The hoodie Hakeem was wearing did little to keep him warm as he stood next to Josiah, with the men they were selling to in front of them. He hated early meetings, but they loved them as if it were less likely that they'd get caught at 6 am.

He waited silently as they looked through duffle bags, smelled and tasted products, before finally giving Josiah a different duffle, "'Preciate y'all man. Same time next month."

Neither of them said anything, both of them ready to go back to the house and go to sleep. When they entered the car, Josiah stretched his arms above his head, "Take me to Kyra house."

"I'm not going nowhere near that crazy bitch."

Josiah reached over to thump him on the side of his head, "Nigga don't call her no bitch. We cool now since she said I can move back in."

"Still don't understand how you got put outta your own house but iight I guess. What you gon' do about the window that we broke?"

"I called the glass repair people that same day."

Hakeem couldn't help but laugh at his friend's 'relationship'. While all that extra shit might've been good with Josiah, he didn't have the patience to be climbing through windows and buying new tires because she sliced the other ones.

It'd been a while since he was only exclusive to one person, highschool days, and even then it didn't work out because she ended up letting some dudes from the football team flip her.

He didn't bother getting in another relationship after that.

"When the last time you talked to Bri?" Josiah asked through a yawn while reclining his seat.

"Yesterday. You know I be eating over there."

"You still ain't came up with no ideas for her mama?"

He shook his head, his mind drifting back to how to solve that problem. Hakeem's first instinct was to deal with things in ways that drew the least amount of attention as possible. Though it took a little finesse, and maybe a lot of time, he could usually talk his way into or out of anything.

It was easier knowing that Alisha was a scammer and was just trying to get money in any way that she could. That ain't mean he was gon' pay her, but it just helped to know what she wanted.

"I mean shit Ian giving her ass no money. I might go shoot at they house or some. Scare 'em a lil bit."

Josiah snorted, "I know you lying."

"I'm not." Hakeem laughed, "Put a couple bullets through the front door, some through the window. I know it's some crackheads who needa make a lil change."

After dropping Josiah off with the psychopath, Hakeem was about to go home before deciding to stop by Monica's house since it 'was on the way'.

He actually had to go an entirely different route, but that's what he told himself.

Stepping out of the car, he looked across the fence at Ms. Darlene, "Goodmorning Ms. D."

She looked up from her garden that hasn't produced flowers since Hakeem was a child, "Hey baby. How you?"

They held a brief conversation, Hakeem going into the house when he was done talking to her. It was quiet, which wasn't surprising since it was early still, but he heard a sound coming from the kitchen and went in to see Monica standing over the stove singing.

"Mama I thought somebody was in here killing you." Hakeem said while giving her a hug, "That singing life ain't for you."

She didn't laugh, looking up at her son with sadness, "Travis is out."

Hakeem leaned against the counter, "And?"

"And he came by here last night."

He stayed silent, still seeing that look of sadness on his mama's face, "I'ma handle that."

Monica shook her head, "That's not why I told you. I wan-."

"It don't matter why you told me." Hakeem interrupted, "I said I'ma handle it."

"So you can end up in prison? I'll be damned."

"Ain't nobody said nothing about killing that man. If I wanted him dead it would've happened while he was in prison."

He honestly didn't know why he said that, anger overtaking the fact that he was having a conversation with his mama. Maybe she knew that he'd killed men before which was why she immediately jumped to that conclusion.

Her eyes flashed to his, and the unhappiness that was there before was replaced with anger, "That's not anything to brag on. Everyone means something to somebody, and you don't get to decide who's worth living and dying."

Hakeem left the situation alone, "You right.

Nodding her head, she went back to looking at the stove, "Where's Brielle?"

"What you mean?"

"You didn't come get her this morning?"

Monica walked by Hakeem's old room earlier and saw the door wide open. She assumed at first that Brielle was in the bathroom, but soon realized she just wasn't in the house.

Going to look for himself, Hakeem saw the bed made and all most of her stuff there. He knew, however, that Brielle didn't need all of that shit.

After searching for her book bag, he gave up, plopping on the bed to think about where she might've gone, when he felt something hard beneath him.

Brielle purposely left it on the bed for him to find, the picture with Mario in the front of the book.

• • •

Shifting slightly, Brielle pressed her back against the concrete wall, ignoring the cold ground beneath her.

Because she left in the middle of the night, she hadn't had the chance to look for a house to sleep in. She didn't feel like she was overreacting by leaving abruptly.

Loyalty was everything to Brielle, especially when she told Hakeem how she felt about people lying to her, a conversation that occurred when she told him she did the rest of the drugs she'd acquired that first night she came to his house.

"A lie is a lie." Brielle pointed out, "If you told her you were going to the Walmart, then went to Target, that's a lie."

Grace was in the middle of arguing with her brother about whether she had lied to their mother about being somewhere she wasn't supposed to.

"Thank you!" Hakeem said loudly, "You just tryna come up with some bullshit excuses but let me catch your ass and see what happen."

"It's nothing to catch! I told you we were at her house then she wanted to go see her cousin, so we went over there."

He shook his head, "Then why you ain't answer when mama called you? Why Jamila mama ain't know where y'all was at?"

"Yeah that do sound a lil suspect." Josiah agreed.

Grace was growing more annoyed that nobody was on her side, glaring at Brielle who she'd expected to take up for her, "So you tell your mama everywhere you going?"

It had the exact effect Grace wanted it to have, Brielle not saying anything in response, looking at Hakeem who was mad that she said that.

"Keep playing with me Grace."

She stood from the couch, "Drop me off at home. I'm not about to listen to this shit."

Later that night, Brielle realized she was a hypocrite. She sat there telling Grace about how lies were lies no matter how you flipped it, only for her to have lied to Hakeem about the last time she'd done drugs.

So while he was in the kitchen frying bologna, she approached him, "You remember that night I came here?"

He glanced at her briefly, looking back to the frying pan, "Yeah."

"I had stuff with me."

Hakeem had no idea where this was going, thinking she was talking about actual stuff, "I really ain't pay it no attention."

"Like, drugs."

Brielle didn't know what exactly she expected him to do since he told her not to do it in his house. Maybe he would put her out, or yell at her.

He didn't do either.

"I know."

"You know?" Brielle asked in confusion.

"You act like Ion know how people act when they on some. You came in this bitch high, so I figured you must've had some more." He reached in the pan to grab the bologna with his hand, "It wasn't no one time and I'm putting you out type shit. I know you been doing it for a minute so it ain't easy to just stop, but I wasn't finna have you living in here and you actively looking for coke."

Silence lingered in the air as she watched him make the sandwich as if there wasn't a problem.

Hakeem slid the plate towards her, dropping another piece in the pan while opening a cabinet, "You gotta put a lil lemon pepper on there and that bitch slap."

They spent the remainder of the night talking, and she felt like they'd connected, looking forward to more conversations with him. The next day, however, he was gone when she woke up, coming home when she was already sleeping, followed by the next morning when Brielle's mom showed up on the front porch.

The cars driving overhead were preventing her from sleeping, as well as the fact that the sun had almost completely risen.

Brielle climbed to her feet, grabbing her book bag off the ground as she started yet another journey with no destination in mind.

• • •

do you guys think brielle is overreacting for leaving or was hakeem wrong for not telling her that he knew the guy that killed kyser?

also, i started my senior year of college today andddd yeah updates are prob just gonna come when they come. i can guarantee at least one update a week, but anything beyond that is up in the air.

thanks for reading 💕