Live Wire

The New Classmate & the Stolen Papermate

Happiness. That's the only feeling that fluttered in my heart as my mother sang happy birthday to me. Her smile lit up every corner of the kitchen of our humble Chicago apartment in Humboldt Park. She'd taken a couple of hours off for the morning just to make me breakfast. I slowly opened my eyes and blew my wishes to silence the licking flames of the confetti candles adorning my name in the center of the strawberry cake. 

"Happy Birthday, baby girl!" my mom clapped. "My baby is a half-grown, young lady." 

"Halfway?" I chuckled. "Aren't I technically legal?"

She gave me a pointed look, placing a slice of cake on the saucer in front of me. "Lil' girl, legal just means I ain't gotta whoop you, cause the government will do it for me." 

"And unlike ya momma, they don't wipe your tears." She winked, licking some whipped cream from her thumb.

"Oh, so you'll just let me get locked up, is what you're saying?" I teased, flapping my napkin dramatically, and twisting my mouth in a disapproving tsk. 

"Don't worry, they'll feed you three meals a day and-" she turned pointing the spatula at me with a tilt of her head, " you get recess with your lil' jail friends in your lil' matching pajamas." 

"Now when it comes to the part where you have to do chores, your lil' butt might end up in solitary confinement." 

I choked on my cake laughing, sputtering with my mouth full, "Ma! For real?"

She chuckled walking back from scraping the breakfast remnants from the plates to place them in the sink as she muttered how we both knew the truth about me. "But that's still my baby. My big, now 18-year-old baby." She suffocated my head in a tight hug, my ears and neck wet from her soggy gloves. 

"Mama oh my God, ew. Stop!" I spit the welcomed discomfort of her hair follicles tickling my lip as I tried leaning away from her sloppy kisses to my forehead. 

I sensed the change in her demeanor as her chin sat atop my nest of yet-to-be-tamed curls. 

"Mama?" I mumbled into the crook of her arm. "What's wrong?" 

"Nothin' baby, it's just, "I felt her cheek rise in a little smile, a slight twinge of sadness in her tone. 

"Your daddy would've been so proud of you." 

A collective sigh left us both as my arms rose to return her hug. 

...

After fighting with untamed curls, I left the house behind schedule, zooming into the school parking lot like a bat out of hell. My feet scaled the steps of Westinghouse College Prep, scurrying through the ivory corridors until stopping before the mahogany door of Calc I.  

I took a deep breath before creaking the door open. 

"Miss James," A stern voice piped from the back of Mr. Weiss as he scribbled today's lesson pages onto the chalkboard.  

"Now that you've felt inclined to join us, please waste no more time, and take a seat," he sighed and gave me a pointed look over thin wire glasses being nestled back into place by his index finger. 

I made a beeline for my seat, expertly avoiding the smirks and soft chuckles that burned into my body. 

 Quickly unpacking my notes and pens, I began to thumb to the page for the day's lesson in the textbook when my face felt unnecessarily hot. My gaze lifted to become trapped by dark green pools. A thick black brow disappeared into the mop of curls dangling from an unkempt man bun; tickling his nose as he tilted his head. His eyes were...intense. And they became hooded, once he'd finished scanning, what felt like, every pore of my face.