Jade
It’s the first day of senior year and I’m sitting in my bed thinking “why the hell even bother going, they don’t want us there.” Senior year is supposed to be the best right? Wrong. My school burned down over the summer so the school board had no choice but to rezone “us” to a school on the other side of the tracks. No biggie right? Wrong again. You see in my city there’s an invisible line that rarely gets crossed. Whites on the Northside, and everyone else basically on the Southside. I just so happen to fall in that other category.
My name is Jade Choy. I’m Jamaican, Chinese-Jamaican to be exact, but all “they” see is black. My mom was born and raised in Jamaica. She had me when she was 16, and we left the island when I was 10. I’ve always loved being from the islands, and I’m pretty sure it’s part of the reason why I’m as popular as I am. There’s something about a girl with an accent, I’m pretty sure Rihanna had something to do with that or some shit. Of course the other reason is probably the fact that I inherited everything from my mom. She’s absolutely gorgeous, and it just so happens that I look just like her. Caramel skin with not a bump in sight, Rihanna type legs, long jet black hair like china silk, but the thing that really gets the niggas blood pumping and the bitches attitudes going are my eyes. My grandma used to tell me this story about how I got my eye color. She says that when my mom was prego with me she used to sit by the water every night before bed, and that somehow the jade color of the water transferred to my eyes. Unbelievable of course, but it makes for a really good story. My eyes are actually how I got my name. Enough about me though back to the story.
It’s impossible for me to act like I’m still sleep because I hear my phone alarm going off just as clearly as I hear my mom blasting her music while she gets ready for work. After about 10 minutes I finally decided to get up and get ready. Because of the stupid ass rezoning I had to wake up an extra 45 minutes early just to do everything I needed to do which included doing my hair, make-up, getting dressed, and picking up my main bitches Toi and Nikki. So because of all this extra shit I straightened my hair last night so all I had to do was throw a few curls in, get dressed, and then roll up out. I figured that even though I was at a new school, I still needed to uphold my reputation and let these bitches know what was up, ya dig. After staring in my closet for what felt like forever last night I decided on my white short shorts, pink baby doll shirt, and some wedges. Nothing to flashy for the first day so I didn’t scare the white folks, that were now my fucking classmates. I finished around 7:30 so I had just enough time to grab a poptart and pick up my girls.
Toi lives down the street and Nikki is her neighbor so I only had to make one stop. When I pulled up they were already outside waiting. I could barely stop the car before Toi jumped in popping her damn gum and Nikki already in what she called her zone with her earbuds blasting what sounded like Waka.
“I still can’t believe we got rezoned for senior year!” Nikki screamed over her music like we couldn’t hear her ass.
“Shit, I know right. I guess that’s what happens when people decide they wanna play with fire and shit,” Toi laughed.
Normally I would be laughing and talking along with my girls on the way to school, but today it was different. In my mind Valley wasn’t my school no matter what some damn school board had to say. We didn’t belong there. Hell, they didn’t even want us there. All the years I’ve lived in the city I’ve never seen any white faces other than the police. Yet they have no problem blasting our music out of their windows, and singing every “nigga” in the song. Hell it’s 2012, but there’s still hate. It’s just the way things are I guess. It’s not even like I can blame them, because I’m not exactly going into this whole thing with an open mind. Eventually Toi’s popping got the best of me and broke my thoughts. So I decided to put on my best happy face, turned up the radio, and just bopped the rest of the way to school with my girls.
“Damn! This place is huge!” Toi coughed as she chocked on her gum.
I could tell Nikki was out of her zone because I could her here mumbling about how big the school was to. I had never been to Valley before, but I knew it had been completely rebuilt the summer before last. So I was just as shocked as they were.
“Damn is right,” I said shaking my head.
Once I got over the initial shock I pulled into the parking lot and circled around a few time before I saw a spot next to my boyfriend Martez’s old school black tinted out Impala. I could tell it was his because of the rims, his custom tag plate that said TEZ, and the music blasting for his new system. As I started to pull in a shiny black BMW, which I assumed was new, almost rammed right into my side of the car. I quickly slammed on my breaks before we collided with the shiny car. Before i could even get my damn seatbelt or turn the car off Martez and his boys were jumping out of their car and surrounding the BMW. No doubt they ready to bust heads, and I was right behind them....
