Chapter 3
SEREIA
“You sure?” asked my favorite cousin, Lakeland, looking over her shoulder at me with raised brows.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said with a frown, looking her up and down. “Why you say it like that?”
She shrugged, turned around, and went back to adjusting her shirt. “You know why I said it like that. Meech—”
“I need my lace fixed. Walk over to Zariah’s with me,” I interrupted, pushing up from the chair I was sitting in to walk over to the mirror she was at. Leaning forward, I touched the lace. “Yeah, my shit lifting.”
Lakeland looked over at me and shook her head. “After I make RJ something to eat.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see her staring at me.
I ignored it. She was worried about me and had every right to be.
But I didn’t want her to. Meech died three days ago, and I hadn’t sat down and sat with it since.
I didn’t want to. Didn’t feel like I needed to.
He was dead—what more was there to sit with?
The day after he died, I was at work. And as soon as I got off, I was outside with my cousins.
I hadn’t been home. Not for real. I went there to shower and sometimes to sleep.
Hadn’t sat at the kitchen table to eat since dinner the night he passed away.
Being in that fucking apartment depressed me.
Before Meech died he was barely there, yeah.
But he always came home at some point. I missed hearing his keys rattling at the door.
Shit was weird. And very fucking unsettling.
Not to mention, since everybody knew Meech was dead, I had to sleep with a fucking weapon.
Last night, I slept with the biggest knife from the kitchen.
I didn’t have the protection of my big brother or his gun anymore.
For the most part, I’d been good and I felt like I would be.
But things had changed and I just didn’t know anymore.
After Lakeland fed her son, we left. As soon as we stepped foot outside of the apartment, her baby daddy, Five, looked up from the dice game he was in the middle of. With his nose turned up and a cigarette sitting on his bottom lip, he sized us up. Here we go.
“Where the fuck you about to go?” He asked, the stench of cheap liquor on his breath overpowering the smell of cigarette smoke.
Lakeland sucked her teeth. “Around the corner. Cass is watching RJ so don’t even say shit.”
Lakeland and Reginald—Five—had been together since we were kids.
They were fourteen when Lakeland got pregnant with RJ.
Nobody in the hood was shocked when it came out that she was pregnant neither.
Not even her mother. Teenaged pregnancy was a common thing in The Woods.
Shit, a big chunk of the residents over here were teenaged mommas, living off welfare, low income, and section eight.
Lakeland was of no exception to that. She stayed in a two-bedroom apartment with Five, her momma Danielle, and her twin sisters, Cassidy and Caydence.
They were ten and kept RJ more than his damn daddy.
Five was the typical ain’t shit nigga, but he was worst because he was the broke kind.
He got the nickname Five from constantly asking muthafuckas for five dollars to get in on dice games he rarely ever won.
“The fuck is around the corner? I need you to wash my fit for tonight,” Five said, before pulling from his cigarette that was damn near down to its filter. He gave fiend, very fucking bad. What the hell was my cousin doing with him?
Lake rolled her eyes. “I did wash them, nigga. I ain’t yo damn maid neither. The fuck?”
She said she wasn’t his maid but that’s exactly what it gave.
I hated that Lakeland got involved with him so young.
He didn’t deserve her. My cousin was beautiful with a bright ass spirit, and a big heart.
She deserved beautiful, healthy love that poured into her.
Meanwhile, she was constantly being mistreated by a bum ass nigga who barely had two nickels to rub together.
If it weren’t for my auntie and Lake, he would be homeless.
Yep. Cuz paid the majority of the bills with the money she made as a cashier at Food Value grocery store, up the street.
“Yeah, okay! I said what the fuck is around the corner, Lake?” He asked, averting his eyes between me and Lakeland.
I sighed, rolled my eyes and zoned out, ignoring them as they started to argue. While they were going at it, Hood, this cool ass nigga that stayed a couple of doors down from me, chucked his chin at me, speaking.
“What up doe, Rei-Rei? How you holdin’ up?” He asked.
My chest tightened and I stuffed my hands into the back pockets of my light rinsed skinny jeans.
I hated that question. Mainly because hearing it always made me think about reality, and losing Meech.
On the other end, I hated it because I didn’t know how I was holding up.
I was just existing. On auto pilot, cruising through this fucked up life.
