Testify

Opening

Ominous.

Melvin sighed heavily and held up the piece of paper he'd been staring at for the absolute longest. This was the third progress report he'd received that only consisted of D's and F's that semester. August's grades plummeted drastically and nobody could seem to understand why. He usually made decent alphabets but as of now, he was drowning.

"What's going on witchuu, bruh?" August ignored his brother's words and continued staring out of the window that sat off to his left. He'd kill to be like the wind and just be able to float and fly freely as he wanted. He was fed up with school, girls, the lack of money flow, life. It was extremely overwhelming and he never spoke about any of it because nobody seemed to understand him; or at least nobody wanted to hear what he had to say.

He'd often have nightmares. Every family member that he knew of would be sitting inside of one room with him conversing and talking amongst themselves. He'd be screaming and hollering at the top of his lungs. He'd be asking for someone to help me. For someone to listen and it was like nobody cared. Nobody moved a muscle. In the dream, nobody seized their conversations. They just ignored anything and everything and kept on doing them. That's exactly how it was in real life. That's how come he'd grown to be an angry kid.

"August, I know you hear me talkin' to you. You gotta be betta than this, man." Still, nothing. Melvin sighed again and shook his head. "Ion even wanna be in school no mo'." August suddenly bursted out as Melvin stood.

Melvin always tried to motivate his little brother and lead him in the right direction simply because of some of the disgraceful things he did. He wanted August to be better than he could ever be. He knew he would be. "Stop saying stuff like that. You know how moma feel about that." August shrugged.

"School aint helpin' nobody eat 'round here. What I'm supposed to do?"

"Ion know but you not droppin' out."

"You can't make me stay in school, yeah." August mentioned. His eyes met his brother's. For an intense moment, they just shared a staring match; just to see who'd blink first. It often symbolized who'd usually get the last say so.

The wind swept in from the window August was previously staring out of earlier and it blinded him, causing him to blink.

"Exactly," Melvin said. "You don't go to school. Why I gotta go. You be makin' money. Why I can't do Whatchuu doin'?" August asked. Melvin chuckled and shook his head.

"What I do aint none of your business. That life ain't cut out fah somebody like you. You too smart, you too talented. You need to do something with yourself." August rolled his eyes and smacked his teeth.

"What that is? That YouTube stuff. You need to get into those video web thangs instead of worrying about me and what I'm doing. Get them grades up, boy." And that was that. Melvin was gone out of the front door. He got the last word. He always did.