Grown(41)

It’s my fault, it’s all my fault! He’s killed himself because I wouldn’t listen. He said he would and I didn’t listen.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no. Please, please, please.”

I burst in, running straight to his bed, slipping on something wet and rubbery, like a jellyfish.

“Korey!” I scream, diving toward his pillows, and turn on the light.

“What the fuck?” Korey roars . . . as Amber’s head pops up from under the covers.

All the air charges out of my body.

The police are behind me now. Korey is enraged. Words are exchanged. Amber wraps a sheet around herself; it trails behind her as she shuffles into the bathroom.

“What the fuck are you doing? You let them in here?”

I can’t feel my feet. And I don’t know what to do with the icicles that used to be my hands.

Voices swim around me.

“Suicide pact? Hell no, there’s no fucking suicide pact. What are you even talking about?”

I back away, noticing a used condom on the floor by the bed.

The very one my bare foot slipped on.

The smell of fried fish, mac and cheese, and baked ziti roasting in the kitchen downstairs makes me want to climb the walls.

I’m so hungry.

Jessica brings me two meals, usually fast-food takeout, burgers with cold fries and flat Sprite, which only makes me crave my purple drink. Jessica doesn’t talk despite being the only human contact I’ve had in over a week since we’ve returned to Atlanta. My room is the tiniest fish tank I’ve ever lived in.

But I can hear Korey. I hear his music leaking through the vents from the basement. Hear the parties he throws downstairs with at least a hundred people, including strippers. Hear him having sex with Amber . . . right next door.

The walls of my room are thin. Thin enough to feel like I’m with them.

So, I sit beside them, watching what he does to her body. Watching him call her sweetheart and her call him daddy.

I vomit in my bucket, yearning for the same attention he used to give me yet sickened by it.

Korey serves me a second cup of purple drink. I guzzle it, fast and desperate.

“If I can’t have sex with you, I have to have sex with someone else,” Korey says, stroking my cheek. “It’s your decision to wait, and I respect that. But I’m a man, baby. And a man has needs.”

That was his explanation for Amber. He tells me we will be our own kind of family now and that we are following God’s will.

“Men in the Bible had many wives. It was written by Jesus.”

I listen, his words slowly soaking in as I slurp more drink.

“I know you upset about Amber. But you need me and I need you. Your folks, they not gonna want you, not after all this. They were never gonna let you go. They would’ve had you up in that house, taking care of all those kids forever, when you were meant to sing. I saved you. You don’t need them no more. You got me. You, me, and Amber, we’re our own family. Just us. No one else. Family over everything.”

I nod and hold out my cup, my voice slurring. “Can I have some more?”





Chapter 54


Sisters




There’s a party downstairs and I’m not invited. Neither is Amber. That’s why I know she’s in her room, listening to the music and laughter.

They don’t lock the door anymore. They know I’m not leaving. So I have no problem slipping into the hall to use the bathroom while they’re distracted.

Which is exactly where I find her.

“Amber,” I whisper, my voice groggy. “Amber?”

She drops her head, speeding toward her room.

“Wait,” I shout under my breath, peering down the stairs again, checking if the coast is clear.

“We’re not supposed to talk to each other,” she whispers.

“I know but . . . are you OK?”

She stops short, then turns to face me, her right eye dark purple.

“I’m fine,” she hisses.

“I know the rules . . . but Korey says we’re like sisters. And if any of my sisters got hurt, I’d be the first to check on them.”

Amber’s lip trembles, the tears pooling in her eyes fall. We both glance at the stairs. Safe. For now.

“How many sisters you got?” she sniffs.

“Three. And one brother.”

“Dang, that’s a lot of kids.”

I chuckle. “Yeah. I know.”

Amber is quiet for some time. “I have a little brother. Gets on my nerves. Can’t understand why I miss him so much.”

“Yeah, Ain’t that annoying?”

Amber and I sit in the doorways of our respective rooms, chatting. Unlike me, Amber was a professionally and classically trained singer. Been in competitions since she was four. She met Korey the same night I did, but through Richie.

“Dang, feels like forever since I’ve talked normal to . . . anyone,” I say.

“Yeah. Me too. My school back home is real big so we have like a gazillion kids in it I talked to every day.”

School? The word rings a bell and reminds me of something.

“Hey, how old are you?”

She pauses, her face straightening.

“I’m eighteen.”

My tongue sticks to the top of my mouth. She’s lying.