Getting Played Page 2

  “No, wait. You said the same thing yesterday and the day before. Do you know if maybe it was already sent or faxed to Hazelhurst?”

  “No, we don’t do that and I’d have a record of that anyway.”

  “But I’m supposed to transfer to Hazelhurst Academy Monday morning.”

  “I’ll check the computer,” she says, obviously getting annoyed, but still she types in my name. The screen changes, so I guess my records come up. She shakes her head slowly. “There’s nothing here as far as your records are concerned regarding a transfer. There’s a transfer in from a month and a half ago. That’s it.”

  “No, that’s wrong.”

  “Hold on.” She turns around and yells out to other staffers. “Hey, anybody have transfer paperwork on Denise Lewis?”

  “No, Kenisha Lewis, my name is Kenisha Lewis,” I reiterate.

  “Make that Kenisha Lewis.” She waits a half second. Nobody responds, but it wasn’t like anybody was actually paying attention to what she said anyway.

  She shrugs. “Are you sure you’re supposed to transfer?”

  “Yes. Like I said, I passed the readmission test. They said it would only take a few days. That was two weeks ago. The new grading period begins Monday. I talked to the assistant principal at the end of last week. He said he was going to contact Hazelhurst Academy and see what was going on. Do you know if he did that?”

  “No. I don’t see anything about that, and he’s been out sick all week.”

  “Can you contact him and see what happened?”

  “No,” she says flatly.

  “So what do I do then?” I ask.

  She shrugs and looks at the student behind me and nods. “Next!”

  I guess I got my answer.

  CHAPTER 2

  Down Another Rabbit Hole

  “The ending in a fairy tale is almost the same thing as waking up from a nightmare. They both seem real at the time. But when you look closer you see the cracks in reality.”

  —Facebook.com

  NOW what?

  I’m standing here trying to figure out what just happened. Okay, I’m not stupid. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m sixteen years old, smart, focused and can take care of myself—mostly. I live with my grandmother and sometimes with my dad. But all that is to say that I’m no fool. I have a good head on my shoulders. Okay, maybe I had some problems before, but all that’s over with now. See, back then, I trusted the wrong people and almost got myself jammed up. I messed up. I admit it. But I’m fine now. Well, not really. The thing is I’m not where I’m supposed to be. I was supposed to be out of Penn Hall five days ago.

  So being pissed is an understatement. I storm out of the administrative office and head down the hall to my locker. Seriously, this can’t be happening. Every time I try to get my life back together, something happens to get in my way. I know I did everything I was supposed to do. I studied, I passed the stupid test and I got the readmission letter. Something had to have happened after that. I gotta figure out what. My dad—I need to find him. He was supposed to write Hazelhurst Academy a check last week. As far as I can figure, that’s the only thing holding everything up. I need to make sure he did what he was supposed to do. I pull out my cell and send him a text message.

  I don’t really expect an answer. I called him three times this week and texted him like twice every day. He’s been MIA. Okay, I get it. I know my dad’s been distracted lately. It’s the whole new family thing that gets him all weirded out. I guess a new baby in the house can do that. And I know dealing with Courtney, my dad’s live-in whatever, and her crazy-ass self can do that, too. Now that she’s dealing with that postpartum thing it must really be a hot mess.

  I went over there last weekend, but only stayed one night. Courtney was screaming her head off. The thing is, she’s usually screaming her head off about something. But last weekend she was unreal, even by her standards. She kept yelling about wanting my dad to marry her and swearing if he didn’t she’d never speak to him again.

  Really, truthfully, I don’t think that was much of a threat. Knowing my dad, Courtney not speaking to him was probably exactly what he wanted. Then of course, seeing his expression as he ran out of the house more than proved the point. I didn’t see him the rest of the night. That didn’t stop Courtney from still losing her mind.

  The boys, Kenneth James Jr., named after my dad, and Jason, my other half brother, stayed by my side the whole time I was there. They even slept in my bedroom. They fell asleep on my bed watching Monsters, Inc. I didn’t have the heart to move them to their bedroom. I felt bad for them. When I was leaving, they cried and wanted to come with me. Courtney was pissed, and my dad was MIA as usual. It’s a trick he perfected years ago. When there’s drama, he disappears. So Saturday afternoon I left.

