Family Lies

True

"Blaze! True!" I heard Aunt Donna call our names from the top of the basement stairs. 

"Yes?" We called back. "I got groceries in this car, come help me get 'em out." I smacked my teeth as I got up. "She mean come get 'em out for me while I sit on my ass," I mumbled as I headed towards the stairs to find Aunt Donna standing up there with both hands on her hips.

 "What the fuck you say boy?" She asked as I ran towards her. "Nothin' Ma," I said and chuckled as I wrapped my arms around her but she popped me on the back of my head. 

"Mhm. Go get them bags out the car."

Me and Blaze went out to the car hanging bags on bags on bags on our arms before hurrying inside and sitting them in the kitchen. "Y'all lazy as hell," Aunt Donna said as she got up from her seat at the table to go put everything away. I leaned against the wall to wait to talk to Tré who was standing there on the phone eating out of a jar of peanut butter with her name written on it.

"Who you talking to?" I asked while poking the middle of her big ass forehead. She smacked my hand before putting her hand over the receiver. "It's Aunt Dot. She said we can spend the summer with her if we want. You goin'?"

I rolled my eyes. "Hell naw I ain't goin' out there," I said while picking out a banana from the bowl of fruit that sat on the ledge. Then I felt a sting near my spine and I turned around to see Aunt Donna standing there like she had just punched me in the back. "I told you you gone stop that cussin' in my house!"

"How can hell be a cuss, Ma? It's in the Bible ain't it?" She rolled her eyes. "Shut up boy you ain't never read no Bible." I turned back to my sister. "Anyway... I know you ain't goin' out there." Tré huffed while looking up before looking back at me. She put her hand over the phone again. "Yeah I want to go. We seem like we got so much in common, and she always reaching out asking about me and you too even though you ain't been nothin' but nasty to her. I don't get why you don't like her so much. What did she do to you that was so wrong?" She whispered. "It don't matter what she did. Just know she ain't as innocent as she seem. If you was smart you'd stay away from her before you get hurt." I took my banana down to the room I shared with my brother.

When I got there I kicked off my slides and plopped down while turning on the TV to the sports channel and watching the highlights. 

"Yo. Lemme ask you somethin'," Blaze started as he sat on his bed— taking a break from getting ready for work. "Wassup?" I answered without taking my eyes off the screen. "Why you do Aunt Dottie like that?" I huffed. I was getting tired of these niggas acting like they ain't know the real when I knew they did. 

"You really gotta ask me that?" I replied flatly.

"Ight, so you know. But do you really think she had a choice in how all this shit played out?"

I nodded. "I do. She had plenty of choices to make."

"So because she made one mistake that means you just get to be mad at her for the rest of your life?"

"She ain't make one mistake. She made twelve years worth of mistakes. She woke up every day ignoring the option to get her kids back because she ain't think we was worth what she was gone lose."

"How you know that's what she thought?"

"Because nothin' else makes sense."

"Well if that's the case maybe that's what you think about you and Tré. Maybe that's what you been tellin' yourself to cope with reality. But you gone be stuck in a real fucked up cycle if you don't let that shit go. You got the right to feel whatever you feel, but do you wanna be stuck and mad and angry forever? You two the only ones in this family that has a mom that still wants them. Don't take that for granted. I'm out. See you later." Blaze stood and hustled up the steps.