CHAPTER 17
CLOUDS
The first boy who made me forget the block wasn’t from my block.
That’s probably why it hit the way it did.
Boys from my ‘hood carried survival heavy on them. You could see it in how they moved, shoulders tight, eyes always scanning, voices loud, like they had something to prove. They didn’t relax. They survived.
But Marcus walked around like the streets owed him a favor instead of a problem. He had this lightness to him, no armor on. Like he had space to breathe. That difference caught me off guard.
I first took note of him in third period English. Mrs. Callahan had us seated in alphabetical order, which meant I landed two rows behind him.
His skin had a rich, warm glow, framed by a fade so precise the edges looked surgical.
Marcus didn't bother with the heavy gold or the neon threads everyone else was rocking.
He kept it low-key in a gray hoodie that draped perfectly over his shoulders and a pair of white FILAs without a single scuff.
Carrying a calmness that forced the rest of the world to stop rushing.
My eyes lingered past the point of being polite. He caught me when he turned, pinning my gaze to his. Most boys would’ve folded, pretending they didn't see me. Not Marcus. He kept his eyes on mine and let a slow, honest smile spread across his face. Like he had been waiting on me to notice him.
He stepped to me right when the bell rang. Everyone else scrambled for the door, possessed by some urgent need to be elsewhere. I took my sweet time with my bag.
“Hey Summer. I’m Marcus.”
He said too confident. His voice caught me from behind. I turned, and that chill of his was even more obvious. The whole building could have been falling down around us and I wouldn’t have noticed.
“Uhh, how you know my name?”
“I mean, we been in class together for six months now,” he laughed.
I gave an awkward look. Slightly embarrassed that I didn’t know his name.
“Do you live around here?”
“Yeah,” I said, keeping my tone guarded.
“Wes’ Philly.”
He nodded.
“Same.” His answer was a curveball, I wasn't at all prepared to catch. He didn’t give West Philly vibes.
“Where?” The question jumped out of my mouth before I could catch it.
“Near 52nd.”
That made me pause. 52nd wasn’t far. Couple blocks. But it wasn’t the same either. Different corners. Different crowds. Different kind of pressure.
“Fa’ real?” I pressed him on it.
“Yup.” He stuck his hand out.
“It’s nice to officially meet you, Summer.”
“Yeah, you too… Marcus.”
He repeated my name like he was testing how it sounded.
“Summer…” He smiled again.
“That’s a dope name.”
“Thanks, I get dat a lot,” I said, trying to play cool.
That initial meeting with Marcus stuck. It carved out its own personal space in my day.
Later after school, me and Mia held down the stoop while the city played its greatest hits.
Cars drifting by with the bass rattling the windows, neighbors hollering greetings from porch to porch, and the usual drama echoing from the corner.
It was the same old Philly song, playing on a loop.
Mia’s shoulder hit mine, snapping me out of the trance.
“Yo’ you been cheesin’ all day. Wus up? Who gotchu feelin’ good?” She looked at me sideways, her eyes demanding the truth I was trying to hide.
“I ain’t even smilin.” I responded. Lying.
She turned and looked at me dead in my face.
“You definitely is cheesy as fuck right now.”
I rolled my eyes, but it didn’t land the way I wanted it to. She leaned closer, lowering her voice.
“Sooo, who is he?”
“Ain’t nobody.” Mia squinted at me, lining up her shot.
“You a terrible liar dude.”
I exhaled, giving in a little.
“Fine… his name Marcus.”
Her whole face lit up.
“See? Dat wasn’t so hard.” She was practically vibrating with the need to know more.
“He jus’ a dude I met in class today. No biggie.”
“And?”
“And nothin’.”
Mia laughed, shaking her head.
“Girl… please. Whateva.”
I looked out at the same block I seen my whole life. For once it wasn’t the only version that existed.
Marcus began walking me home after school, it became our unofficial thing. Eventually, I found myself looking for him in the crowd every time I walked out of school.
Those walks didn’t feel like the rest of my life.
It’s like I was living in two worlds at once.
One was the same old struggle, the sirens and the crumbling sidewalks.
The other was the space between me and Marcus.
