Jaleah didn't have much growing up. For as long as she's known, her family lived paycheck to paycheck, making ends meet with what they had. But, Jaleah always wanted to get out of that life. She always knew that one day, she would make it out.
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jaleah's perspective.
The sound of my fork scraping against my plate echos throughout the silent dining room. Sitting around the table is Amaiya, my mom, my dad and I but no one is speaking. My parents are upset at Amaiya for being so careless and disobedient the other night, Amaiya is upset that she can't do what she pleases and that her 16th birthday party is cancelled, and I'm just caught in the middle of everything. There's tension in the air and it feels so weird.
"Are you excited for your college tour today?" My dad asks me, trying to make some sort of conversation. He's always the gentle parent who tries to keep the family together.
"Yeah. I just want to make sure I know where all of my classes are. I printed out my schedule so that I know which buildings I need to look out for." I respond.
"Good, good." The room falls silent again. I continue just moving my food around my plate since I don't have much of an appetite. Seeing Tory today makes me nervous because I feel like there's a rift between our families now.
"Are you going with Tory?" My mom asks. I can see Amaiya roll her eyes from the corner of my eye.
"I don't know. I'll see her when I get there, if she comes." I answer.
"I don't think you should speak to her anymore." My mom sternly says. "I called her mother the other day and she agreed that we should keep Amaiya and Tory separate."
I don't say anything. I don't know what to say. Yes, I am upset that Tory let my baby sister get into trouble with the cops and underage drink at a party neither of them should have been at in the first place, but also Amaiya is old enough to know right from wrong. She shouldn't have gone to the party in the first place. I don't really know who to be more upset at.
"So now I can't talk to or see my own god sister?" Amaiya asks.
"Yes. You two clearly don't know how to behave around each other so y'all need to stay away from each other." My mom responds.
Amaiya rolls her eyes again. "Y'all are taking this too far. We snuck out one time! We didn't even get charged with anything. Like y'all are doing too much, for real."
"Amaiya, don't talk to your mother like that."
"No, and you're supposed to be on my side. You sitting back letting your wife run you like you not a grown ass man. You the one that pay the bills in this house but yet, she get to tell you what to do and when to do it. Grow some balls." Amaiya gets up from the table and runs upstairs to her room, slamming her door shut behind her. Neither one of my parents get up and chase after her, we just sit and finish our breakfast in silence.
After breakfast, my parents drive me to Temple's campus for my orientation today, leaving Amaiya home to cool off. Usually, my mom would've gripped my sister up and talked some sense into her, maybe even whopped her, but for some reason she left her alone today. I think my parents are just tired of her antics. Amaiya has always been the problem child, she always got in trouble in school and gave my parents problems, so I think they're just tired now. They don't have the energy to keep dealing with this.
The car ride to Temple is silent, just like most of breakfast. It's already bad enough my relationship with my parents isn't really that close, but now they're stressed and dealing with their own stuff, there's nothing for me to say. It's kind of like everyone in the house is in their own world, but we're living in the same home.
As we get closer to Temple, my mom finally decides to speak up. "If you see Tory, I really do not want you to speak to her, Jaleah."
"Stop nagging that girl. If she wants to talk to her, she can. Jaleah isn't like Amaiya, she's not gonna be talked into sneaking out and partying." My dad defends me.
"You always wanna take up for them! Tory is not a good influence on the girls and you know that! Jaleah does not need to have her around she'll meet plenty of other Godly women in college!"
My parents begin to bicker for the rest of the ride to campus. I just take out my phone and put headphones in, playing some gospel music. Like I said, it's like we're all living in different worlds but in the same house.
Once we get to campus, my dad parks in front of the student center to let me out. My parents don't stop their bickering to say goodbye to me, so I just get out of the car and close the door behind me. I walk off and into the student center and find my orientation group.
"Good morning everyone! We're going to give people a few more minutes before we walk over to where you will break off into groups to sit in a session for your decided major." The tour leader announces.
I look around the student center to see if I see Tory anywhere, but there's no sign of her. Even though my mom said not to speak to her, I at least want to hear what she has to say. I can make my own decisions on who to keep as friends, just like my dad said. And I'm not so easily forced into doing things I don't want to do.
A few minutes later, I see Tory walk through the student center doors. We both make eye contact and she plasters a huge smile on her face as she walks over to me. I fake a smile as well.
"You excited?" She asks as soon as she gets close enough to me.
Seeing her in person after all of this, which I feel like she had a part in causing, is kind of weird. It's like this has been my closest friend for the longest time, like we have gotten through a lot of stuff together, but now everything is weird. At least for me it is.
"Yeah, just for the tour part." I respond. "I don't care much to sit and listen about my major, I've already done enough research on that and know what classes I'm taking."
"Same." Tory responds.
"Okay everyone, we're going to walk you over to where you will break off into different rooms to listen to a presentation about your major, and then we will come back together and go look at campus and at the dorms." The tour guide says. She begins walking and we all follow her out of the building.
We walk over to the other building quietly for the most part. Once we get to the other building, I go to the meeting for nursing majors and Tory goes to the meeting for the business school. After our meetings, we all meet back up to go look at dorms and the rest of campus.
"How's Amaiya doing?" Tory asks as we walk through campus, listening to the tour guide tells us which buildings are which.
"Not great, I guess. She's been arguing with my parents and not really wanting to be around us."
"I don't blame her, though. You should've seen the way your mom snatched her up when she came to pick her up. And they didn't even give me a ride home." Tory says. We stay in the back of the crowd so that we can have a conversation without everyone in our business, and we make sure to keep our voices down.
"I mean, I don't know. I don't know whose side to choose."
"What do you mean?"
"Like on one hand, you and Amaiya were wrong. Y'all shouldn't have snuck out, y'all shouldn't have been drinking and y'all shouldn't have gotten arrested. But on the other hand, my mom does not have to carry on like this and my dad need to speak up sometimes and stop just allowing my mom to treat her kids like this. So I don't know." I explain.
"We were wrong but I don't think that Amaiya deserves to have her birthday party cancelled and to not be able to celebrate the entire summer. That's a little excessive."
"Can we not talk about this?" I ask Tory. "I don't wanna take sides. Everybody was wrong. Let's move on."
Tory doesn't respond after that. We spend the rest of the tour quietly standing beside each other, and, when it's time to go we don't say goodbye to each other.