“I been straight,” I lied.
He twisted his lips up as to say, ‘yeah right’.
“You ever need to kick it, you know where to find me, sis,” he offered up, gripping the wheels of his wheelchair to roll closer to the dice game.
With his blunt pinched between his lips, he reached down, grabbed the dice and tossed them on top of the pile of money sitting by his wheels.
Hood was cool. Like me, he’d been in The Woods since pampers.
Before he was shot and put in that wheelchair, he used to run around The Woods terrorizing shit like most of the niggas over here.
The wheels didn’t do anything but slow him down a little.
He was in a gang, and got active like the rest of them, still.
“You ready?” Lakeland asked with a frown, her right brow cocked.
“Me? Bitch is you?” I asked, with raised brows of my own.
Five was steady talking shit, but Lakeland paid him dust as we walked away, heading for the crowded stairwell.
After stepping over trash and what felt like twenty kids, we were finally on our way to the other side of the community where Zariah lived in building twelve.
Lakeland talked shit about Five the whole way there. I said nothing. Not because I didn’t have anything to add but because adding my two cents would be pointless. I wasn’t in the business of telling people what they should and shouldn’t do so I just kept my mouth shut.
Hours later, we were at this girl named Mookie’s spot for her brother, Junior’s welcome home party.
He was just released from prison two days ago and damn near the whole hood was at her shit.
The apartments at The Woods were small as hell but that didn’t stop people from packing it like a sardine can.
People stood outside of the apartment too, blocking the hallway and the stairwell.
I didn’t fuck with half of the people here, but I knew them.
They knew me too. As Meech’s put up little sister.
I wasn’t Meech’s put up little sister tonight though.
I was outside. After Zariah fixed my lace, I got dressed in a pair of baggy jeans, a black tank, and a pair of black thong sandals.
It was simple, but accessorizing with gold jewelry and a black crossbody bag with gold hardware made it look like I put more effort into my look than I actually did.
“You feelin that shit now ain’t you, cuz?” Asked my cousin Alani, nudging me.
Lazily, I blinked and licked my dry lips in what felt like slow motion.
Everything moved at a slow pace. Well… not everything.
Just me. The music blasting from the speaker sitting on the floor next to me played at its usual pace.
As King Von rapped about a stripper bitch, the niggas in the middle of the small room threw their hands up, rapping along with him, spilling liquor onto the stained carpeted floor at a normal pace too.
It was just me moving in slow motion and my God it felt amazing.
“Rei Rei,” Alani called out, nudging me again.
“Please don’t tell me you gave her the whole thing, bitch,” My other cousin, Dom, fussed.
Alani sucked her teeth. “You think I’m dumb? I gave her ass half.”
“You shouldn’t have given her shit. She already hit Hood’s blunt,” Lakeland said, kneeling in front of me, offering me a sip of her water.
Because my mouth was dry, I took the bottle from her, twisted the cap off, and chugged it.
“Rei—”
“What?” I finally answered. “I’m good.”
“Ho, you ain’t good. You been sitting here stuck for a minute now,” Lake said. “We about to go. You doin’ too fuckin’ much.”
She was right. I was doing too much. When Hood passed me his blunt, I should have declined like I did every time a blunt was passed my way. I took it though. Pulled from it four times like I knew what I was doing. I hadn’t hit a blunt since Meech forced me to last year on my twenty-first birthday.
I was really tripping when I asked Alani for half of her Perc.
I was doing anything. Felt like I needed to.
The only reason I came to Junior’s welcome home party was because I needed something to do to keep my mind from staying on Meech.
But the minute I walked in, I thought about him and how he would’ve gotten on my ass for even thinking about showing up to some shit like this.
To add insult to injury, damn near everybody I crossed paths with offered condolences.
Everybody knew Meech and to know him was to love him.
My brother was a real ass nigga who showed love to everybody that showed love to him.
While the condolences were nice, I hated them.
My chest tightened every time I heard ‘sorry for your loss, my baby’.
So no, when Hood passed me the blunt, I didn’t decline. And yes, when Alani pulled her cute ass pill case out, I asked for one. I didn’t want to feel shit. And I didn’t. Not even my face.
“She ain’t doing too much. We got her,” Alani said, plopping down on the couch, beside me. She smoothed my hair over. “She needed that shit.”