On the Come Up(32)

I push him so hard, he tips over, laughing all the way down.

Sonny sits up. “Vi-o-lent. Seriously, where’s this coming from?”

“We talked at church about me getting suspended, and he was actually decent.”

“Damn, Bri. He talked to you like a human being, now all of a sudden you’re thirsty for him? What kind of heterosexual bullshit is that?”

I tuck in my lips. “That’s not what I mean, Sonny. I’m just saying . . . that conversation made me look at him a little different, that’s all.”

“Like I said, are your standards that low that you’re suddenly falling for him?”

“I have not fallen, thank you very much.”

“You see that troll as more than a troll. That’s bad enough,” Sonny says. “Whew, chile. The ghetto.”

I roll my eyes. Sonny only watches Real Housewives of Atlanta to get NeNe quotes, just like he watches Empire for Cookie quotes, and he lives for moments to use them.

“Anyway, you never told me how the studio went,” he says. “Did you record a song?”

“Yep.”

Sonny raises his eyebrows. “Can I hear it or nah?”

“Umm . . .”

It takes everything in me not to tell him, “No!” I became a whole new person when I stepped up to that mic—it happens whenever I rap. But when Sonny hears “On the Come Up,” he won’t hear Bri the rapper. He’ll hear Bri his best friend.

I should be used to this, as much as I let him and Malik hear rhymes that I wrote, but I’m always afraid to show people who know me that other side of me. What if they don’t like it?

“Please, Bri?” Sonny says, his hands together. “Pleeeeease?”

You know what? Fine. Otherwise he’ll bug me all day. “Okay.”

For some reason my hands shake, but I manage to pull up “On the Come Up” on my phone. I hit Play, and I wish I could jump off this bus.

I don’t know how rappers do this. When I got on that mic, it was just me and the mic. I didn’t care about what Sonny would think or anybody, really. I just said what Bri the rapper wanted to say.

Fuck. Why’d I do that?

But the good news? Sonny nods to the beat with a wide grin. “Briiii!” He shakes my shoulder. “This is dooope!”

“As hell,” Deon adds behind us. He nods along. “That’s you, Bri?”

My heart’s about to jump out of my chest. “Yeah.”

He lets out a slow whistle. “That’s fire right there.”

“Turn this shit up!” Sonny says. This boy takes my phone and raises the volume, loud enough for errybody, yes, errybody, on the bus to hear.

Conversations stop, heads turn back, and people nod along.

“Yo, whose song is that?” Zane asks.

“Bri’s!” says Deon.

“Damn, what’s that called?” Aja the freshman asks.

I’m sweating. Seriously. “‘On the Come Up.’”

“‘You can’t stop me on the come up.’” Sonny dances as best as he can on the seat. “‘You can’t stop me, nope, nope.’”

There’s something about hearing it from him that makes it sound different, like a real song and not just some shit I did.

Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up.

Wrote me off, called your squad, but you lucked up.

If I did what I wanted and bucked up, You’d be bound for the ground, grave dug up.

“Oh, shiiiit,” Curtis says, fist to his mouth. “Princess, you went at Long and Tate?”

“Hell yeah. Had to let ’em know.”

You’d think everybody just found out they’re getting a thousand dollars, the way they react. Deon lays out on his seat, acting like I just killed him.

“You. Did. That!” Sonny says. “Oh my God, you did that!”

I’m cheesing super hard. They have me play the song twice, and I’m pretty sure I’m floating.

Until the bus pulls up in front of Midtown.

Everybody else gets off without hesitation. Christmas break starts tomorrow, so I guess they’re ready to get the day over with. I stay in my seat and stare out at the building. I wish the last time I was here was the last time I was here, but Jay told me this morning to “walk in there with your head held high.”

She didn’t say how to do that though.

“You good?” Sonny asks.

I shrug.

“Don’t worry about those two,” he says. “Like I told you, they haven’t been here all week.”

Long and Tate. Sonny and Malik texted me Monday and let me know they were MIA. I’m not really worried about them anyway. There’s no way they’re coming back. It’s the whispers, the glances, and the rumors that bother me.

“I’ve got your back,” Sonny says. He holds his arm out to me. “Shall we, my lady?”

I smile. “We shall.”

I hook my arm in Sonny’s, and we get off the bus together.

Half the school’s out front, as usual. The glances and whispers start the moment we step off the bus. One person will nudge another and look at me, and soon they’re both looking at me until everybody is looking at me.

This isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to be visible.