before I can fight to get my little brother back again.
Even though we have different fathers, Ryder has always felt like more than just my half-brother. He feels like the other half of me, the better half. The one I want to give a better life to.
We grew up in Oakland, where my mother was more interested in drugs than keeping us alive. Before my brother came along, I spent most of my youth taking beatings from her or any of the men she would bring home for the night.
“What you looking at, boy?” the strange man barks. He’s splayed out on the couch, lying down on it like it’s his.
It’s not.
He’s the second man who’s been here this week. As evidenced by the black eye I’m sporting. I don’t know where my mother finds these men, but the minute they step over the threshold, their gaze zones in on me, and their jaw clenches. Sometimes, I feel like these strangers hate me more than my mother does.
I curl my hand into a fist, not looking away from the disgusting man. I won’t let him know he scares me. Not like I have with the others. That was the problem; these men knew they could come in here and treat me like crap, because my momma didn’t care. She’d sit on the couch and laugh. She thought it was funny, watching a grown-ass man hit a child. She said I needed the discipline.
He lets out a frustrated growl, shooting up from his position on the couch, and stalks toward me. “I asked you a question, you little shit!” His spittle lands on my face, but I remain stoic, trying not to show how frightened I really am. My heart is banging in my chest. I don’t want to feel the pain of his fist, but maybe if I stand up for myself, maybe if I—
“Think you’re funny?” he grits, shoving me in my shoulder. Pain rips through the tender flesh, and I go sailing back into the couch. When I see his fist sailing toward my face, I realize I was wrong.
Standing up for myself doesn’t help.
I brush the memory away, gritting my teeth against the phantom pain reverberating from those hits. It was challenging, growing up the way we did. I tried to shield Ryder from a lot of it, but when you grow up having nothing, and your sole responsibility is to keep everyone alive, it’s hard to show someone what the right thing is. It was tough for me, just a twelve-year-old kid, to make money and take care of my baby brother and me, all while trying to keep a roof over our heads. With the twelve-year age gap between us, I felt like I was his sole parent most of the time.
I tried to take care of him, as long as I could, but I failed at that, too, just like everything else in my life. In order to make money just to keep us afloat, I had to do things, things no kid my age should ever be forced to do—like stealing. Whether that was from stores, homes, or anywhere I could slip in and out without being seen, I did it. Something a child should never have to deal with is trying to figure out how to ration and make food last to keep two mouths fed. I had to learn where to hide what little money I’d make or cash I’d stolen. Because the second my mother ever found anything of monetary value, she used it for drugs, and I knew we’d be left with nothing.
When I was fourteen, I finally got caught stealing. It was an everyday thing, so I’m not really surprised it happened. Hell, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, seeing as the people I stole from weren’t dumb. They had to have caught on at some point. I think they knew our circumstances, and for the most part, they tried to help, but they couldn’t do it forever. I wasn’t their responsibility, and that was just a sad fact. I was the responsibility of a woman who didn’t give a shit about me—about anything really.
I would carry Ryder to Rosie’s house, a Latin woman who lived on the same shitty apartment floor as us. She’d watch my little brother for me every day, then from there, I’d walk to school. I ended up getting caught on charges of stealing, and to make matters worse, I was caught with