Complicated

18. Together Again.

Chresanto looked around the circle and everyone else looked back at him. "You're just on time, Chresanto. We were just about to introduce ourselves," Vanessa explained. "Just say your name and one thing you want us to know. I'll start, then we can go left. I'm Vanessa, and I'm here to be friendly and help out. Not to boss anyone around or anything like that." She smiled and turned her head to the next person. He was practically lost. "And you sir?"

"Oh! Um, I'm Jawan.. and I like pizza.."

"Me too! Who's next?" Vanessa exclaimed. The next person looked at Vanessa in a weird way. "Okay then.. I'm Daniel. I like to play basketball, I guess," he said slumping back into his chair. Immediately after, the next girl spoke, "Well, I'm Breaunna, nice to meet y'all! I'm like energetic and hyper alot so that's just a heads up."

Vanessa awkwardly smiled at her and looked at the next person. "Yea um I'm Zonnique and my bestfriend is Breaunna.. she's next to me."

"We understand that-ANYWAYS, I'm Messiah. I'm Zonnique's little brother," he hollered. Vanessa happily nodded at the two siblings and looked to the person next to them. "Sup y'all.. I'm Khalil. I like to chill with my bros and stuff like that.." he slowly said. It was as if he were intoxicated and Vanessa could tell; her smile slighty faded and came back when realizing Chresanto was next. "I'm Chresanto. I play football."

"How interesting!" Vanessa said excitedly, clasping her hands together. "Next?" The next person looked at Vanessa with her arms crossed and a stank face. "Bahja. I like to perform.. like singing and dancing."

"That's really cool! And I love your hair, by the way.. just so pink and vibrant," Vanessa replied. Bahja slightly smiled back at her, "Thank you." They both looked to the next person. "I'm Christopher and I like to rap."

"Oooooo! You guys could make a song if you wanted to, huh?" Vanessa hollered, looking at Christopher and Bahja. They looked at each other but the expressions didn't match. Chris had a flirty look in his eyes but Bahja looked rather annoyed. "That'd be cool.." he said in a low tone. "I wouldn't count on that." Bahja rudely added. "Is there anyone else?" She asked. Vanessa looked at the last person. "This young lady here. What's your name?" The girl slowly looked up from the ground and shyly looked around the circle with everyone's eyes on her. "Jennifer?" she said quietly. "Jennifer? That's pretty. Is there anything you want us to know about you?" Vanessa kindly asked. "I get really nervous and shy.."

"Oh that's okay. You can be open here. No one's here to judge you."

"Okay.." Jennifer wiped her hair behind her ear and sat back in her chair like everyone else.

"Okay guys! I want to tell you all how these sessions work. Every week, we come here and talk about the families we're with. If you like your foster family or you hate it, share your thoughts. Any thought. Even if it's not about your family, if there's anything you want to talk about, just say it. There are no limits!" Vanessa explained. No one really cared or expressed any emotion to what she was saying. It practically killed her spirits. "Guys.. I know that you guys don't really want to be here but overtime, we'll be close and cool with one another! Just give it some time. Luckily for you guys, we only killed like 15 minutes and this is only the introduction day sooo you guys are free to go. Tomorrow is when the real fun begins so I will see you guys then!" Everyone let out sigh of relief and quickly scattered out of the room. Vanessa on the other hand, slowly packed her stuff and got the room ready to be locked.

Outside, everyone started doing their own things. Breaunna, Messiah and Zonnique went home together as one. Bahja walked away from the building on her phone and Christopher made his way after her. "Hey! Wait up!" he shouted. Bahja groaned at the sound of his voice and kept walking. Finally he caught up to her. "Hey. I wanted to know if I could see you perform or at least hear you sing some time," Christopher flirted. Bahja wore the most frustrated look on her face. "Why..?" she muttered.

"Because I'm just wondering."

"That's all?"

"Yes.. and I think you're pretty."

"That's adding on to 'just wondering.' Now are you going to follow me to my girlfriend's house orrrr...?"

