His Future
Rico, age 16
Having a girlfriend felt like an out of body experience sometimes.
Wynter Snow was nothing like anything I'd ever experienced.
Most of the time, females were simple. They wanted to fuck and feed me. Sometimes, I’d break them off a couple dollars, but nothing serious. Fucking with me was always enough, or being seen around the hood at one of the many kickbacks that were always being thrown.
Off top, that wasn’t possible with Snow. I was dead serious when I said I wanted her nowhere near the Birch, so most of the time, we would be in her room. I thought that shit would get old fast, but it never did. We always found something to do, something to talk about, a song to listen to.
She challenged me in ways no one else bothered to. For so long, Fredo was our mouthpiece. It had gotten to a point that muthafuckas didn’t even bother to talk to me anymore. Any pertinent messages were passed through Fredo.
I couldn’t do that with Snow, with my girlfriend. Snow was always patient with it, but I had to speak to her. I had to open that door for her, and she barged in like the boss she was.
I found that I didn’t mind it.
I found someone other than my brother that I liked to talk to, that listened and even understood me.
It had been almost a year after the night we shot up that Treetop party when I realized I loved her.
It wasn’t no grand moment. It wasn’t even one of the few times I could take her on a date deep in West Kenton, where gang shit didn't matter. We weren’t arguing, and we weren't messing around.
She was outlining her fucking World History essay on Mansa Musa.
Drake was singing to us, low since it was well into the night on a Tuesday.
Her door was locked in case her parents came home, but by then they were knee deep in addiction; her mama copped from one of the homies closer to downtown, and her pops owed the Italians close to six figures.
Autumn stayed in her room or next door, so we were almost never disturbed.
I had her all to myself that night, but instead of doing grown shit, we were doing homework.
I had my US History textbook sprawled out in front of me, working on questions that I knew would be on the quiz the next day.
Snow was on me about skipping, telling me she wouldn't have a stupid boyfriend, so for every one day I missed, I had to go twice in a row; just enough for Nan not to be called.
After the third question, I sighed, and looked up at her, sitting crosslegged on the bed.
She had on some shirt from an obscure designer I couldn't remember, but loved since they only made baby tees, and some boy shorts.
Snow hated that she ain’t have no titties and ass, but I never gave a fuck about that.
Her best curve was her smile, anyway.
I’d just paid for her to get a fresh weave, but she threw that shit into a messy ponytail at the top of her head.
I was pissed the day before, since I seen it was a different color than her usual red, but she swore she didn't dye her hair.
She “did a rinse,” whatever the fuck that meant, but now, her hair was more bronze than copper.
It made her look different, fasho, but I loved her hair color the way it was.
That thought crossed my mind, then other shit I loved about Snow started popping up.
The way she closed her eyes when she heard a song she liked.
How she didn't make a big fuss about looking out for Autumn, giving Turk’s granddad money to make sure she stayed in dance or to get new clothes or to have a phone.
How she and Fredo had their own friendship outside of me.
Most bitches who wanted to be around me would be nice to him, but I knew it was fake.
They ain’t fuck with him foreal, especially when they realized the feeling was mutual, which led to bullshit rumors he made me, Ty-Ty, and Peanut not address.
But I should have known shit would be different with Snow since that time we met at the mall. They had their own bond that deepened while Snow was my girlfriend. They texted constantly, and rarely about me.
We were our own person with Snow. She’d never gotten it wrong when Fredo would braid his hair to trick her.
She always saw me.
But she never left my brother out, either.
“What did I tell you about staring, Richard?” she asked without looking up.
“Who dat, Snow?” I asked, my smile growing.
“My creepy boyfriend who’s going to have to repeat the eleventh grade if he doesn’t get back to his work. Unless this is all some elaborate plan to stay behind so we can graduate together, then by all means, continue staring at moi.”
I closed my book and got up from the floor to stand in front of her. I saw her smile, though she kept her head down, acting like she was really concentrating.
“How would that work if we go to different schools?”
She sighed, acting like I was bothering her, before she put her work to the side, too.
“Simple. You can’t repeat the same grade at the same school. You’d have to transfer, and you’d come to Parkside, and then I can stare at you all day while you gang bang on everyone like Turk does. Just make sure you run the plan by Fredo, so he can fail out of eleventh grade, too.”
