On the Come Up(22)

“You know how long I been driving around looking for you, Bri? You had us worried sick.”

“I told Jay I was going for a walk.”

“You need to tell folks where you’re going,” he says. “Why couldn’t you answer your phone?”

“What are you talking—” I take it out of my hoodie pocket. Damn. I’ve got a ton of texts and missed calls from him and Jay. Sonny and Malik have texted me too. That little half-moon in the top corner explains why I didn’t know. “Sorry. I put it on Do Not Disturb for school and forgot to turn it back on.”

Trey tiredly wipes his face. “You can’t be—”

Loud laughs erupt across the courtyard from those GDs. They’re all looking at Trey.

Trey looks right back at them, like, We got a problem?

Aunt Pooh comes over, smirking too. “My dude,” she says as she slips money in her pocket. “What you doing?”

“I’m getting my little sister, that’s what.”

“Nah, bruh.” She eyes him from head to toe. “I mean this shit! You the pizza boy? C’mon, Trey. Really?”

Scrap busts out laughing.

I don’t see a damn thing funny though. It took my brother forever to find something, and nah, making pizzas ain’t “goals,” but he’s trying.

“I mean, damn,” Aunt Pooh says. “You spent all that time in college, being Mr. Big Man on Campus with the good grades and shit, and this the result?”

Trey’s jaw ticks. It’s nothing for these two to get into it. Trey usually doesn’t hold back, either. Aunt Pooh’s not that much older than him, so that whole “respect your elders” thing is a no-go.

But today, he says, “You know what? I don’t have time for immature, insecure folks. C’mon, Bri.”

“‘Immature’? ‘Insecure’?” Aunt Pooh says the words like they’re nasty. “The hell you talking ’bout?”

Trey pulls me toward the parking lot.

We pass the GDs. “How he gon’ be the big homie’s son and making pizzas?” one says.

“Law probably rolling in his grave at this weak shit,” another says, shaking his head. “Good thing li’l momma keeping it going for him.”

Trey doesn’t respond to them, either. He’s always been “too nerdy to be Law’s son.” Too soft, not street enough, not hood enough. I don’t think he cares though.

We get in his car. There are candy wrappers, receipts, fast food bags, and papers all over. Trey is messy as hell. Once I lock my seat belt, Trey pulls out.

He sighs. “Sorry if it seemed like I was coming at you, Li’l Bit.”

Trey was the first person in the family to call me that. Word is he didn’t get why everybody was obsessed with me when our parents brought me home because I was just a “li’l bit cute, not a lot.” It stuck.

For the record, I was a whole lot cute.

“You had us worried,” he goes on. “Ma was about to ask Grandma and Granddaddy to look for you. You know it’s bad if she was about to do that.”

“Really?” Grandma would’ve never let her live that down, either. Seriously, I could be grown with kids of my own and Grandma would be one cough away from death, telling Jay, “Remember that time you couldn’t find my grandbaby and called me for help?”

The petty is strong in that one.

“Yeah, really,” Trey says. “Besides, you don’t need to be hanging out in the projects.”

“It’s not that bad over there.”

“Listen to yourself. Not that bad. It’s bad enough. Doesn’t help that you’re hanging around Pooh, considering all that she’s into.”

“She wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

“Bri, she can’t stop something from happening to herself,” he says.

“I’m sorry for that stuff she said back there.”

“I’m not bothered,” he says. “She’s insecure about her predicament and picks on me to make herself feel better.”

Thanks to that psychology degree, my brother can read folks like a pro. “Still doesn’t make it right.”

“It is what it is. But I wanna talk about you, not me. Ma told me what happened at school. How are you feeling?”

If I close my eyes tight enough, I can still see Long and Tate pinning me to the ground. I can still hear that word. “Hoodlum.”

One damn word and it feels like it’s got all the power over me. But I tell Trey, “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and Denzel Washington is my daddy.”

“Damn, for real? The good genes skipped you, huh?”

He side-eyes me. I grin. Trolling him is a hobby.

“Asshole,” he says. “But for real, talk to me, Bri. How are you feeling?”

I rest my head back. There are a couple of reasons my brother majored in psychology. One, he says he wants to keep somebody from ending up like our mom did. Trey swears that if Jay had gotten counseling after seeing Dad die, she wouldn’t have run to drugs to deal with the trauma. Two, he’s always in somebody’s business about their feelings. Always. Now he has a degree to certify his nosiness.

“I’m sick of that school,” I say. “They always single me out, Trey.”