On the Come Up(81)

Oh, God. “Aunty—”

“Go!” she yells again.

Somebody grabs my arm.

“C’mon!” Curtis says.

He pulls me with him. I try to look back for Aunt Pooh, but the stampede makes it impossible.

Along the way, something . . . weird happens with one of my shoes. Like it’s off balance. It forces me to limp as I try to keep up with Curtis. He leads me to the apartment where he lives with his grandma. We don’t stop until we get inside.

Curtis fastens every lock on the door. “Bri, you okay?”

“What the hell’s happening?”

He lifts a blind to peek out. “Drug bust. I knew something was about to go down. That black car kept circling the parking lot. Looked like an undercover.”

Drug bust?

Shit.

I rush over to the window and lift a blind myself. Curtis’s grandma’s apartment faces the courtyard, and I’ve got a clear view of everything. If Maple Grove was an ant bed, it’s like somebody just stomped on it. SWAT team members knock down apartment doors, and Garden Disciples rush outside or get dragged out with guns pointed in their faces. A few brave ones make runs for it.

Aunt Pooh lies flat on the courtyard, her hands cuffed behind her back. A cop pats her down.

“Please, God,” I pray. “Please, God.”

God ignores me. The officer pulls a baggie from Aunt Pooh’s back pocket. Suddenly, the sky is no longer our limit. That bag of cocaine is.

I back away from the window. “No, no, no . . .”

Curtis looks out, too. “Oh, shit.”

For days, I thought I’d lost her, and I just got her back. Now . . .

There’s suddenly an invisible hand gripping every single muscle inside my chest. I gasp for air.

“Bri, Bri, Bri,” Curtis says, taking my arms. He guides me toward the sofa and helps me sit down. “Bri, breathe.”

It’s impossible, like my body doesn’t even know what breathing is, but it knows what crying is. Tears fall from my eyes. Sobs make me gasp harder, louder.

“Hey, hey,” Curtis says. His eyes catch mine. “Breathe.”

“Everybody . . .” I gulp for air. “Everybody leaves me.”

I sound as small as I feel. This is my mom telling me Daddy left us to go to heaven. This is her backing out of the driveway, even as I scream for her not to leave me. Nobody ever realized they took part of me with them.

Curtis sits beside me. He hesitates at first, but he gently guides my head so it’s resting on his shoulder. I let him.

“Yeah, people leave us,” he says softly. “But it doesn’t mean we alone.”

All I can do is close my eyes. There’s yelling and sirens outside. The cops are probably taking down every single Garden Disciple in Maple Grove.

Slowly, breathing becomes a habit again. “Thank you—” My nose is so stopped up, I sound funny. I sniff. “Thank you for getting me.”

“It’s all good,” Curtis says. “I was watering my grandma’s plants when I saw you and Pooh talking in the courtyard. Then the SWAT van rolled up. Knowing what I know ’bout Pooh, I knew you had to get up outta there.”

I open my eyes. “You water your grandma’s plants?”

“Yeah. Somebody gotta keep these things alive while she at work.”

I sit up some more. There are potted plants and flowers all over the living room and kitchen. “Damn,” I say. “You’ve got a lot of work.”

He chuckles. “Yeah. Plus, she’s got a couple on the stoop. I like helping her with them though. They easier to deal with than a dog or a little brother or sister.” Curtis stands up. “You want some water or something?”

My throat is kinda dry. “Water would be good.”

“No prob—” He frowns at my foot. “Yo, what’s wrong with your shoe?”

“What?” I look down at them. One fake Timb is much shorter than the other. That’s because the entire heel is missing.

My shoe literally came apart.

“Fuck!” I bury my face in my hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

At this point, this shit is laughable. Of all the days and times for my shoe to fall apart, it had to happen while my life is falling apart.

“Look, I got you, okay?” Curtis says. He unties his Nikes. He slides them off and holds them toward me. “Here.”

He can’t be for real. “Curtis, put your shoes back on.”

Instead he goes down on one knee in front of me, puts his right sneaker on my right foot, and ties it super tight. He carefully removes my other Not-Timb, slips his left Nike on, and ties it too. When he’s done, he straightens up.

“There,” he says. “You got shoes.”

“I can’t keep your shoes, Curtis.”

“You can at least wear them to go home,” he says. “A’ight?”

Not like I have any other options. “All right.”

“Good.” He goes to the kitchen area. “You want ice in your water or nah?”

“No, thank you,” I say. The yelling and shrieking has quieted down. I can’t make myself look outside though.

Curtis brings me a tall glass of water. He sits beside me, wiggling his toes in his Spider-Man socks. There’s a hell of a lot I don’t know about him, and what I’m seeing doesn’t match up with what I thought.