Tyler Johnson Was Here(31)

“You okay?” Faith asks.

Suddenly, it feels like this room is Hell, and I’m meant to burn in it. “I… just… this—”

“I get it,” Faith interrupts me, putting her hand on my shoulder. I gaze into her dark brown eyes, realizing how much she does get it. I’m crumbling. I knew that this would be hard, stepping foot inside a prison, because of my dad, but I didn’t think I’d begin to fall apart.

“If you want to wait in the car, here you go.” She hands me the keys. And I realize that maybe she needs to be the one to bail him out.

I grab the keys. “Thanks,” I mumble, and wipe my forehead.

“Yeah, of course,” she says with a forced smile. “I’ll meet you at the car with Johntae. Okay?”

I wait in the car, taking deep breaths and scrolling through Tyler’s Instagram and Snapchat. His Snapchat story is of him chugging a beer and making a face like he just downed a bottle of Windex or something. I know this isn’t the first time Tyler has had beer, but seeing him do it on camera makes me feel like this is a whole new side of him I didn’t know existed. I wonder what else he does with Johntae and his gang.

After scrolling through Tyler’s Instagram for what feels like an hour, I see Faith walking out the door, Johntae close behind her.

Johntae’s shouting something—I can see his mouth moving. He holds his junk like he has to remind himself that he’s a man.

I get out the car.

“All I’m sayin’ is, you couldn’t call? You couldn’t make sure I was all right?” Johntae shouts.

She rolls her eyes and walks toward me, leaving him behind. “You don’t own me,” she says over her shoulder.

“Johntae,” I call out to him. He doesn’t even notice me. He’s still staring at Faith, invested in whatever argument they’re having.

“What the fuck you mean?” he says, following her.

She presses her body against the side of her car. “You may not want to see it,” she says, “but I am my own person, and you make me feel broken. Took me a while to realize I’m not.” And she just stares at Johntae, taking her life back from him… like in the marrow of her bones there are a thousand cities and hoods being constructed. Like she’s learned to love herself and to stop trying to complete herself with Johntae’s shattered pieces.

“Whatever!” He slashes the air with his hand, starting to walk away, not saying anything to me.

“Johntae!” I say, running after him. I yank at his shoulder.

“What, lil nigga?” He turns around sharply, his nose turned up.

“Where’re you going?”

“I gotta leave this town,” he says. “Somebody snitched.”

“Snitched? Snitched on who? About what?”

He pauses, looking over my shoulder at Faith, mugging her hard as shit, then glares back at me. He rolls his eyes and smacks his lips. “I gotta go, thug.”

“So you played me? All this was a plan of your own? To get me to bail you out, so you can be on your way? You never really meant to help me find Tyler, did you?” I’m screaming, my throat scratchy. The skies still, and everything stops for a second. And he doesn’t answer, just looks around, nostrils flared and head tilted back.

I take a short step closer, leaning in. “DID YOU?!” I repeat, pointing at his chest, my fingers in the shape of a gun.

“I’m sorry, Marvin.” He sighs, unfazed. “But it was all I could do.” And the way he says such a shady apology is just fuel to the fire.

“No. No!” I pace around. “I’m not going to let you do this to me.” And the breeze becomes stale, and my blood feels icy-hot.

“Go home,” he mumbles. “Get out of these streets. They ain’t safe. This ain’t no amusement park. This is the hood.”

“You said you’d help me find Tyler.” I feel this sting in the back of my throat.

“I’m just going to tell you the truth,” he growls, looking away. “I don’t know where Tyler is.” He turns his back and starts to walk off, like that’s all I deserve from him, after everything.

I feel like I am sinking into the bottom of the ocean, or in quicksand, my vision blurring, hands itchy and clammy. And the worst part is that I’m not surprised. I knew he didn’t know where Tyler was. But it was the only hope I could cling to—and now I have nothing.

I grab his shoulder a second time, and I draw my arm back, and I sucker punch him right in the jaw, and there’s a cracking sound as his head cocks back. I bite on my lower lip, my heart beating so ferociously in my chest.

He holds his face, spits on the ground, and glares at me, his eyes wide open and mouth drooling, his chest heaving.

He gives me a mean mug before curling up his fist.

He swings at me, and his fist connects with my face so hard it feels like he fractures my nose. The impact makes me fall to the pavement, my head colliding with the ground littered with tiny stones, beer caps, and cigarette butts.

He turns around and runs, runs, runs away, shouting, “You gon’ regret that. You ain’t one of us. You ain’t nothing but a lil bitch.”

Faith helps me up off the ground as blood streams out of my nose like a running faucet.

“Are you okay?” her small voice says.