The Hate U Give(75)

Chris cracks a small smile. “Taco Bell is pretty awesome.”

“Yeah.” I look at my hands again. “He let Khalil come with us to Taco Bell. We were struggling, but Khalil was like our charity case. Everybody knew his momma was a crackhead.”

I feel the tears coming. Fuck, I’m sick of this. “We were real close back then. He was my first kiss, first crush. Before he died, we weren’t as close anymore. I mean, I hadn’t seen him in months and . . .” I’m ugly crying. “And it’s killing me because he was going through so much shit, and I wasn’t there for him anymore.”

Chris thumbs my tears away. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“But I do,” I say. “I could’ve stopped him from selling drugs. Then people wouldn’t be calling him a thug. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you; I wanted to, but everybody who knows I was in the car acts like I’m made out of glass. You treated me normal. You were my normal.”

I’m an absolute mess right now. Chris takes my hand and pulls me onto his lap so I’m straddling him. I bury my face in his shoulder and cry like a big-ass baby. His tux is wet, my makeup is ruined. Awful.

“I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing my back. “I was an ass tonight.”

“You were. But you’re my ass.”

“I’ve been watching myself walk away?”

I look at him and seriously punch his arm. He laughs and the sound of it makes me laugh. “You know what I mean! You’re my normal. And that’s all that matters.”

“All that matters.” He smiles.

I hold his cheek and let my lips reintroduce themselves to his. Chris’s are soft and perfect. They taste like fruit punch too.

Chris pulls back with a gentle tug to my bottom lip. He presses his forehead against mine and looks at me. “I love you.”

The “I” has appeared. My response is easy. “I love you too.”

Two loud knocks against the window startle us. Seven presses his face against the glass. “Y’all bet’ not be doing nothing!”

The best way to get turned all the way off? Have your brother show up.

“Seven, leave them alone,” Layla whines behind him. “We were about to dance, remember?”

“That can wait. I gotta make sure he’s not getting some from my sister.”

“You won’t get any if you don’t stop acting so ridiculous!” she says.

“I don’t care. Starr, get out this car. I ain’t playing!”

Chris laughs into my bare shoulder. “Did your dad tell him to keep an eye on you?”

Knowing Daddy . . . “Probably so.”

He kisses my shoulder and his lips linger there a few seconds. “Are we good now?”

I peck him back on the lips. “We’re good.”

“Good. Let’s go dance.”

We get out the car, and Seven yells about us sneaking off and threatens to tell Daddy. Layla pulls him back inside as he says, “And if she push out a little Chris in nine months, we gon’ have a problem, partna!”

Ridiculous. Re-damn-diculous.

The music is still bumping inside. I try not to laugh as Chris really does turn the Nae-Nae into a No-No. Maya and Ryan join us on the dance floor, and they give me these “What the hell?” looks at Chris’s moves. I shrug and go with it.

Toward the end of a song, Chris leans down to my ear and says, “I’ll be right back.”

He disappears into the crowd. I don’t think anything of it until about a minute later when his voice comes over the speakers, and he’s next to the DJ in the booth.

“Hey, everybody,” he says. “My girl and I had a fight earlier.”

Oh, Lord. He’s telling all of our business. I look at my Chucks and shield my face.

“And I wanted to do this song, our song, to show you how much I love you and care about you, Fresh Princess.”

A bunch of girls go, “Awww!” His boys whoop and cheer. I’m thinking, please don’t let him sing. Please. But there’s this familiar boomp . . . boomp, boomp, boomp.

“Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down,” Chris raps. “And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.”

I smile way too hard. Our song. I rap along with him, and mostly everyone joins in. Even the teachers. At the end, I cheer louder than anybody.

Chris comes back down, and we laugh and hug and kiss. Then we dance and take silly selfies, flooding dashboards and timelines around the world. When prom is over, we let Maya, Ryan, Jess, and some of our other friends ride with us to IHOP. Everybody has somebody on their lap. At IHOP, we eat way too many pancakes and dance to songs on the jukebox. I don’t think about Khalil or Natasha.

It’s one of the best nights of my life.





EIGHTEEN


On Sunday, my parents take me and my brothers on a trip.

It seems like a normal visit to Uncle Carlos’s house until we pass his neighborhood. A little over five minutes later, a brick sign surrounded by colorful shrubs welcomes us to Brook Falls.

Single-story brick houses line freshly paved streets. Black kids, white kids, and everything in between play on the sidewalks and in yards. Open garage doors show all of the junk inside, and bikes and scooters lay abandoned in yards. Nobody’s worried about their stuff getting stolen in the middle of the day.