Diamonds Are A Thug’s Best Friend

Chapter 1

“Diamond, give me those few dollars your daddy gave you. I’ll give it back.”

Sherry, her mother, stood in the doorway looking like skin and bones. She used to be the most beautiful woman in the world until she was introduced to the glass dick. Crack had been her choice of drug for the last few years and the last few years had been hell.

They lived in a house that looked like it should’ve been torn down years ago.

Cracked walls, floors that creaked even when you stood still, and not to mention the rodents and roaches that they adopted.

The house was passed down to her mother from her late grandmother and it was the only thing her mother hadn’t sold.

“I spent it,” she lied. She was saving those dollars to get her sisters some chips and juice from the store.

Though their father was present and clean, he worked like a dog to keep the bills paid.

Love was something he never lost for their mother, no matter what she did, he stayed with her and tried his best to help her get clean.

She would do so well for a week or so and then the rock called her name, and she answered.

Unlike most kids whose parent was an addict, the Hayes girls loved and respected their mother.

The problem was the people in the neighborhood didn’t, they saw a crackhead and that was an issue, especially if Diamond was around.

Her father built his girls to be Ford tough, they were taught his boxing skills thoroughly. With Diamond being sixteen and the oldest of the three, her lessons and punches were harder. Kayla and Mia were dogs with their hands, too, and most found out when it was too late.

“Please, baby.”

She hated to hear her mother beg and the last thing she wanted was for her to be outside begging anyone for anything.

Diamond had more than three dollars, she had saved up thirty.

She went in her small bra and pulled a ten dollar bill out, and Sherry’s eyes lit up as she grabbed the money and took off out the door.

Diamond learned early how to survive. She wasn’t the type to cry, she was the type go get it, whatever “it” was.

Her father tried his best to keep them happy, but she knew the bills were draining him dry, so she tried not to bother him.

She had a hustler spirit, but she hadn’t found her niche yet, so she settled for begging at the gas stations outside the neighborhood.

But she was still sixteen. A girl trying to grow in a place that tried to break her before she had a chance to do anything else.

The west side of Chicago was no walk in the park, but it was home, where she was born and raised.

She was far from the “good girl” type, she skipped class sometimes, she stole when she had to and has a reputation for fighting when someone plays with her family.

“Diamond, can you put my hair in a ponytail right quick?” her youngest sister, Mia, asked, she was in the eighth grade while Kayla was a freshman at North Lawndale College Prep with her.

“I got you, and make sure you iron your uniform shirt. Just because we’re…”

“Poor, we don’t have to look it,” Mia giggled and finished Diamond’s sentence.

Appearance and hygiene were something Diamond never played about and neither did her mother, even in addiction. They kept a pretty clean house; it was just raggedy as hell.

“That’s right. Where’s Kayla?”

“She left already with her friends.”

Kayla was the wildcard, the rebel, the loud sister, while Mia was shy, and Diamond was a reserved crash out. At thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen, they were thick as thieves, truly best friends.

“Them girls don’t even like her for real.”

“I said the same thing! Especially Jatara!”

“Girlllll, I can’t stand her, but Kayla loves her.”

Diamond was very protective of her sisters, and she saw right through Jatara. It wasn’t her call to make, but she was watching when Kayla wasn’t.

In less than thirty minutes, her and Mia were stepping out into the scorching June weather.

It was almost summer break, and she couldn’t wait, she was old enough to get a summer job somewhere and that was all she wanted.

She didn’t give a fuck about being outside, that was Kayla’s thing, Diamond wanted the money.

“See you after school, have a good day,” she walked Mia to Kipp Elementary before heading down the street to her school.

By the time she made it to school, Diamond felt like she was going to fall out from heat exhaustion. She couldn’t wait to get under the air, she made it through her first three periods with ease, but she was ready for lunch. It was pizza and burgers, and she planned on taking food home for dinner.

She made her way through the passing crowd; the halls were always packed even when class was in session. Diamond stood in line, her stomach was in her back, she couldn’t wait to eat, but when she heard Kayla’s name echo through the hall and noticed a crowd moving toward the doors, she looked back.

“Bitch, you been wearing those same old ass Mike’s since the first day of school. You dirty as hell, Kayla, and got the nerve be smiling in my nigga’s face.”

“Man, Tiana, gon’ head on about your business,” Kayla tried to avoid the smoke.

Diamond got out of line and headed in their direction, she wasn’t going to jump, but she wanted Kayla to know she was right there.

“Oh shitttt, here come Diamond,” she heard one of the guys in the crowd warned.

