Amity

Chapter 1

Dré woke up knowing that today was going to be strange. He couldn't exactly tell why, but something felt off. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't smell the eggs, sausages, and waffles he was so used to smelling every morning. Or maybe it was because his alarm clock was missing. Again. "I swear to God, if he took it," he murmured as he grabbed his toothbrush from the nightstand.

Stumbling out of his room, he walked down the cream-colored hallway and into the bathroom, giving himself a once over in the mirror with his garnet eyes halfway opened. His raven hair jutted out here and there like the roots of a tree. It was going to be hell picking it. After brushing his teeth, he grabbed the afro pick from the counter-top and walked into the living room, where a man sat on the black leather recliner in a white muscle shirt and a pair of plaid pajamas, eating a bowl of cereal as he polished a gold bracelet. "Yo, Isaiah?" Dré mumbled as he rubbed his eyes. "Isaiah!"

Still, he was ignored.

Frowning, Dré grabbed a coin from the tv stand and threw it at his brother, hitting him on the crown of his head. Isaiah glared up at him with his cyan-colored eyes, contrasting to his amber-brown skin. "Where'd mom and dad go?" Dré asked.

"I don't know, boy. Next time you throw something at me, you gon' catch four upside your head." Despite being nineteen, two years older than Dré, Isaiah still lived with him and his parents. Even though he went to college at Henderson State University, he couldn't get a dorm room because it was "too expensive." Dré figured that Isaiah used that as an excuse to torment him before he went to college himself.

Scoffing at his empty threat, Dré ran the pick through his hair as Isaiah continued. "They did say they had something important they had to work on. Something about getting a school prepared." He paused to take a drink from his bottle of apple juice, making the white and clear beads dangling from his braided hair clack softly against his shoulders.

"What kind of school?"

"I ain't got all the answers, Dré."

"You barely have any answers at all," Dré said under his breath before he asked, "Did you try to call them?"

"Yeah. It went straight to voicemail."

"Huh. Both of them?"

"Yes. Both."

"Okay, okay, geez. Sorry for being concerned for our parents. Ow, ow-" Dré whined as the pick caught a snag in his hair.

Isaiah went back to the bracelet, stuffing a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. "Oh. By the way, your girl dropped by a couple of minutes ago," he said in between chews as Dré walked into the kitchen.

Here comes the jokes about my girlfriend again. Sighing, Dré put on the toughest façade he could manage. "Isaiah, I swear to God, if you make a joke about sleeping with my girl-"

"You ain't gon' do a damn thing and you know it," Isaiah interrupted. Considering that Dré barely saw his "girlfriend," he figured that fighting Isaiah over insulting her wasn't worth the hassle. "She just said that she's not going to school today, so she won't be picking you up. She's probably just using that as an excuse to be with that dude with the red bike."

Dré gave a dry laugh as he peeked into the refrigerator. "So that means you're taking me to school then, right? Wait-" He popped his head above the refrigerator door. "Is that my juice?"

Isaiah took another sip before he explained. "First off, I'll take you to school, but if you complain about my music, your ass is walking. Second off, was. This was your juice."

"You drank my juice?! Dude! I was saving that for school!" Dré slammed the fridge door, making the fruit-shaped magnets clatter to the ground. "Is there anything else you neglected to tell me?" Dré growled as he picked up the magnets. "Like, stealing my clock again, for instance?"