“Haha, Sis, wish I coulda seen you kick Price’s ass. Aw, that the shit!” Donyair bent over, laughing his dick off. That the one thing I would have done different, made sure everyone who got my back saw me beat Price. You could of stood on the moon and heard shout outs to me. Not sure what I’m a do now. Hell, I ain’t trying to think about that. Gotta think about something else.

Scratched my head. Damn, I hate my hair. Why can’t I have good hair for once? Cover it up with braids. Wish I could afford micros, really need those. Ms. Dee told me I should be proud of my own hair, that white people try to make me hate myself by hating my hair. But she old and ugly, what she know about hair? Ms. Dee never my age, and even if she was, it before hair been invented. Now, why I think that about her. She never did me wrong. She still a teacher, though, so she do me wrong someday.

“Donyair, when we get home, do something with my hair! I hate it!”

“Honey, we can’t always control our hair. You got a bad hair day. So what? You’ll live.” There he go making sense. That not what I wanted. He ought to know better.

“I’m an Aires. We supposed to be in control.”

“Nevaya, Nevaya, I can’t believe you still think that nonsense real.”

“Donyair, you don’t know, so shut the fuck up.” We always argue about astrology. Don’t know why Donyair can’t believe. He could at least pretend to believe when I’m around.

“Sweetie, make you own reality. Don’t follow some oldhead rulebook.”

Damn that Donyair. He made me stop and think for a minute. I ain’t following no rulebook. But I know astrology real, so that all there is to it. Don’t tell me something I done spent so much time on ain’t nothing but a waste. That would make me out to be some kind of damn fool, and I ain’t no fool, so that the end of it.

We stepped onto the subway back home. I never liked those dirty, falling-down Broad Street Line stops. Doors opened and shut, opened and shut, while that robot voice repeated, “Please stand clear of doors. Please stand clear of doors. Please stand clear of doors.”

I couldn’t stand it no more, so I stuck my head out the door and screamed, “Will somebody get they nasty ass off the door so this train can move??!!” A few seconds later, the doors shut, and we were on our way. We both could of died laughing.

Donyair and his ways pushed my other thoughts to the side. They still splashed around, but they didn’t take me over, at least not for awhile, not til I had to be alone again with my scream.

I don’t know why I didn’t lose myself in crack, weed, anything to make me forget what happened to me, the shit life that threw itself on me. I sure been tempted a lot, seeing some peace in folks’ high eyes, and I wished I could be like them and kick out my pain for a little while. Even if the escape all fake, it still feel good at the time. I saw that. But I also saw the whip of the crack, how it make everybody its bitch. And I ain’t nobody’s bitch.

Yeah, I know what all y’all thinking. She black, she poor, of course she on drugs, selling drugs, selling her ass for drugs. Probably got a thug boyfriend who wear a piece with ten bodies on it. Everybody know what really going on here. Well fuck all y’all and you nasty little minds. I never get near that shit. You been watching too much TV and listen’ to too much music. You better stop pulling on you dick to you fantasy of what you think I am.

Yeah, it true that I used to have a thug young bol. He been gone a year, and if I even say his name, I’m a cry. But you didn’t hear me say that, and I will hunt you down and stomp a mudhole in you ass if you ever tell a soul. I’m too strong to cry and always will be.

I didn’t care what my man did, ‘cause he loved me. I should of cared, should of told him to stop that shit, stop juggling poisonous snakes before it killed him. Oh, well. Nothing I can do about that now. He thought he all armor-plated, and I believed him. My own tall glass of chocolate milk, and another thug bullet threw that glass against the wall, broke it in a million pieces.

He made everyone think he all tough, nobody could touch him, but he was brittle inside. My glass of milk could break at a touch, but everyone so scared of him, nobody but me ever found out what he be. Big, diamond hard steel muscle, wrapped around me, opened me up, my first. Sure, other niggas touched me before, but he the first one to make my pussy holler.

First time I saw him, he all leaning on a street corner. He called out, “Hey, shorty.” Usually, fucking dickeaters who say that to me get a rock in they head, but something about the way he said it sounded almost funny, so I smiled.

I shielded my eyes from the sun so I could look him straight in the eye. “You lucky, just motherfucking lucky I’m in a good mood and don’t have to sock the shit out of you for calling me out my name like that.” And then I actually saw him. Damn. I knew right away most of the girls and some of the boys would die to get him. And I bet none of them really got him cause the way to this man’s heart was to not want it so damn much. When I first called out to him, I sounded as if I couldn’t care less if he wanted me or not, and that got his heart racing and dick so hard he almost doubled over in pain. I’m glad I didn’t know all that back then, or I would have fucked everything up, and he would of thought I was just like all the other girls.

I was real lucky none of his niggas was around, or else he would of had to call me a bitch dyke or something like that so he wouldn’t look like a pussy in front of his boys. But just the two of us, he could smile and say, “Well, what can I do to keep you in a good mood?” I ain’t stupid, not even back then. Clear as day, he used words to help him dive into my cat. But all the boys - not men, no matter how old they was - that I knew didn’t even try to show any style the way he did.

OK, I better get used to saying his name again …. Tyreek … I loved the sound of his name. It sound like a short song. We got together right away. It hurt like a fatherfucker, like my first time all over again, felt like being ripped apart, but then I loved it and had to have him all the time. Forgot about all my friends, didn’t give a shit about school. The world led to Tyreek. I knew he sold drugs. I knew he almost old, twenty-five when I was sixteen. But I didn’t want to think about none of that, didn’t want to think about what he did to hold onto his street corner. Being part of him, making him part of me, keeping my eyes open so no bitches got a piece of him, nothing but that mattered. I did for that man, and he did for me. Our shit was tight. I got a beef with anybody who say different.

And then a car screeched by and six bullets split his soul out of the box.

That night, I tried to rip my soul free with razors, but Donyair caught me, wrestled me down and sat on me. Wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t let go no matter how much I tried to throw him off. He kicked the razors away and still held me down, wrapped his arms around mine, scissored my legs together, made sure I couldn’t move. Felt like Mom holding me down before she hit me. Made me lose my mind. Mom, get the fuck off me! I had to break free, move my legs, free myself, grab those razors, but Donyair wasn’t having it.

I screamed and screamed until my muscles and voice gave out, and I collapsed with a scratchy moan into Donyair’s arms. Almost the only time I ever cried. Young and weak for a moment. Never again. At that moment, I hated him so much for getting all in my business, but by the next morning, I was so happy he did. I could see in his eyes he didn’t sleep all night. Sat down and watched me every second ‘til I didn’t want to have nothing to do with no razors. When I realized what he did for me, I looked him in the eye and smiled as much as I could before crying some more.

The words could just barely come out. “Bubby, if you ever lose your mind, I’m a do the same for you.” I hadn’t called my brother Bubby since I was a child.

“I know.”

That was just over a year ago. I ain’t touched a man since Tyreek. For three months, maybe more, every day, I wore different shirts, all with Tyreek’s name on the front. A lot of folks said I must be crazy, that I gotta forget him. Fuck them. Nobody get my heart again, nobody even get my pussy again. Anyone try, Price or anybody else, somebody getting stabbed.

I saved Tyreek’s toe tag, kept it in my left pocket. Still have it there, can feel it in my hand. Took one of his rings. I knew he wanted me to have it. Saved up, paid a jeweler to interwine his ring with one of mine, keep us close forever. Went without for awhile, but I had to do it. The rings stayed in my right pocket. Nobody’d dare try to take them. No teacher gonna tell me to take off my jacket. Fuck the school dress code. I’m a grown ass woman, and I do what I have to so I can keep things right with my dead.