One Mississippi

Chapter Nineteen✔️

Chapter Nineteen: Get Out!

"THAT was amazing!" Aaliyah gushed as they made their way to the car.

"You've never been to Sky Zone before?" Martavius asked in disbelief. She shook her head as he opened the passenger's door for her. He made the boys sit in the back. "That's crazy, how could you not?"

She shrugged as he walked over to his side of the car and climbed in. "We don't have a lot of things where I'm from. We don't have a mall either. We don't even have a movie theater," she explained.

"That's crazy," Killian said from the backseat. "What did y'all do for fun then?"

Aaliyah sat back in the seat, staring out the windshield. "We gathered together and went to the park or a football game or out to eat. We found fun in like getting kicked out of Walmart. Stuff like that," she explained.

Martavius looked at her, shocked as they drove down the road. "So, basically, you went outside and met a bunch of kids and made plans to go to the park and kick a ball around?"

Nodding, she buckled her seatbelt. "That's it. But it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I miss those days."

"Well what happened?" Killian asked, genuinely interested. "Aside from being kidnapped and all."

She actually found a little kick of it, although he didn't mean it to be funny. "We grew up," she explained. "Moved out. Moved along in life. Kids were grown before they even made it to high school. It's harder than you think to play freeze tag with just one person," she joked, cracking a smile.

Martavius looked at her momentarily, smiling slightly. "So what I'm hearing is that growing up was one of the worst times of your life?" he asked.

"You can say that," she nodded. "These days you're expected to drink and do drugs while partying and having sex with as many guys possible. All at the age of fourteen. Sometimes I just miss getting all of my friends and hanging out at my place maybe playing kickball or just playing videogames. Riding bikes, scooters, and skateboards around the neighborhood."

Killian sat quietly in the back beside Jaylon, listening to her reminisce her past with a tone of sadness, yet happiness. They didn't know her all that well but the way she talked about it. Like she lived it everyday of her life. Like she experienced every moment of it first hand.

Back when life was simple and perfect. Drama free.

As she continued to talk, the more she lured them in. They hung to her every word. Listening to her soft, sullen voice as she described her life before life itself. "Everything was better when the sun was out, but most of the fun happened at night. . . before the streetlights, of course," she laughed, causing them to laugh along with her.

They all knew about the streetlights business.

"What did y'all do before the streetlights?" Killian urged, never wanting her to stop talking. She could talk him to sleep with the softness of her voice. Tone smooth as butter.

"Well, if our parents gave an extra hour, we'd have little sword fights or midnight hide n seek. We'd dress in all black at night and hide out until they counted to ten. One Mississippi," she explained. "And on the weekends, a little ding dong ditch and wander the neighborhood and nearby stores. Back when we were younger and things didn't matter. Now, well, before I got here, I couldn't walk to the store or my best friend's house without someone twice my age staring me down or calling at me from across the street. Men started treating me like a woman at thirteen."

"That's got to have sucked."

"Yeah, well, it's life. Some of us have to grow up before it's time. Now it's all about sex and drugs. Can't go to a sleepover without your friend's brother touching you after you've asked many times for him to stop. Being a woman is hard, but being a little girl is harder. That's when people take advantage of you the most because you're so young naïve."