A group of childhood friends growing up in a small Charlotte neighborhood face the trials and tribulations of becoming aware of how small their city truly is. Surfacing traumas, deteriorating friendships, and questioned faith brings some to a point...
Crisp blue skies and a shining sun keep the valley happy. Fresh off of a flight that came from South Carolina, she inhales the deep country air that she'd missed so desperately. What else would you expect when you're cheering on varsity? It had been three long months since Cynthia has been in her home state. She'd started out in San Fransisco at cheer camp before she and her mother spent time visiting her cousins in South Carolina. The poor girl hadn't touched her bed in three long months.
You know what else she hadn't done in three long months? Seen a single DeGrate. Not Don, not Dalvin, not even Derek. She spoke on the phone with Dalvin almost everyday throughout the summer but there is nothing like being right next to your best friend. It's just not the same and the both of them felt the heavy shot to the gut. She'd hadn't even spoken to Don, with the exception of sending funny little messages through Dalvin. Word flowing through her telephone line was that Don had got bold enough to do something crazy. Cynthia wanted to talk to Don face to face to know if it was the truth. She went as far as making sure the church was the first place she went to the moment she got back, for this particular reason.
Her headphones blast Sheila E.'s latest album. She was no Prince fanatic but she was pretty close to one and his taste in music rubbed off on her a long time ago. She could easily say it was the time she tagged along with a fifteen-year-old Donald at age thirteen to go to the last Purple Rain show. The bus ride was an hour long to Greensboro and they were almost late due to the snow. It was worth it in the end. Prince hasn't came back to North Carolina since that day.
A natural cavort was put in her steps based on the music being played in her ears with all the thanks to the walkman that her second big brother, Don, had got her for Christmas of '85. She skipped up the stairs, with a slight jog, and into the practice room. When she'd left, Lil' Don was playing in the reverend's band: The Don DeGrate Delegation. Her eyes scan the room. Her two favorites are no where in sight.
"You looking for me?"
Her head shoots back. The sunglasses that hold bangs, that once hung over her eye, in place almost fly off of her head by down fast she'd turned her head. One could easily assume she's secretly suffering from some form of whiplash. She stares back at him before letting out a bold gasp at the changes he'd gone through. "Woah," Cynthia says looking at him.
"You just gone stand there or you gone show me some love?"
Speechless in every sense of the word, Cynthia allows a large grin to form on her face as she runs over and leaps into Don's arms. He stumbles a little bit but she is more secured in his arms than the rag he'd given her many, many moons ago. Cynthia takes a second to look him up and down while still wrapped up in his long arms that'd grown in size.
Cynthia gasps again, "Wow!"
"Can you stop that?" Don laughs and takes a small step away from Cynthia. "What are you wowing about? I ain't seen you all summer and you just wowing? No I missed you? No how are you?"
Cynthia just stares at him. She turns her back to grab a prop that she intends to use in her next point. Her back turned, Don catches the first glimpse of the way cheerleading had been treating her physique. His eyes land on her basketball-shaped backside. A small devil on his left shoulder tells him to drool but his pure heart makes him turn his head immediately. "You're asking why I'm saying wow," exclaims Cynthia. She turns around with an album cover in her hand. "This is who I left in May!"
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