your house, steal one of your kids, and blame you for it because your family was dysfunctional, while the whole world judges you for being upset.
Zane, a senior with a nose ring, gets on the bus. He’s stuck-up as hell. Sonny says Zane thinks he’s fine, but Sonny and I also agree that he is fine. It’s an internal struggle, being annoyed by his ass and being mesmerized by his face.
And if I’m real, being mesmerized by his ass. Boy’s got a donk.
He never speaks to me, but today he goes, “Your battle was fire, ma!”
Well, goddamn. “Thanks.”
How many people have seen it?
Aja the freshman saw it. She gives me props soon as she gets on. So do Keyona, Nevaeh, and Jabari, the sophomores. Before I know it, I’m the talk of the short bus.
“You got skills, Bri!”
“I was geeking the whole time!”
“Bet she couldn’t beat me in a battle. On God, bruh.”
That little dig is from Curtis Brinkley, this short, wavy-haired, brown-skinned boy who puts a lot of lies on God, bruh. In fifth grade, he claimed that Rihanna was his cousin and that his mom was on the road with her, working as her hairstylist. In sixth grade, he said his mom was on tour with Beyoncé as her hairstylist. Really, his mom was in prison. She still is.
Mr. Watson pulls up at Sonny’s and Malik’s houses. They live next door to each other, but they both come out of Malik’s front door.
I take off my snapback. My edges still need help, but I laid them as best as I could earlier. I put on some lip gloss, too. It’s stupid as hell, but I’m hoping Malik notices.
I notice way too much about him. Like the way his eyes sometimes get this glint about them that makes me think he knows every secret there is about me, and he’s cool with them all. Like the fact that he’s fine, and the fact that he doesn’t realize he’s fine, which somehow makes him even finer. Like the way my heart speeds up every time he says “Breezy.” He’s the only one who calls me that, and when he says it, he stretches it slightly, in a way that nobody else can really imitate. Like he wants the name to only belong to him.
All these feelings started when we were ten. I have this real clear memory of us wrestling in Malik’s front yard. I was the Rock and he was John Cena. We were obsessed with wrestling videos on YouTube. I pinned Malik down, and while sitting on top of him in his front yard, I suddenly wanted to kiss him.
It. Freaked. Me. Out.
So I punched him and said in my best the Rock voice, “I’m laying the smackdown on your candy ass!”
Basically, I tried to ignore my sexual awakening by imitating the Rock.
I was so weirded out by the whole thing. Those feelings didn’t go away either. But I told myself over and over again that he’s Malik. Best friend extraordinaire, Luke to my Leia.
Yet here I am, using my phone to check my Pink Pursuit lip gloss (who comes up with these names?), hoping he’ll see me some kinda way, too. Pathetic.
“Why won’t you admit I whooped that ass?” Sonny asks him as they climb on board.
“Like I said, my controller was acting funny,” Malik claims. “We gotta rematch.”
“Fine. I’ll still whoop your—Briiii!”
Sonny dances down the aisle to a beat nobody hears. When he gets close, he bows like he’s worshipping me. “All hail the Ring queen.”
I laugh. “Queen I am not.”
“Well, you killed it, Yoda.” We slap palms and end with the Wakanda salute. Wakanda forever.
Malik shrugs. “I won’t say I told you so. But I won’t won’t say I didn’t tell you so, either.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I tell him.
Sonny sits on the seat in front of me. “Nope!”
Malik plops down beside me. “It’s a double negative.”
“Um, no, Mr. Film Major,” I say. “As a literary arts major, I can assure that’s just a mess. You basically said that you won’t say you told me so.”
His eyebrows meet and his mouth drops slightly open. Confused Malik is so damn cute. “What?”
“Exactly. Stick with filmmaking, boo.”
“Agreed,” says Sonny. “Anyway, that battle was ridiculous, Bri. Except when you just stood there that first round. I was about to pull a Mariah Carey ‘I don’t know her’ on you.”
I punch his arm. Troll.
“But seriously, you killed it,” Sonny says. “Milez, on the other hand, needs to stop rapping.”