bigger,” Shana says. She focuses on me again. “We need that video to get in the news.”
She means Malik’s video of Long and Tate throwing me like a trash bag. I shake my head. “Nah, not happening.”
“Bri, c’mon,” Deon from the bus says. One or two people echo him.
“It’s the only way things will change,” Shana says. “We have to show people why everyone was upset today, Bri.”
“I already told y’all, I’m not gonna be the poster child for this.”
Shana folds her arms. “Why not?”
“Because she said so,” Curtis says. “Goddamn, get off her back.”
“I’m just saying, if it was me, and I knew it would change things at our school, I would release the video in a heartbeat.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Clearly, I’m not you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I’m starting to think that this isn’t just about the school incident. “It means what I said. I’m not you.”
“Yeah, because if you were me, you’d prefer that that video was released instead of videos of you acting ratchet at the Ring,” Shana says. “But those videos are okay, right?”
She didn’t. Please tell me she didn’t.
She did though, because several mouths around the room have suddenly dropped. I’m well aware that Malik is silent during all of this.
I sit up. “First of all,” I say with a clap.
“Aww, shit,” Sonny mutters. He knows what that clap means. “Calm down, Bri.”
“Nah, let me answer this. First of all, I had no control over those videos from the Ring being released, sweetie.”
I am totally my mom’s child, because when she says “sweetie,” she means the exact opposite. She does the clap thing, too. I don’t know when I became her.
“Second,” I say with another clap, “how is speaking up for myself being ratchet? If you saw those videos, you’d know that’s all I did.”
“I’m only saying what people are already saying about—”
“Third!” I clap over her. I’m gon’ finish, dammit. “If I don’t want the video released, I don’t want the video released. I frankly don’t owe you or anybody else an explanation.”
“Yes, you do, because this affects us too!” she says.
“Oh. My. God!” I clap with each word. That’s the only thing keeping me in my seat. “Bruh, for real. For real!”
Translation: Somebody get this girl.
Sonny immediately understands. “Bri, chill, okay? Look, maybe she has a point though. If the video was released—”
Him too? I push up from the couch. “You know what? Y’all can continue your li’l meeting without me. I’m gone.”
Sonny tries to grab my hand, but I move it away. “Bri, c’mon. Don’t be like that.”
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and step over people sitting on the floor. “I’m good. I’d rather not stay around for the ‘jump down Bri’s throat’ part of the meeting.”
“Nobody’s jumping down your throat,” Malik says.
Oh, now he speaks. He couldn’t say shit when his girlfriend was going in on me.
“We just don’t get why you don’t wanna help us,” Shana says. “This is your chance to—”
“I don’t wanna be that person!” I scream so that every single one of them hears me. “They’re just gonna explain the shit away! Don’t you get that?”
“Bri—”
“Sonny, you know they will! That’s what they do. Hell, they’re already doing it with the ‘drug dealer’ rumors. This gets in the news? They’ll mention every time I’ve been sent to the office, every goddamn suspension. Hell, they’ll use those Ring videos. Anything to make it seem like what happened was okay ’cause I’m not from shit! You think I wanna deal with that?”
I fight to breathe. They don’t get it. That video can’t be released. Because all of a sudden, even more people will try to justify what happened to me, and it’ll get so loud that I may start thinking that I deserved it to begin with.
I didn’t. I know I didn’t. I wanna keep knowing that I didn’t.
The room is blurry, but I blink it into focus. “Screw y’all,” I mumble, and throw my hoodie over my head.
I leave and don’t look back.
When I get home, Jay’s lying across the living room sofa. The remote’s in her hand, and the theme music for As We Are fades off. She’s addicted to that soap opera.
“Hey, Bookie,” she says as she sits up. She stretches and yawns, revealing the big hole under the arm of her T-shirt. She says it’s too comfortable to get rid of. Plus, it’s got Dad’s first album cover on it. “How was Malik’s?”
The shortest answer is the best answer. “Fine. How was