Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
!
Roger and Reina stood side by side after Roger got tired of bringing girls and made Reina promise to smack him as hard as she could when he would bring a girl in. Of course, Reina immediately agreed. But she couldn't help but feel it was her father's fault because Omarr immediately said, "Roger I need to talk to you" and took him away. Right after whatever happened with the two, Roger just stopped bringing anyone.
"So," Roger started, looking down at the girl as she licked the ice cream they both got after the band, the Janes, and the Mariah, decided to check out the ice cream shop that they passed by. "Tell me something I don't know about you." Opening her mouth to talk, Roger cut her off. "And don't say you have nothing because I know you do."
Sighing, Reina looked at him before she mumbled, "I can name any poetry from the late 1920s to now even with their author."
Roger looked at her with an impressed face. "Is that so?" Reina nodded and she saw her dad out of the corner of her eyes immediately watching someone with a tense look. Roger cleared his throat, remembering something he read. "The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed..."
"The Weary Blues," Reina answered, licking the last remainder of her ice cream. "By Langston Hughes."
"You got all that just by two sentences?" Roger questioned, looking at her with shock before he shook his head and continued to test her. "Clouds, swans, boats, trees, all gliding up a hillside. After some gray old women who lift their gaunt forms from falling shrouds of leaves..."
"Autumn Dusk in Central Park," Reina replied. "By Evelyn Scott."
"How do you know these?" Roger asked. Reina shrugged boredly.
"Rene used to bring these books that withheld poetry from 1900s to the 1920s," Reina said. "I grabbed it one day and started reading it. I was 8 at the time."
"One might in turn become less diffident, out of such mildew plucking neater mould. And spouting new orations of the cold."
"The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad," Reina smiled when she saw Roger's mouth open wide. "By Wallace Stevens."
"Yeah, I'm gonna keep on bothering you with poetry 'till you get one wrong," Roger said. Reina squinted his eyes at him and he smiled at her. She took out her hand and he placed his hand in hers, shaking it as they both agreed to what he said. They just stared at each other before they both jumped, startled by a loud voice.
