World On My Shoulders

Gone Cold

300$, an I.d, a food stamp card, and crack is what found in my moms purse. "Yep this should last us for the rest of our lives." I said sarcastically to my self. As I sat on my bed looking through the contents of my moms purse, the door bell rang. I jumped , startled from the sound, then curiously went to answer the door.
"Who is it?" I asked , trying to sound mature.
"Ms Alexander, open up this is officer Connor." A deep voice said from the other side of the door. My life flashed before my eyes, and my heart sank. Was he here because he had heard what happened? Was he here to separate us? "Open up!" he said again. I quickly opened the door and peeked my head out. "Move." he said, while pushing the door open and walking inside.

"Is something wrong sir?" I asked with a shaky voice.

"I should be asking you that question. Now you have had perfect attendance since you were in kindergarten, and all of a sudden you miss a day. Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No sir, I just had a fever when I woke up this morning. I will be at school bright and early in the morning." I lied.

"You make sure you are. And where is your Mom i'd like to talk to her." He asked.

"She's at work." I answered quickly. he looked at me suspiciously.

"Well you tell her to call me." He said then handed me a card and walked out of the house. I closed the door and locked it quickly behind him. That was too close. I figured that I could just drop out of school and get a couple of jobs, but now there was no way I could do that with an officer poking into my business on the first day. I glanced over to the clock, it read 2:45. I told the twins that they could handle walking home alone today, so I would have a little of extra time. I got dressed and headed to the bus. I was going to go to long beach and fill out some applications for as many jobs as I could.

"A'ight listen. Ma is on a business trip, and doesn't know when she'll be back. That means im in charge, and you will listen to what I say. Both of you are to go to tutoring everyday after school, and be home by 4:00. You can go outside for an hour and be inside by 5:00, only if your homework is already done. You will take turns cleaning the kitchen every weekday. after you have eaten , and the kitchen is clean you may do whatever with your time until 8:30 that's when you both should be in bed. Which means you should have bathed and brushed your teeth by then. Understand?" I explained to Loren and Landon. I had to get some kind of organization, so that I would be able to handle things easily.

"Man this is messed up. I miss mama." Landon said. "I miss her too, but I understand Donnie." Loren said. Landon mean mugged Loren, and I chuckled. "Thank you Loren. now Landon clean up the kitchen, and the you guys get ready for bed." I said then headed to my room. I gathered some clothes and got into a hot shower. And as soon as the water hit me, reality did as well. I was abandoned, alone, and lost. I had no sense of direction when it came to paying the bills. A long scream escaped from my mouth. Tears started to pour down my face like buckets of cold water. I slid to the bottom of the tub and let the water caress my entire body. But as quickly as the doubt had clouded my mind, a powerful reassurance rained over it. I suddenly felt a power I had never felt before. I felt the power to just say fuck it. Fuck the fact that my mama left, it was the London show now. I had to do what I had to do to make some things happen, by any means necessary.

THE NEXT DAY

"Okay class, we have a new group project coming up. I will give you 3 minutes to find a group of no more than 4. And while you are picking Ms. Alexander will be around to hand out your rubrics." The history teacher Mrs. Ring said. I politely got up and retrieved the papers from her desk and started to hand them out. When I was nearly finished I reached the back of the class room where the last group was. It was Raven, Keisha, Chelsea, and Savannah. Raven and Keisha hated me for no reason, which caused the other two to just fall in line. I reached my hand out in an offer to hand Raven the rubric. Smack! A hand sent the paper flying down to the ground with a loud smack. I took a deep breath and just looked at my extended hand where the paper once was. "Well aint you gone pick it up Bitch?" Raven said meanly. At that moment, something within me snapped and I reached across the desk and grabbed Raven's hairs and pulled her across it. I unknowingly had a strange amount of strength and rage that led me to pound Raven's head onto the floor. I continued to punch her in the face and bang her head against the bricks until Tyra came to pull me off of her. Tyra pulled me off her and dragged me out of the classroom kicking and screaming , aching to get back to raven.

"Pull yourself together girl!" Tyra yelled. It was something about her voice that pulled me back to reality. I came back to earth where I was standing face to face with Tyra. My chest was heaving up and down heavily. "Calm down Shea. Get it together. Now we have to come up with a plan or your ass is getting expelled." She explained. I nodded my head, trying to steady my breathing. Tyra has been my right hand chick since the 8th grade. She was down for whatever, and with all the mess going on in my life she was exactly the safe haven I needed. Some one to vent to. "Now look, I'm going to say it was self defense. the story is that raven reached across the desk and began to hit you repeatedly. With your good record and my good behavior for these past couple of weeks, they'll believe us over them any day. Now pull your shit together and act like your hurt." Tyra coached. I listened to her and did as she instructed. I busted into sobbing wails and a panic attack as soon as I saw Principle Gaston.

  I ended up getting 3 days of I.S.S, while Raven on the other had got a 5 day suspension. Our secretary Ms Angel, escorted me to the detention where I would spend the rest of my day.
   I.s.s was filed with nothing but boys. Luckily Rashad was there too, or I would have been really lonely. I grabbed the open seat next to him and sat my books down. "What you doing in here?" Rashad asked.
  "You don't want to know."I replied with a laugh. Rashad Ooo'ed , and grinned. I waved him off and opened up my history book.

  "Aye, can you help me?" A boy sitting to the left of me named Drake said. I taught my self how to not notice Drake. He was my crush for almost 2 years, until I realized that I had no chance with him. Who was I kidding? He was  a gorgeous 5'8 senior, that was mixed with Mexican and Black.  He had long , dark, and curly hair; that he kept in a messy pony tail. And he has hazel eyes that made every girl melt. All of his features and a full set of soft lips, drew attention to him, But he never made time for any  girl, because he was to busy making money. Drake never had time for games, everyone knew that he was selling. The thing that twisted the story about him was, he was smart. He did his work, and made honor roll almost every semester. He had sleeves of tattoos on both arms, and was always dressed in the flyest clothes . He and his 3 brothers had the whole neighborhood on lock. He could have anyone he wanted, the thing was he wanted no one.

    "Yea what you working on?" I asked.

"The history project Mrs. Ring handed out today. I aint been in class to hear nothing she taught, and I need a partner." He said pulling out the packet from history. I nodded my head.

"Yea that's cool, when do you want to work on it? Its due next Wednesday, and we don't have that much time left today?" I replied.

"Well I'll be in here for the rest of the week, what about you?" Drake asked.

"Me too, we can start on it tomorrow." As I finished the bell rang dismissing us from school. I headed to my locker where Tyra was waiting. I shoved my books into my locker then headed outside.

"Yo, you coming over today? I got some shit to tell you?" I asked Tyra. She nodded her head as we both walked to the bus.

 "Yea I got the Bud too." She said. I exhaled and nodded my head.

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  "She gone." I said after puffing the small blunt we had left. Tyra's mouth dropped.

"Are you serious?" she asked , surprised. I nodded my head. We sat on the couch just vibing talking about our problems.

"Now I have to find a way to get money to take care of the bills." I admitted to her. She looked at me curiously. "You should talk to Drake. He put Shana on when her pops got sick, maybe he could help you." She said. I thought it over in my head. "You might be right, but I'm not trying to be no criminal. I'm gonna wait to see if some of the jobs call back . until then , ima just wing it." I said. We talked for a couple of hours then I walked her home.