Untitled Chapter
After Keith’s and my talk, I let him go back inside his dorm as I stood outside in the hall. I watched as some of the students walked out of their rooms with bags and luggage to leave for the holidays. To know they were going back to homes where they were accepted made me feel some kind of way.
I thought about what things would be like if Keith had something like that to go back to, but my brother was corrupted.
He had fallen into the hands of someone else, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to pull him away from it.
My mind shifted, and Morgan popped into my head.
I needed to try to get ahold of her because I had no idea if she was ok after what she saw.
Shit, she had seemed like the only other person besides Beans that cared about a nigga.
Here I was stuck on a college campus where I didn’t belong with my brother, who gave two fucks about what I was feeling, while I had been moving the way I had for him.
I was heading back inside when I saw Beans hit the corner.
When he saw me, he gave me a slight head nod as he got closer. “You talk to your brother?”
“Something like that,” I told him.
He glanced behind me at the door, “Look, I’m nobody’s judge. To me, family always does you dirty. You ready to ride out or what?”
I honestly didn’t want to leave Keith, but the nigga didn’t care, and I knew it. I stepped away from the door before looking back one last time. “Yeah, let’s dip.”
Beans and I headed out of the building toward his car. “I’m going to take you to my crib to get cleaned up, then we’re going to link up with Dio.”
I waved him off, “Why you want a nigga to be his friend so bad?”
Beans stopped walking and turned to me. “I’m not asking either one of you to be friends.
What I’m asking for is for you two to be cordial.
Just as much as you’re trying to figure your shit out, so am I.
The Zoo has its ways, but I know that no matter how fucked up I am, or life is, those niggas are going to have my back.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but everyone wants a family, even the ones people think don’t need one. ”
We hopped in the car, and he took off. I couldn’t stop thinking about the pictures on the walls at his parents’ home, and I had to know. “So, what, you some sort of tech nigga?” I blurted out.
“Nah, I’m just a smart nigga,” he said dryly.
I ran my hand down my face, “I don’t get you. I saw the awards and shit on the wall, I see the car you drive, the studio, and your parents’ home. Why are you so angry? If I had half the shit you had, I wouldn’t be that way. Shit, I’d probably be chilling, smiling from ear to ear.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, well, you ain’t me. All you see is material shit.
The one thing you fail to realize is that just because shit looks good on the outside doesn’t mean it’s good on the inside.
Wealth doesn’t equate to happiness, because most of the time, the wealthiest people are the unhappiest. Now, get out. ”
When I glanced up, we were at a regular ass family home. I got out of the car and followed behind him. When we stepped inside, I turned to him as my lip curled up in a nigga please face. The inside of his crib was dope as fuck. It screamed I had to be the first nigga in line for all the new shit.
He pointed to a bag of clothes on his black leather couch. “Clothes for you, bathroom down the hall.”
I looked in the bag and turned to thank him, and the nigga had disappeared.
I picked up the bag and headed down the dark hall.
Before I could go into the bathroom, a crack in the door with an orange light caught my attention.
I knew my ass should have gone to get dressed, but I was curious.
I headed down the hall and peeked into the room.
My eyes widened at what I saw. This nigga Beans was different, and right then, I knew he held a lot of power that nobody knew about.