Mommy hands us our backpacks. “Be good, okay?” she says. “Do what your grandparents tell you to do.”
“When are you coming back?” I ask.
She kneels in front of me. Her shaky fingers brush through my hair, then cup my cheek. “I’ll be back later. I promise.”
“Later when?”
“Later. I love you, okay?”
She presses her lips to my forehead and keeps them there for the longest. She does the same to Trey, then straightens up.
“Mommy, when are you coming back?” I ask again.
She gets in the car without answering me and cranks it up. Tears stream down her cheeks. Even at five, I know she won’t be back for a long time.
I drop my backpack and chase the car down the driveway. “Mommy, don’t leave me!”
But she goes into the street, and I’m not supposed to go into the street.
“Mommy!” I cry. Her car goes, goes, and soon, it’s gone. “Mommy! Mom—”
“Brianna!”
I jolt awake.
Jay’s sitting on the side of my bed. “Baby, are you okay?”
I try to catch my breath as I wipe the dampness from my eyes. “Yeah.”
“Were you having a nightmare?”
A nightmare that’s a memory. Jay really did leave me and Trey at our grandparents’ house. She couldn’t take care of us and her drug habit, too. That’s when I learned that when people die, they sometimes take the living with them.
I saw her in the park a few months later, looking more like a red-eyed, scaly-skinned dragon than my mommy. I started calling her Jay after that—there was no way she was my mom anymore. It became my own habit that was hard to break. Still is.
It took three years and a rehab stint for her to come back. Even though she was clean, some judge decided that she could only have me and Trey every other weekend and on some holidays. She didn’t get us back full-time until five years ago, after she got her job and started renting this place.
Five years back with her, and yet I still dream about her leaving us. It hits me out of nowhere sometimes. But Jay can’t know I dream about it. It’ll make her feel guilty, and then I’ll feel guilty for making her feel guilty.
“It was nothing,” I tell her.
She sighs and pushes up off the bed. “Okay. Go ahead and get up. We need to have a little talk before you head to school.”
“About what?”
“How you could tell me you won in the Ring, but you couldn’t tell me your grades are dropping faster than Pooh’s sagging-ass pants.”
“Huh?”
“Huh?” she mocks, and shows me her phone. “I got an email from your poetry teacher.”
Mrs. Murray.
The conversation in ACT prep.
Aw, hell.
Honestly? I forgot. I was floating after my battle, for real. That feeling when the crowd cheered for me is probably what getting high is like, and I’m addicted.
I don’t know what to say to my mom. “I’m sorry?”
“Sorry nothing! What’s your main responsibility, Bri?”
“Education over everything,” I mumble.
“Exactly. Education over everything, including rapping. I thought I made that clear?”
“It’s not that big of a deal though, dang!”
Jay raises her eyebrows. “Girl,” she says in that slow way that sends a warning. “You better check yourself.”
“I’m just saying, some parents wouldn’t make a big deal out of this.”
“Well gosh golly darn, I’m not some parents! You can do better, you’ve done better, so do better. Only Cs I wanna see are pictures of seas, the only Ds I better see are deez grades improving. We clear?”
I swear she’s so hard on me. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. Get ready for school.”
She leaves.
“Goddamn,” I mutter under my breath. “Killing my vibe, first thing in the morning.”
“You ain’t got no vibe!” she hollers from the hall.
I can’t ever say shit in this house.
I get up, and almost immediately I wanna get back under my covers. That first feel of the chill in the air is always the hardest. Moving around helps.
The ladies of hip-hop watch from the wall beside my bed. I’ve got some of everybody, from MC Lyte to Missy Elliott to Nicki Minaj to Rapsody . . . the list goes on and on. I figure if I wanna be a queen, queens should watch over me when I sleep.
I throw my Vader hoodie back on and slip on my Not-Timbs. Nah, they’re not the real deal. The real deal costs a water bill. These cost twenty bucks at the swap meet. I try to pull them off like they are Timbs except—