SUMMER

𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎.

It was like any regular ole' day. You played outside with your friends or you went outside to make new ones cause mama didn't feel like being bothered with kids today. Or any other day.

It was a Saturday, Summer time, June 23, 2009. Everybody one the street knew each other and they knew what it was, everybody played outside. Wasn't like we had a choice either but we still made the best out of our situations. Plus if you weren't outside your were more than likely on punishment.

I didn't like punishment, so I stayed outside and out of trouble, especially with mama. She was so hard on us, you would think we wouldn't be as hard headed as we were. I wouldn't say we were terrible we just disobeyed like every other kid that was growing up.

We played outside damn near til the moon was up, but mama made us come in when the street lights came on. She did have some type of structure. Though she did drugs she was still a mother, our mother.

We were all we had, at least that is what we were told. We weren't as privileged as everybody else. We didn't have it all but we had each other. That's all that mattered. Right?

Of course. But when it came with children there came mistakes, accidents, purposely doing things out of spite. But kids are going to be kids. We were kids. Didn't have any type of harmful intentions.

But making rebellious decisions comes with consequences, and who knew those consequences would've been life changing for me. Hell for all of us for that matter.

We should've listened to mama. Sometimes I wish I could take it back, but you can't change the past no matter how much you want to. Things would've went different, things could be different, for the better or for the worse.

"Why you always gotta be so difficult!" Karma yelled.

"Spell difficult. Always using words you can't even spell." Ezekiel shook his head.

"I'm gon' tell mama you being mean to me."

"Tell mama, you the on that's gon' be yo' ass karma." I yelled.

"Zeke stop being mean to her crybaby ass, knowing all she do is cry." Kahlil, our older brother said.

"I'm not a crybaby." She huffed and we looked at her with that "you lying" look.

Because she was. Karma had to be the biggest crybaby out of all of us. She was just like our daddy, so expressive and open with their emotions. Made how they felt be known. Well the rest of us? We didn't really care about expressing how we felt.

"Where is patience? Y'all know mama is gon' trip if we don't find her baby." Zeke said in a baby voice.

"Wasn't she just over there with you?"

"No. She was with you." I frowned up my face.

"No I gave her to you because I had to pee." Karma stared at me.

"Mane yall better find her. How y'all lose a four year old?"

"You the one that's posed to be watching her!"

"No mama said she was on you today Kota." Zeke mumbled.

"Well mama needs to start watching her own damn daughter." I rolled my eyes going over to the neighborsz house asking if they had seen her.

They told me no, and I sighed. Walking down the street for what felt like hours I knocked on everybody on the street door if they had seen her. Everybody told me no.

"Kota!" She heard her yell.

"Are you her sister?" A woman asked her.

"Yes, where was she?"

"She was wandering down the street and I had been asking who she belonged to."

"Thank you, thank you so much." I thanked the woman before walking off with Patience.

"Mama gon' whoop yo ass. Wandering off like that. Do you know how worried we was fa' ya' bad ass?"

"I sorry."

"Sorry ain't enough. You know better! Had me looking all over for you just to be with some white woman." I scoffed.

Furious was an understatement for how I was feeling, though I was really mad at her I was relieved too. Mama would've threw a fit if I wouldn't have found her. Lord knows she would've.

Watching a car slow down, everything seemed to be in slow motion. I watched a gun get pulled out on the passenger side and I grabbed patience as fast as I could and ducked down.

Five shots let out.

POW! POW! POW! POW! POW!

Hearing screeching tires I raised up my head, before looking over at patience's whosbody was limp and pouring of blood, looking down at my arm I felt a burning sensation.

"Patience's! Get up, wake up pay!" I yelled in horror.

"Pay you got to get up!"

"No! No! No! Come on." I grabbed her limp small body.

I watched as her face went pale. There I was sitting there all alone.

One mistake, being irresponsible just once can change your whole life.

Mines?

Not for the better.