On the Come Up(55)

I won’t hear the end of this. I won’t.

Eventually, the bus pulls up at our school. I let Curtis get off before I do because Sonny is waiting for me at his seat. He just looks at me with those raised eyebrows.

“Zip it,” I tell him as I climb off the bus.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. Your face says it all.”

“Nah, your face says it all.” He pokes my cheeks. “Aww, look at you, blushing and shit. Over Curtis though? Really, Bri?”

“I said zip it!”

“Hey, I’m not judging. I simply ask that you name your son and daughter after me. Sonny and Sonnita.”

This boy didn’t. “How the hell did we go from talking on the bus to having two kids, Sonny?”

“Two kids and a dog. A pug you’ll name Sonningham.”

“What goes on in that head of yours?”

“It’s better than whatever has you flirting with Curtis.”

I punch his arm. “You know what? I’ll let you and Rapid name your kids those ridiculous names instead. How about that?”

Sonny’s eyes cast down. “Uhh . . . I kinda ghosted on Rapid.”

“What? Why?”

“I did my SAT practice test the other day and couldn’t focus on that shit for thinking about him. I can’t fuck this up, Bri.”

Nobody’s harder on Sonny than Sonny. I’ve witnessed him have straight-up panic attacks over his grades and even his art pieces. “It was only a practice test, Son’.”

“That reflects how I’ll do on the real test,” he croaks. “Bri, if I get a low score on that shit—”

I cup his cheek. “Hey, look at me.”

He does. My eyes won’t let his look away. I’ve witnessed him have so many panic attacks that I can spot them before they fully form. “Breathe,” I tell him.

Sonny takes in a long, deep breath and lets it out. “I can’t mess this up.”

“You won’t. That’s why you ghosted on him?”

“That’s not all. Malik and I were hanging out the other day and did more research. We found out Rapid’s IP address doesn’t trace to the Garden.”

He and Malik hung out without me. That still gets me in my feelings a bit. But I gotta shake it off. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Rapid had me thinking he lived in the neighborhood. That’s where all of his photography is from.”

“Wait. Did he actually say he lived in the Garden or did you assume he lived in the Garden?”

“Okay, I assumed. But it shows me how much I don’t know about him.” Sonny stuffs his hands in his pockets. “It’s not worth the distraction.”

Yet the way his voice dips says otherwise.

There are more people outside the school than usual. Mainly near the front doors. There’s lots of chatter. We have to push through the crowd to try to get a glimpse of what’s happening.

“This is some bullshit!” somebody shouts up ahead.

Sonny and I find Malik and Shana. Malik’s height helps him see over the crowd.

“What’s going on?” Sonny asks.

Malik’s jaw ticks as he looks straight into the school. “They’re back.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Long and Tate.”





Seventeen


“What the hell?” Sonny says.

There is no way.

I stand on my tiptoes. Long ushers a student through the metal detectors, as if he never left, and Tate checks a backpack nearby.

My whole body tenses up.

Dr. Rhodes said there would be an investigation and that disciplinary action would take place if the administration saw fit. Long and Tate throwing me to the ground must not have “fit” their idea of bad behavior.

Dr. Rhodes is near the doors, telling everybody to come inside in an orderly fashion.

“How the hell can they be back?” Sonny asks.

“There wasn’t enough noise made about what they did,” Malik says. He looks at me.

No, hell no. “This is not on me.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You may as well have!”

“Y’all!” Sonny says. “Not now, okay?”

“We need to do something,” says Shana.

I glance around. Half the school’s out here, and most of them eye me.

Am I pissed? Doubt that’s even the word for it. But whatever they want me to do, I don’t have it in me to do. Hell, I don’t know what to do.

Malik watches me for the longest. When I don’t say or do anything, he shakes his head. He opens his mouth and starts to shout, “Hell no, we won’t—”

“‘Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up,’” Curtis yells over him. “‘Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up!’”

Malik tries to start his own chant over him, but Curtis is loud and angry, and it becomes contagious. A second person yells out my lyrics. A third. Fourth. Before I know it, I’m hearing my words from everybody but me.

And Malik.

“We will not tolerate that type of language,” Dr. Rhodes calls over them. “All students must stop at—”