In that space, the street went quiet. The block didn't stop moving, it just stopped mattering, finally giving my own thoughts the floor.
The usual nonsense, the stuff Mia and I would talk about for hours, just didn't fit.
For the first time, the block wasn't the main character in my conversation.
Music was our common ground. We went head-to-head over which artists was dropping truth and which was just chasing a beat.
We laughed about the teachers who looked entirely finished with the day before the first bell even rang.
We bounced from basketball to movies, dwelling on the small, trivial things that finally felt significant.
It was a relief to talk without the world pressing in on us.
“Where do you see yourself in ten years?” he asked one afternoon.
That question put me on edge. It felt like he was checking my temperature. Trying to see if I was already planning a way out. I shrugged and kept my focus on the cracks in the pavement.
“Still tryna’ survive prolly.”
I laughed it off.
He didn’t laugh though. No ‘I feel you.’ No ‘that makes sense.’ Only a hard look that told me he wasn't checking for my excuses.
“Do you ever think about going to college?”
College? The word lingered between us. Out of place. It didn’t belong in the same sentence as my life. College was something that happened to other people. People with happy homes. People whose parents didn’t fall asleep at kitchen table with empty bottles nearby.
“Maybe,” I said, the word was thin.
Marcus gave a slow, heavy nod, his expression completely unreadable as he weighed my words.
“My brother goes to Temple,” he announced.
“He says Philly looks different from campus.”
I glanced at him.
“Whatchu mean?”
He raised his shoulders.
“Like… cleaner. Nicer. Like you can actually see who you want to be.”
“I guess I neva really thought ‘bout it.” I admitted.
“I haven’t decided where yet, but I want to go to school for engineering.”
That conversation stayed with me long after it ended. Philly looking different. Like the city I grew up with, wasn’t the whole city. Like there was another version of it sitting right outside of my reach.
One afternoon we chilled at the courts near 49th.
It was packed. Nothing but the sound of rubber burning on concrete and the rock slamming against the deck.
One of those days where the sweat and the heat just clung to everything.
Me and Marcus side-by-side on the bleachers, taking it all in.
The metal was radiating, intense Philly heat burning through my jeans, making it hard to sit still.
“Are you always this shy?” he asked.
“Only when I’m thinkin’.” I responded.
“Tell me what you are thinking about.”
About Shay. About Mama. About the twins. About the corner. About the way life was leaning toward something I couldn’t stop.
“Jus’ stuff.”
Marcus didn’t press. Didn’t try to dig. He just nodded, like that answer was enough.
“Cool.”
The night went on. Scoreboard was reset and the guys on the court traded places. New faces. New teams. Same sport. Marcus bumped his shoulder into mine, light and playful.
“You know you don’t have to carry it all by yourself, right? I’m a great listener.”
That sank in deep. Nobody had ever said that to me before. Not in a way that felt real. I let it sit for a second, holding onto it. And my chest eased up a little. I suddenly felt light. Like Marcus had taken the weight off my shoulders for a while and let me stand up straight.
When he walked me home that day, I didn’t watch the corner the way I usually did. Didn’t count who was out there. Didn’t measure how close we was to trouble. For those few blocks the world stretched wider.
The first time Marcus kissed me, it wasn’t some movie moment.
It caught me by surprise on the side of the school library between classes.
The hallway moving around us like we wasn’t even there.
Right in the middle of all that noise, it was peaceful.
He stepped closer. I could feel the exchange before I fully registered it.
He paused, giving the moment room to breathe.
I think he was waiting to see if I would step back.
I didn’t. His eyes searched mine, and our lips touched.
Soft. Careful. My heart slammed against my chest so hard I had to grab the locker beside me to balance myself. He pulled back, studying my face.
“Are you good?”
I let out a small laugh that didn’t sound like me.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
But I wasn’t. Not really.
Marcus kept his unspoken promise and walked me home after school that day. Instead of heading straight down my block, he slowed up at the corner and motioned the other way.
“Come on,” he commanded.
We took a detour. Crossed past streets I didn’t usually walk, past blocks that was close but far at the same time.
