of the other way around.”

“Oh.” A shitty response, I know.

“Like I said, nobody likes selling drugs,” he says. “I hated that shit. For real. But I hated seeing my momma and my sisters go hungry, you know?”

“I don’t know.” I’ve never had to know. My parents made sure of that.

“You got it good then,” he says. “I’m sorry they talking ’bout Khalil like that though. He really was a good dude. Hopefully one day they can find out the truth.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly.

DeVante. Khalil. Neither one of them thought they had much of a choice. If I were them, I’m not sure I’d make a much better one.

Guess that makes me a thug too.

“I’m going for a walk,” I say, getting up. My head’s all over the place. “You can have the rest of the graham crackers and peanut butter.”

I leave. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know much of anything anymore.