Tiiya - The Past

Story 5- He's Aight....

"Yooooo my nigga , pass the ball fuck is you doing?" screams one player. The ball goes flying past and hits the wall. "ahhhhh you garbage bro", another one says. Loud yelling and side conversations can be heard in the center's gym as a random basketball game takes place. Along the sides of the wall you have people standing within their own groups of friends cheering and hyping up the game, while others are cuffed with their boo's. Then you have the few who just linger and walk around, getting in where they fit in. There's one chair Journee happend to find in the corner, I didn't feel like standing so I sat on her leg as we engaged in convo with one another while being nosey as we skimmed the room with our eyes. A few minutes later........ "Yurrrrrrr what's poppppin niggas" yelled Daquan as he walked in. Journee bumps me with her arm. "There go your soon to be man" she said. I looked at her like girl don't even play with me as I laughed. He came over and I give him credit he approached calmly, not as loud and aggressive like the day before. "Hey how y'all doing?" Hey, we're good, they replied. "Wassup with you Tiiya, You good? "Yeah I'm good, you?" I replied back. "You know me, I'm always good." Daquan said. "Oh okay cocky much I laugh, but I hear you." "haha he laughed back, as he walked off going towards the gaming room.

So let me break down the center so y'all can kind of envision it. The center has multiple rooms. There was the gym that we were currently in, then there was a lounge/game room that consisted of a pool table, a big screen tv with a game system connected to it, a couch that sat just in front of the tv for the people who were occupying the game. Chairs that were placed in certain places around the perimeter. Then towards the back hallway there was another room located where the ecc late night parties took off, as well as a room for training and boxing matches. Tiana walked over to me and grabbed my arm like "come on sis" and we walked to one of the other rooms where I saw Daquan and the other boy (he's not important but for the purpose of this chapter we'll call him James) He introduced himself by saying. "Hey how are you doing? I'm James, so you are the one that got bro bro so interested huh?" he asks me, "Umm....I guess so." I respond back not trying to sound rude, but very much unsure of how to answer.. You know you favor chilli from TLC right?" James asked. I playfully roll my eyes and suck my teeth, only because it's not a first time thing to hear. "yeah I hear that quite a lot." I told him. When literally out of the blue Daquan breaks out singing "waterfalls" he even went as far as doing the little shoulder dance. If you remember that video then you know what I'm talking about. I started dying cause why?? Then James adds Tiana you laughing but you look like T-boz , quickly after Daquan says "ohhhh shit bro Lara is left eye, they got the whole group nigga." They burst out laughing, giving each other dap. At this point me and Tiana are really weak because we can't even lie, we could actually picture that whole shit they just came up with. So we chopping it up talking about mad stuff and this is where I start to actually see what Lara had told me previously at school about how Daquan was actually pretty cool. He had jokes , but he also had that rough boy side which I liked for whatever reason, just had to take some getting used to. I also noticed that when he wasn't around a full crowd he was much more laid back. After a while we decided to head back to where everybody was and see what they had going on.

** Ring ring**

"Hey ma"

Mom: "yeah Tiiya, you see what time it is?"

I look at my phone and it's 9:45. "Oh shit" I thought. My curfew was 9:00. I had absolutely nooo idea that it got that late. Clearly I was enjoying myself.

"Ohhhh my bad ma I lost track of time, I'm on my way now."

Mom: hurry up, you know you got school.

"Yo Tiana you ready cause I have to get home." "Yeah we out." she says back. "Yo where y'all going?" Daquan yells out by the entrance doors. "Home" I responded. That's when he and James decided to walk me and Tiana half way. We said our goodbyes. "You better hit me on aim when you get home." Said Daquan before me and Tiana crossed the street.