“Textin’ ain’t enough. Sleeping over ain’t enough. You need a nigga around twenty-four seven, huh?” I asked, bringing her to her feet. My arms wound around her just as she linked her fingers at the base of my neck.
“I didn’t say all that now,” she denied, but her eyes told me something different.
Snow wasn’t hardbody per se, not like I was used to anyway. She didn’t cuss or roll her neck or get mad and wanna fight and fuck it out.
But her heart was damn near locked up in solitary upstate. She held back more than me, and I almost didn’t catch it, because she was so much more open than me, and with me.
Snow didn’t talk about the future. She would speak about her parents and sister, but she never said how she felt about it.
And besides the random times I lived for, when she would kiss me instead of me kissing her, or that time after the party, she never talked about how she felt about anything but music.
Music was the only way I could tell she had real feelings. She constantly changed the song on her MyRoom, and sent me videos all day to show her mood. At first, I thought we were trading our favorite songs. It took me a couple months to realize her choices were strategic.
Older, slower R&B songs when she was feeling upset. Newer rap songs when she was feeling inspired. Begging music from the nineties when I needed to tighten up. Con Funk Shun’s “All Up To You” when she was on my nerves.
I never thought I needed to hear her say she loved me out loud. Not until I saw it in her eyes.
Distantly in my mind, I recognized that Pooh would be ready to snatch his name back if he knew how hard I was simping. But that shit made me even more ready to go all in with Snow. The biggest fuck you to that nigga would be to turn my back on all the game he tried to lace me with.
It’s only a bonus that I actually fucked with Snow heavily.
“Be honest, Snow. You love a nigga, huh?”
She stiffened in my arms, which only made me even more eager to hear her say it.
There’d be no going back. It wasn’t anyway, but still.
Just as she opened her mouth, my other phone began to ring. I fished it out of my pocket, smirking at her as she plopped down on her bed.
“You ain’t off the hook, Snow,” I murmured as I answered, knowing it was business.
“I’m outside, nigga. Come on,” Fredo gritted in my ear before hanging up.
“Uh oh. I know that face.”
I pocketed my phone and bent over to kiss my girl bye. She never asked any questions, no matter how much she wanted to. More than knowing how I felt, I knew she genuinely wanted no parts of this life.
But the downside to that is seeing the walls come back down. I practically heard them in my ears, slamming and locking into place.
“I’ma call you when I get in the house,” I said, watching her get back to outlining her paper.
“Take the window,” she replied, a half-smile gracing her face.
I knew that was in case Turkey was coming with me, too.
I climbed through her window and walked around her house to my whip. Fredo had dropped me off earlier, and was going to get me the next morning, so him being there early, plus his tone, let me know some shit popped off.
How I balanced the Babies, Snow, and school was mind boggling, but I tried not to focus on the how. I never sat down too long, but it helped me get over seeing all the blood leaking from Ma when she finally did what she’d been threatening to do.
We were able to move to the unit next door, but sometimes, I stared at the wall that we shared with her old room, trying to see if any of her blood leaked through.
No sooner than I got in the passenger, Fredo peeled off toward the Birch.
“Lem’s dead. Niggas caught him lacking at holding.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, damn. ‘Cause you already know who on the phone with the OGs as we fuckin’ speak.”
Fredo was different after Ma passed. He was closer to her, and I suspected he felt a way that he wasn’t home when it happened. He always thought he could save her, that if he showed her how much he needed her, she’d live for us.
That nigga was always idealistic like that, especially when it came to women.
He was a master at hiding, much like Snow. Pooh couldn’t see it, that his isms went right over his second son’s head.
Fredo would go to hell and back for a muthafucka he deemed worthy. His only saving grace was that he felt that hardly anyone was deemed worthy enough for it.
Or so I thought. We already had begun to move differently, with him running with Set and Turk, and me with Ty and Peanut. But after our fight, even after we both swore to never let shit get that bad between us, he began to move sneaky.
Even the night Ma passed, he didn’t come home, and wouldn’t tell Nan where he was.
So many times, I wanted to ask Snow if she knew anything. But I didn’t want her to feel like she had to choose, and I didn’t know how I would react if she did, and didn’t choose me over his confidence.