Read Fitting In (Is Hard to Do) Semester 1 Page 21
THIS NIGHT WAS A mess. First of all, Roman comes late, makes me miss the movie, and then everyone just decides to go to the park to turn up and smoke weed. I could sneak and do this at home. On top of all that, Roman had the nerve to act as if he had an attitude when I should still have an attitude from having to watch my back.
"What's wrong with you?” I lit a Newport and blew the smoke into the air.
"What makes you think something is wrong with me?” Roman took a swig of beer. That was the strongest thing we could cop. "Stop acting like you know me."
"We been kickin' it for how long now?” I grabbed the beer from Roman's hand and gulped it.
"Man, you need to stop acting like you care!"
It took all the strength in me to not react negatively towards Roman’s attitude, obviously, something was bothering him big time. It could be the fact that he won the game knowing them weed heads will probably be up to something. I took a deep breath, held my head all the way back and gazed at the night stars.
“What’s really going on Roman? You know you can talk to me, just like I know I can come to you for anything.” I kicked off my heels and got down on my knees so I could be face to face with Roman who was sitting on a rail. I felt bad knowing all this time I was the one telling him to be his own man and not throw the game.
“Yeah, you must be serious if you’re going to kneel on this dirty, damp ground in your white jeans.” Roman and I laughed for a brief minute.
“I don’t care about no stupid clothes. All this stuff is superficial. It certainly don’t mean more to me than you.” I looked him in his eyes and smiled. “I’m sorry for going off on you earlier.”
“I know babe. It’s all good.”
Roman grabbed me by the hands to help lift me from the ground. “Thanks because although I don’t care about these jeans… that ground was killing my knees.”
“Want to take a walk around the park?”
“Sure, what about them?” We both looked back at Quincy and Amber who were sitting on the swings passing a joint back and forth.
“Looks like a match made in Heaven.”
“Yeah right! Hunter ain’t going to be having that.” I thought about her funky attitude. “Oh well, if she wanted her man she should have come.” I be dammed if I be a boyfriend babysitter.
We walked circles around the park talking and sharing our thoughts but Roman didn’t dare tell me what he was really mad about. I didn’t know what he was hiding or keeping from me.
“Since when did you drink, anyway?” I stopped and sat on a nearby bench. My feet were hurting and there was no way I was going to walk barefoot in that damp grass, not knowing what was in it.
“I just took a sip.” Roman shrugged his shoulders and sat beside me. “I was mostly just holding it until you took it from me. Why do you smoke so much?”
I was about to light another Newport until Roman said that. “I don’t smoke so much. It just helps calm my nerves I guess, gives me something to do.”
“You still having those dreams?”
“Dreams? I wish. More like nightmares.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No. Not really… not right now, anyways.” I lit the Newport.
“I feel you.”
I place my feet in Roman’s lap, and he massaged them. “What do you think is up with Hunter? Ever since she got back she been acting bugged out.”
“I don’t know. Maybe she got too much on her.”
“Like what? Babysitting her bratty brothers? We all had to do that at some point in time.” I blew smoke into the air. “I have to watch my sister sometimes but that still doesn’t hinder me and my plans.”
“True. But then again, it’s just you and your sister. She has to play mama to… what… three? Four brothers?”
“I know. But it wasn’t always like that. It’s like she changed after she went to stay with her grandmother and being home-schooled there.” I took a few more puffs and flicked my cigarette butt onto the sidewalk.
“Who knows? Maybe she still dealing with the loss of her grandmother.” Roman stopped rubbing my feet and cracked his knuckles. “You never really know how or how long people mourn. Ya know?”
“True. Sometimes I just wish I had my girl back.” I grabbed my cell phone to check the time. “Dang! It’s after midnight.”
“Man, I guess I better get my grandmother’s car back before she starts trippin’.”
Roman and I were cleaning out the car trying to spray away and signs of wrongdoing. “Y’all better come on because I will leave y’all right here!” Roman yells to Amber and Quincy.
“We coming!” Quincy empties the rest of the beer into his mouth, crushes the can, and misses the trash can by two inches.
“Dude! You serious? Pick it up.” Quincy waves Roman off with his hands and continues to kiss on Amber.
“Who is you? The park ranger?” I could tell that Roman was annoyed. He picks the can up and throws it in the trash himself. “That’s what I thought, nigga.”
I snatch Amber away from Quincy to talk with her in private. “You do know that you all up on Hunter’s man, right?”
Amber’s eyes were squinted like it took all the energy she had to keep them open. “That ain’t what he told me.”
“I don’t give a damn what he told you! A nigga will lie about anything to get into your drawers.”
“Whateva! He cool peoples.” Amber reaches into her pockets and pulls out a half smoked joint. “You want to hit this?”
I smack her hand away. “No! And you shouldn’t either!”
Amber looks at me as if I was trying to play a goody-2-shoes role. “You be sleepin’ with niggas, smokin’ cigarettes, and drinkin’ and you trying to tell me you don’t smoke weed?”
“First of all, little girl! You don’t know me to say I sleep with niggas! You don’t know shit about me or what I do! Now, I know you high and all right now, so I’ma let that go! Get in the car!”
Roman already had the car running and sitting in the car ready to go. Before the rest of us could get in, we saw flashing red lights and heard a WHOOP! WHOOP!
22 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AMBER STYLES
Sometime I feel like an empty bottle with a hole on the bottom. No matter how many times I try to fill it, it just becomes empty again.