His neighborhood sat on the opposite side of mine, it moved with its own rhythm.
The houses was more kept. Steps swept clean.
Bikes chained up neat against railings instead of tossed in front yards.
A neighbor had wind chimes hanging on a porch that caught the breeze and rang soft over the street noise.
Kids still played outside, but not as wild.
They did more watching than running. Ol’ heads sat out front with radios low instead of blasting.
Waving as we passed, they knew exactly whose child belonged where.
Marcus walked easy through it all. He fit. As we moved, he pointed things out without making it a big deal.
“That store right there… they be overcharging, don’t go in there.”
“That court down there… we used to run games every summer.” He tapped the fence as we passed it, like it held a memory.
“I broke my wrist right there trying to dunk,” he said, half laughing.
Not showing off, he was letting me see. Little pieces of his world handed over one at a time.
We ended up outside the library a few blocks down.
The building was invisible compared to the buildings around it.
The brick front worn over the years but still standing solid.
Marcus pulled the door open and held it for me.
“I need to check for this book,” he said.
“Mr. Thomas got me doing a book report.”
Inside, the air hit cooler. The noise from outside stopped at the door unable to follow us in. Marcus maneuvered through the aisles, like he been there a hundred times. Running his fingers along the spines, scanning titles without rushing. This is probably where he came to think.
I examined him for a second. Out here, on his side of things, he looked more relaxed. He wasn’t simply walking me home. He was letting me step into his world for a minute. I felt special that he trusted me to see it.
On the route to my block, we stopped at the Chinese spot on the corner. I figured he was grabbing food for us. Quick in, quick out. When the order came, he handed me two bags.
“This is for you to take home, help moms out so she doesn’t have to cook tonight.”
He said it with a shrug in his voice, dismissing the entire gesture as nothing.
“There’s enough for your brothers too. You said they were twins. Right?”
He didn't dig into my home life or make a scene.
Just gave me my space. He had that look though.
My intuition told me he sensed the gravity of my situation without me ever opening my mouth.
Doesn’t matter if all he could offer was warm food, that was still huge.
It was real. I didn’t know how to say thank you in a way that matched what I felt.
But I held onto that moment. Marcus was doing the one thing I hadn’t realized mattered yet. He was showing up.
The door barely had time to close behind me before the twins came flying up to me.
“Yo, whatchu got?!” Saiyd’s bigmouth.
The bag crinkled in my hand as they crashed into me, reaching, trying to peek inside before I could set it down.
“Hol’ up dang.”
I laughed, catching myself before they knocked me clean off balance.
Takeout didn’t come through our house too often.
When it did, it was special. I set the bags on the table and the smell hit the room instantly.
Grease, soy sauce, aromas sweet and fried.
Mama came out of her room, drying her hair with a towel.
She looked drained. When she saw the bags on the table, her shoulders dropped.
“You brought food?” she looked puzzled.
I confirmed without saying anything. She let out a small breath and leaned against the counter, like that alone had taken pressure off her.
“Thank you, Sum.” she commented softly.
“I don’t really got it in me to cook tonight. Mr. Gary at tha nursin’ home wore me out today.”
We spread everything out across the table. Plastic forks snapping out wrappers. Containers popping open. Steam rising up into the air. All of our worries fell to the side.
The twins argued over who got what. I passed plates around, making sure we each had food in front of us.
We carried our food into the living room.
The TV flickered, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air filled the room with laughter.
We settled in, plates in our laps, shoulders brushing.
The house was lighter. No stress. No tension.
Just us. Laughing. Eating. Existing in one small, good moment.
The world outside could wait a little longer.
After we ate, I chilled on the porch while the twins played in the street.
Saiyd arguing loud about fouls, for him it was the NBA Finals.
Sinceer correcting him, he was the referee nobody asked for.
The streetlights buzzed overhead. Cars rolled past slow.
Same sounds. Same life. Nothing had changed outside.
But my perspective had tilted. I was seeing life from a different angle now.
If I kept walking beside Marcus, what would that look like for me? If I followed that feeling far enough, could I actually leave this place behind? Or would the block reach out, grab hold of me, and pull me back… like it always does.