Old Friends 4 Sale (BOOK 2) || PRN

Ten | All The Critics Love You In LA

The bun in Aaliyah's oven only reaffirms the importance of why we couldn't forget to get our last few things left over in our old bedroom at my parent's home. I'm planning to spend of my summer in Los Angeles. Next week I'll be looking for a new place after Diana sold her share of the building I was renting from her. Uncle Dorian and I have great plans, and with Lenetta being out of school, she'll be my assistant for the summer as I prepare to interview for someone official to fill the slot.

As we pack up the last of our old room, I can see just how much has changed over recent years. From the polka-dotted notebooks I found all the way to Jackson 5 buttons stored away. I've grown so much. It's time. Things have changed over the last four years than I'd ever imagine. Going away for college was one thing but this full thrust into my career has brought me a new set of eyes to look at the world with. If you told me this is what I'd have to look forward to when I got home from school, I'd literally laugh in your face because... My God. Things took a big, fat turn in a direction I can't identify as up, down, left, or right.

"You better get your spouse filled in on the gossip because he was setting up to start a fire at that table yesterday," I say over my shoulder to Aaliyah as I sort through my old notebooks on my desk, keeping the ones that can benefit me and throwing out the others. She doesn't want any of them so unless it is a diary. I keep telling her to throw that junk in the trash.

Aaliyah laughs, pulling all of her pageant ribbons and high school certificates off of the wall. Her biggest trophies all rest on a pretty display in the trophy case of the family room. "Why are you to blame Kendall that you have a boyfriend and don't even know it?" Eyes rolling, I push past her to reach for my bottle of water sitting behind her. "All he did was as a question. He's a little behind on the gossip, what can I say? The last time he was awake long enough for a good batch of rumors, I told him Prince had a crush on you."

"One, I don't have a boyfriend." It's necessity to start there with her. I don't have a man, don't want a man, and surely don't need one. "Two, you have got to update your pillow talk— Or," I hold my index finger up as a genius thought approaches me, "Or... Just stop talking about my love life to your husband." Kendall's slip is just as much her fault as his. I don't like when she jokes like that. They're juvenile statements that totally undermine the fact that Susannah is really my friend. My brain suddenly deciding Prince's face is a little finer I've noticed in the past doesn't change anything.

Too caught up in her own antagonistic ways, Aaliyah goes on running her mouth. "You're right... It wouldn't work even if Susannah didn't exist because Kita told him you were her girlfriend!" Our brown cheeks turn the same shades of ruby for separate reasons. Her face turns red as she combusts with pure, boisterous laughter. I, on the other hand, am covering my embarrassed cringe. "That one was the one. I'm sure if anything has ever silenced him, it was that."

To say I'm surprised he hasn't brought that up won't even do my amazement. Much to my consternation, he went the entire celebration without hinting at any possible detail of that bombshell. Say a hypothetical world exists where neither of our current nor ex partners are of existence and I do want my taco ate... by Prince, not even in that hyper-fictional dimension do I expect Prince to see me for the first time after learning something of the such and not utter a single syllable.

Amusement seeps from the corners of Aaliyah's gaped mouth as she still giggles. I look away, turning my attention to the notebooks I sort. My sister doesn't stand far sway, humming to herself, busily packing a box of mutually shared records. I assumed they'll be staying with me. Though I am not paying her much attention, I pause my motions when I hear her gasp. "Oh look, Controversy!" Aaliyah holds up the LP. "So much for a girl who didn't like him that much until I dragged her to a 1999 concert!" Aaliyah turns to me, "Look at the purchase dates— These are original releases, Nelly."