She walked up and stood front and center as the two girls who were with Tiana thought twice about their participation.

“I’m gon’ see you,” Tiana warned, picking her bookbag up to leave as Diamond tilted her head and looked at Kayla then back at the girl.

“Fuck you mean, you gon’ see her? Man, Kayla, clean this bitch up,” Diamond demanded as Kayla dropped her bag to the floor.

Tiana had no choice but to fight because Kayla threw the first punch and connected to her jaw. Tiana swung wildly while Kayla stood in one spot with her feet planted and her fist putting in work. By the time security came, Tiana was bleeding from the nose and mouth.

Diamond knew Kayla was about to be suspended, but she would be there to vouch for her when their parents found out.

By the time they walked outside, Mia was at their school, and it was usually the other way around.

“What the hell took y’all so long?” she asked as if she was their older sister.

“Kayla got suspended and I got a detention for instigating.”

“You was fighting, Kayla? Did you win?”

Both of her sisters paused and gave her a stale face because Mia knew better.

“Helllll yeah, I won! I rather tell Daddy I got suspended a million times before telling him I lost a fight,” the three of them laughed and made their way up 16th Street toward their house.

The sun was still shining bright, and kids still covered the streets. Their gym shoes kicked up dust as they walked and laughed together.

“Kayla, what’s up? You coming out tonight?” Jatara appeared with her little crew.

“Nah, she got school in the morning, catch her on the weekend,” Diamond answered before Kayla could.

“Who is that walking up in a crowd?” one of the other girls asked as everyone else followed her eyes.

Diamond saw Tiana walking front and center with her sisters that went to Collins High School. Those bitches came all the way across the park and to the hood to get beat. Diamond didn’t have a nervous bone in her body.

“Oh shit, that’s Tiana and her people. This about to be good!” Jatara boasted as Diamond made a mental note to tell Kayla she couldn’t hang with that bitch anymore. That right there let Diamond know that her sister wasn’t safe around her, she didn’t trust Jatara.

Diamond turned around and dropped her bag in the process as her sisters followed suit. She could hear laughter and whispers as the girls moved closer to them. Tiana stopped first, her lips bruised and swollen from the beating she took earlier that day.

“So y’all thought y’all was gon’ put y’all hands on our sister and walk home in peace?” Tiana’s sister asked.

“Ain’t no y’all, I beat her ass by myself, and I’ll do it again. I supposed to be scared because she brought y’all?”

“Too much talking, Kayla,” Diamond told her.

Diamond didn’t like all of the catty shit, they walked up so apparently, they wanted to fight.

“Yeah, too much talking, Kayla, run my sister her fade. One on one,” her oldest sister said, opening the crowd.

“And you better beat her,” Diamond told Kayla as she got in the circle.

The crowd started to go wild, the hood loved a good fight. Diamond watched every single person out there because one false move, she was going to lose it.

“Man, y’all can take that shit back across the park,” a voice came from the crowd, a voice that held power because the crowd parted and let him through.

Diamond saw that it was Cameron Stone, but everyone called him Cam for short, a senior at her school and by far one of the most handsome guys in the hood.

His father ran the streets of Chicago, and he was the heir to the biggest drug business, or so she had heard.

All she knew was that every girl wanted Cam, well almost every girl because she wasn’t studding him, but he was eye candy.

His smooth skin, gold chain, and fly clothes always stood out.

Everyone looked at him, Cam stepped forward, he wasn’t hiding. He stopped between Kayla and Tiana, “Ain’t gon’ be no fight, y’all can move around.”

“Mannnn, they jumped my sister.”

“They didn’t jump her, I was there. Tiana started that shit and got her ass beat, by one person. Take her home and teach her how to fight.”

Tiana’s sisters looked like they wanted to say more, but everyone knew Cam’s family wasn’t the kind you wanted problems with.

His reputation carried weight, quiet, but heavy as a two ton brick.

On top of that, everyone knew he belonged to the flyest girl in the hood, Farrah.

She was the female version of him, her father, too, was in the game and best friends with Cam’s dad.

Her and Cam were the only two teenagers in the hood driving new cars.

She didn’t play about Cam and wasn’t scared to let anyone know.

Diamond and her sisters turned to leave, but Cam’s voice made Diamond turn around; he had never said a word to her before, yet there he was giving her a nickname.

“Aye, Dime…You can’t whoop the world,” he shot with a smile that made her look back at him.

“What Lil Wayne say? Show me my opponent,” she replied with a smile before turning the corner.

Dime…I like that…