"My bad. I'll leave you alone, alright?"

"Fantastic." Bahja strutted off around the corner happily, finally getting away from him. She wasn't lying to Christopher either; she was indeed off to her girlfriend's house which was nearby. When she got to the front door, her girlfriend was already sitting outside waiting for her. Bahja smiled walking towards the front stairs and sat next to her. She kissed her cheek and hooked onto her arm. "Ilianelizzzz. Iliiiii," Bahja whined, putting her head on her shoulder. "Another boy tried to hollaaaaa."

"Again?"

"Yes again. I'm the baddest, don't cha know? Haha."

"You thought."

"Yea whatever, you know it's trueee."

"Ehh, you're pretty ugly but I still like you."

"That's good enough for me, at least you're mine."

"Exactly." Ilianeliz kissed her forehead and held her hand.

Instead of Chresanto waiting for the next bus to come, he looked around the familar area. Going down a couple blocks, he started slowing down when saw a dead end street. "It can't be.." he mumbled to himself. He started walking faster down the street; getting closer towards the end, he saw 3 boys playing basketball in one of the driveways. One with big hair, sitting on the grass, one with extremely blonde hair and another with two braids, both playing against each other. Chresanto was back home.

"Foul! That's a got damn foul!" Rayan shouted. "What do you mean?! You just mad because you're losing!" Craig shouted back. He snatched the ball out of Rayan's hands. "And there's no fouls in streetball! Take this L like a man!"

"Whatever, man.. cheatin' ass." Chresanto stopped in the middle of the street, in front of the house. "Things never changed, did they?" He said. All three boys turned their head to Chres. "Who the hell is that?" Jacob whispered, squinting his eyes at him. Craig walked closer to Chresanto and slowly began to smile. "Is that who I think it is?" Chresanto smiled back and walked closer, "Yup!"

"Chresanto, you back!" Craig ran to dap his long gone friend but ended up giving him a big brotherly hug. They haven't seen each other in 6 years. Not because they wanted to, but it was by force that Chresanto was taken away from his friends.

They stopped hugging and took a deep breath before they would start tearing up. "I can't believe it's you, man.." Craig said calmly. "I thought we'd never see you again."

"Same here. And you're blonde! Like hella blonde.. like popcorn and butter blonde. But seriously, I got lucky finding you gu-"

"CHRESANTO!" Rayan yelled, tackling Chres. Jacob came running behind him. "Oh man oh man, I thought I would never see you ever again!" Rayan whined. "Yo. I just said that." Craig said. "Well, I said it again." Rayan snapped. "Can y'all just shut up? Lord.." Jacob groaned. He went in to hug Chres. "It's great to see you again, bro. What happened after you left? Shit, how'd you even get here?"

"After I left here, I went to Human Services. Since I had no family around to take me in, I went into a foster family."

"No family? Nobody?" Rayan asked. "Nope. Well, either no one wanted to or there was no one, I dunno. I'm on my 10th foster home and-"

"WHAT?!" they all questioned. "My nigga.. you too turnt for these foster homes if you're on your 10th. Turn down." Jacob said sternly. "No no no ya see, I usually got in trouble so I would normally get kicked out so I'd be on to the next one. This one's cool though.. I might stay. The lady is my social worker anyways so-"

"You live with your social worker?" Craig asked. "Yup! And I'm on a football team now and there's this girl I'm living with-"

"Oooooo! Chres be gettin' some bootyyyy!" Rayan teased. "Naaah, it's not even like that. Like you know me, I spit some game on her but she's mad cool and I like her.. alot."

"So you're sprung? Cool," Jacob added. "Yea.. something like that.."

"Well, since there's 4 of us, we should go 2 on 2, just for old times sake," Craig said, holding out the ball to Chresanto. "Well shit, gimme some shorts then, I'm down."

"I got you!" Rayan said, running off into his house. Chresanto went after him and 5 minutes later, he came out, took off his hoodie and was ready to play. It was like he never left.