On the Come Up(13)

Malik plops down beside me. “It’s a double negative.”

“Um, no, Mr. Film Major,” I say. “As a literary arts major, I can assure that’s just a mess. You basically said that you won’t say you told me so.”

His eyebrows meet and his mouth drops slightly open. Confused Malik is so damn cute. “What?”

“Exactly. Stick with filmmaking, boo.”

“Agreed,” says Sonny. “Anyway, that battle was ridiculous, Bri. Except when you just stood there that first round. I was about to pull a Mariah Carey ‘I don’t know her’ on you.”

I punch his arm. Troll.

“But seriously, you killed it,” Sonny says. “Milez, on the other hand, needs to stop rapping.”

Malik nods. “He Jar Jar Binksed that.”

Malik insists that Jar Jar Binks should be a verb, adjective, and an adverb to describe whack stuff because Jar Jar Binks is the worst character in the Star Wars universe.

“Bruh, you know that’s never gonna catch on, right?” Sonny asks him.

“But it makes sense! Wanna say something is whack? Call it a Jar Jar Binks.”

“Okay. You’re a Jar Jar Binks,” Sonny says. “Got it.”

Malik thumps Sonny’s forehead. Sonny punches Malik’s shoulder. They go back and forth, punching and swatting at each other.

Totally normal. In fact, a Sonny and Malik fight is one of the few things guaranteed in life, right up there with death, taxes, and Kanye West rants.

Sonny’s phone buzzes, and suddenly Malik no longer exists. His face lights up almost as bright as the screen.

I sit up a little and stretch my neck. “Who you texting?”

“Dang, bish. Nosy ass.”

I stretch some more to try and see the name on the screen, but Sonny dims it so I can’t. I only catch the heart-eyes emoji next to the name. I raise my eyebrows. “Is there someone you’d like to tell me about, sir?”

Sonny glances around, almost like he’s afraid somebody heard me. Everybody’s having their own conversations though. Still he says, “Later, Bri.”

Considering how he’s on edge, there must be a guy. When we were eleven, Sonny came out to me. We were watching Justin Bieber perform at some awards show. I thought he was cute, but I wasn’t obsessed with him like Sonny was. Sonny turned to me and blurted out, “I think I only like boys.”

It was out of nowhere. Sorta. There were little things here and there that made me wonder. Like, how he’d print out pictures of Bieber and secretly carry them around. How he acted around my brother—if Trey liked something, Sonny suddenly loved it; if Trey spoke to him, Sonny blushed; and if Trey got a girlfriend, Sonny acted like it was the end of the world.

But I can’t lie; I didn’t really know what to say at the time. So I just told him, “Okay,” and left it at that.

He told Malik not long after and asked if they could still be friends. Apparently, Malik was like, “Long as we can still play PlayStation.” Sonny told his parents, too, and they’ve always been cool with it. But I guess sometimes he’s afraid of how other people will act if they know.

The bus pulls up at an intersection, beside a cluster of bleary-eyed kids. Their breath turns to smoke around them as they wait for the bus to Garden High.

Curtis lets his window down. “Ay, Basics! Talk that shit you were saying yesterday!”

School pride turns us into gangs. We call the kids from Garden Heights Basics ’cause we say they’re “basic as hell.” They call us short-bus nerds.

“Man, fuck your li’l lollipop-head-looking ass,” a boy in a bubble vest says. “Bet you won’t get off that bus and say shit to my face.”

I smirk. Keandre tells no lies.

He looks at me. “Ay, Bri! You did your thing in the Ring, baby girl!”

I let my window down. Some of the other kids nod or say, “Whaddup, Bri?”

If school pride makes us gangs, I’m neutral thanks to my dad. “You saw the battle?” I ask Keandre.

“Hell yeah! Props, queen.”

See? Around the neighborhood, I’m royalty. Everybody shows love.

But when the bus pulls up at Midtown, I’m nothing.

At Midtown you have to be great for anyone to notice you. Brilliant, actually. And it’s like everybody’s trying to outdo everyone else. It’s all about who got the lead in this play or that recital. Who won that award for their writing or their art. Whose vocal range is the best. It’s a popularity contest on steroids. If you’re not exceptional, you’re a nobody.

I’m the exact opposite of exceptional. My grades are so-so. I don’t win awards. Nothing I do is enough. I’m not enough. Except for when I’m too much for my teachers to handle and they send me to the principal’s office.

On the school steps, a couple of boys do the “Wipe Me Down” dance as Milez goes “Swag, swag, swag” on one of their phones. Don’t know why they’re torturing themselves with that garbage.

“So . . .” I grip my backpack straps. “What are y’all doing at lunch?”

“I’ve got SAT prep,” Sonny says.

“Damn, you’re doing both?” I ask. Sonny’s more obsessed with this college stuff than Jay is.

He shrugs. “Gotta do what I gotta do.”