Memphis Streets 3: Revenge

Chapter 34- Brielle

LeShelle is awake.

The very idea fills me with terror and anger. What's worse is that it's been more than twelve hours since Dice flew out my window with murder in his eyes. I begged to go with him.

I wanted to be the one to actually put a bullet in Le'Shelle's skull, but he insisted that this was something that he had to do. Dice didn't stick around to argue. He was gone in a blink of an eye. Sleep eludes me as I lay watching the clock next to my nightstand. I keep telling myself that Dice will return any moment with the news of Le'Shelle's death.

Any guilt about that also eludes me. The love I had for my sister died on that awful prom night. Now all I can do is wait. Tracee takes one look at me and then shifts into panic mode. She doesn't like my color, my temperature, or the large bags under my eyes. Reggie is dragged in to take a look at me and he's concerned as well.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," I keep telling them, but even to my own ears it sounds like a lie. Doctors are called, prescriptions are phoned to our local pharmacy and, before I know it, sleep claims me, whether I like it or not. I don't.

Only nightmares wait for me on the other side. From the second I close my eyes, a kaleidoscope of laughing faces and grunting niggas assault me-and the pain. I will never forget the pain of battering fists against my rib cage or the dull switchblade that carved VD on the side of my ass. My screams ring inside my head, but those damn pills won't let me wake up. I can't wake up. Please, God. Let me wake up.

"BRIELLE! BRIELLE, HONEY. WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" At last, I'm snatched out of the nightmare.

I emerge from my tangled sheets like a drowning woman, breaking through the ocean's surface. "It's okay. It's okay."Tracee throws her arms around me and squeezes out what little breath I have left.

"I'm here now. Everything is going to be all right." She means well, but I'm suffocating. I push her away and tumble back off the bed to scramble for the bathroom.

"Brielle, honey. Are you all right?" Tracee rushes after me, committed to her new role as my shadow.

In the bathroom, I barely get the lid up on the toilet seat before I throw up everything but my lungs into the porcelain bowl. "I'm so sorry, honey. I'm so sorry."Tracee grabs a face cloth and runs it beneath the cold water in the sink.

"They told me that those pills wouldn't be that strong," she rambles, wringing out the towel and rushing over to slap it across my forehead.

I don't have the strength to shove off her smothering again. I can barely handle the dry heaves that are wracking my body and twisting my belly into a huge knot. I admit the cold compress feels good against my face, but my screams and Le'Shelle's gunshots are still ringing in my ears.

Is she dead yet? She can't be-or my nightmare would end-wouldn't it? Yes. I'm sure of it. But as long as the bitch is alive . . .

I force my thoughts away from Le'Shelle and wedge myself between the toilet and the bathtub. I don't know how long I remain curled there before Tracee calls on Reggie to help get me back to my bedroom. Reggie is a lot stronger than he looks. The studious professor is able to lift and carry me as if I weigh nothing. But when he plants me back into my bed, I beg him,

"Don't let me go back to sleep." They glance at each other with worried lines tunneling across their foreheads.

"I'll fix you something to eat," Tracee volunteers. "Some soup. That should help settle your stomach."

She races out the room before I tell her that food is the last thing on my mind. Once she's gone, Reggie and I stare at each other like survivors on top of a roof after a bad hurricane. What do we say? What do we do? Reggie is the first to try and communicate. He clears his throat and rasps,

"She means well."

"I know." I sit back up in bed and hug my knees to my chest.

"You mean well, too." His brown eyes wet up.

"None of this would have happened if I-"

"Don't do this again. I told you that Dice tried to save me that night. It wasn't his fault." Reggie shakes his head.

He doesn't want to accept anything other than his version of events. "You're trying to protect him."

"Yes," I admit. "Just like he tried to protect me." Again with the head shaking.

"You're not to see him again. Ever."

"I'm sorry. But I can . . . and I will. I love him." I thrust up my chin in defiance.

Reggie's head jerks back as if I'd spat in his face. Then he looks at me with such compassion and heartbreak. "It always happens. No matter how good the parents or how much promise and potential you girls have-the moment some nappy-head thug flashes a smile-you young girls throw everything away to go chasing after some ghetto fantasy."

"It-it's not like that. You don't know Dice."

"Yes. It is-and yes, I do." Reggie's chin rises as well. "I've seen this too many times to count. Little girls like you drift in and out of my classrooms every year. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and despite all the good-looking, intelligent brothers sitting right next to you in class, deep down you all want a thug: some nigga that can't keep their pants pulled up, body's tatted and brags about the fat knot of cash in his pants."

"Those guys think that the money in their pockets make them men and the guns they have tucked at their backs make them even bigger men. Big men like your boyfriend, Dice, are always being zipped up in a body bag on the nightly news. If a few bullets don't get him, then he's thrown in the back of one of the taxpayers' fine patrol cars where he'll spend his youth behind bars. Of course, he'll ask you to wait for him on the outside-you and God knows how many babies he'll put on you and his other women. And you'll try-but it gets hard being a single mother without a high school diploma or a college degree. You won't be able to find anyone who'll pay you more than minimum wage. So you turn to the game, too-get your own knot of cash and a gun and then suddenly you're bad until a bullet or jail claims you, too."

A long silence hangs in the air before I realize that I'm supposed to say something. "It's . . . not . . . like . . . that.That's not us. That will never be us,"

I tell him even though doubt creeps around the back of my mind. "No. Of course not. Your love is going to turn your gangster into Prince Charming and you'll ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. Ain't that the fairy-tale bullshit that you keep telling yourself?"

During the next silence, I can't think of anything else to say.

"I should have never let you go to that prom with him. I knew better."

With a final shake of his head, he turns and walks out of my room. I sit, hugging my knees and shaking my head.

"It's . . . not . . . like . . . that. It's not." But it is.