infatuation ↠ devanté swing

seventeen.

I ain't even gone hold y'all. I miss shorty. This being in the mountains shit ain't it. Well, I mean it is it, considering the fact that some punk ass niggas ran up in my shit. With all that being said, it's feels good to be back home. I had a lot of memories here. It's where I fell in love with the music. When my mama heard what happened, she not only made me come down here, but the rest of my group too. So here we were, back in Hidden Valley, where it all started. I'm surprised my parents ain't wanted to move by now. I offered, but they refused to take any of my "devil's money". Fine, that's mo' for me then.

A lot has been on my mind since everything went down. I ain't been able to get not a lick of sleep yet. I probably won't ever be able to sleep again after that bullshit. I gotta watch my back. The events keep replaying over and over, almost like a broken record.  I just wanted to get a lil' nap in before my brother's birthday celebration, and then niggas ran up in my shit. That's these jealous niggas for you, I tell ya. They see a young black man out here prospering and will do anything to take it away from them. I'm a lil' shaken up, but nowhere near scared. Let them try that shit again, and they gone be taking more than my jewelry...niggas gone be takin' bullets to the dome.

"You ready?" Dalvin asked, fixin' his tie. Our parents wanted to do the most to welcome us back into town. They cooked all the fixins and then they wanted to pray for my strength and healing. It was going against everything that I wanted, like keeping a low profile, but anything to make my parents happy. I just knew it was going to be packed due to us being us and also us not being home since the last tour. I was appreciative of everything that was bein' done for me, but none of it was right without Sydney, and that's just real.

"Yeah man, I'm ready," I finally replied after a long pause. I took one last look at my face in the mirror, it wasn't noticeably bruised up, but it was swollen. Damn, man.  I had to tie the strings on my Stacy Adams wingtips. Mom and dad were already at the church, it was just us that was meeting everyone there. My uncle's old ass 1987 Buick Regal was outside waiting for us. This car was the grandpa of grandpa cars. Goddamn. Oh wait, I'm sorry Lord. I let Dalvin drive, I'ma let y'all in on a lil' secret though, he can't drive for shit. But any excuse to make us late, though we weren't that far from what used to be our second home. As we pulled up, we both noticed that the parking lot was packed like sardines.

"C'mon dawg, c'mon mane!" Dalvin and I shouted our disbelief simultaneously. I bet it was like they were giving out a million dollars in here. It's just Jodeci. There were some kids outside playing, some new and old, some we saw grow into teenagers. "Hey Don and Dal!" they yelled, greeting us. I sent a few waves back and Dal nodded his head. I took a deep breath before opening the back door to the church. I could hear K-Ci and JoJo doing a rendition of Jesus Saves by Little Cedric and The Hailey Brothers. K-Ci's voice was much more polished compared to back in the day. The first person who ran up to me was Tiffany, K-Ci and JoJo's baby sister. She had a lil' crush on me back in the day, but she was and still is way too young for me. "Hey Lil' Don! It's good to see you!" she expressed with glee and pulled me into a hug.