  “Kenisha.”

  I turn around to see Ms. Grayson standing in the hall. I must have blown right past her without even seeing her. “I gotta go, Ms. Grayson,” I say, before she adds more drama to my day.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, and start walking again.

  “Hold up. Whatever it is you have to do can wait a few minutes.” She walks over to me with her eyebrows all scrunched together frowning. “Now, what’s going on with you lately? A month ago you were my best student. Now you’re surly, angry and ambivalent. Your grades are all over the board lately. You’re not focusing. Are you having family problems?” she asks.

  I start laughing. “Me, family problems—you gotta be kidding, right? Which ones?” I ask sarcastically. She looks at me. I hate having to explain. “Okay, you mean the family problem where my dad kicked me and my mom out of our Virginia house a few months ago, so he could move his pregnant girlfriend in. Or maybe you’re talking about the one where my mom took a handful of pills and killed herself. Oh, and then there’s some drug dealing nut-job in the neighborhood who tried to rape me two weeks ago. So exactly which family drama are you talking about?”

  She looks stunned. “Kenisha, I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

  “Well don’t be. Like I said before, I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. Come on. Let’s go back to the classroom and talk. We can figure some of this out.”

  “I can’t. I have to go home and take care of something, then everything will be fine after that.” I start walking away.

  “Kenisha, wait.”

  “I gotta go, Ms. Grayson.”

  “All right, Kenisha, but I want to talk to you first thing Monday morning. I get in early and I don’t have a first period class. Just tell your teacher to call me and I’ll excuse you from the class.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, knowing as soon as I talk to my dad, that isn’t going to happen. So I hurry to my locker but know I’m already too late ’cause I can hear them before I even turn the corner. Troy and his boys are at his locker, which is right next to mine. Crap, more drama. This is the last thing I need. I’m so not in the mood for him. I start walking toward my locker, ignoring him as his boys back up smiling. Troy turns around. He sees me. Shit. Here we go.

  “Hey, it’s Kenishiwa. You waiting around for me,” he says.

  I roll my eyes and just keep walking. I’m so not in the mood for this right now. The thing is I know he’s kind of seeing Sierra, so why he’s always up in my face is beyond me. Troy Carson is one of the most popular guys in school. That’s mostly because he plays football and runs track. He’s in the eleventh grade, same as me, and already he has college teams checkin’ him. Most of the girls think he’s cute and some admitted to already sleeping with him just for the props. They’d probably cut off a limb to have their locker next to his. Me, I could care less. He’s loud and obnoxious and thinks he’s the shit.

  Right now he leans back against my locker and smiles at me. I walk over and glare at him. “Excuse me,” I say, knowing it isn’t going to be that easy.

  His eyes are real dark brown, and they do this twinkle thing. His skin is milk chocolate and
smooth like silk. He’s tall with wide shoulders and thick biceps. He dresses nice, really nice, and I hear his family has deep pockets. He has nice hair that he keeps cut short, and he wears a small earring in each earlobe. Okay, fine, I admit it. He’s cute and all, but he’s still an asshole.

  His smile widens as he slowly moves to the side, allowing me to get to my locker. But he’s still too close. He leans down and talks loud enough for his boys to hear. “So, Kenishiwa, what you doin’ this weekend? I know your boy D’s not around anymore and everybody knows he was tappin’ that on the regular, so why don’t you come over to my place? You and me can hang out.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Don’t act like you don’t know. I can give you what you need now that your boy’s not around.” His friends start laughing, slapping hands and bumping fists.

  I sigh heavily, then spin my combination and open my locker. I know I just have to ignore him. I pivot my shoulder, and the door swings wider almost clipping his face. He jerks back quickly. His boys start laughing again, but I ignore them, too. I grab my jacket and then everything else except for the school books that I need to turn back in. It’s mostly empty anyway ’cause I thought I was leaving today.

  Troy leans against another locker looking directly at me. He keeps talking, spouting off his usual crap about going out with him. His boys, a brainless bunch of football jocks, look on laughing moronically. It’s like every stupid typical high school scene from every stupid typical high school movie ever made. It’s so old and tired. Seriously, can he really be this dumb? I can imagine in another ten years, he’ll be the guy who gets slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit and considers it business as usual. But whatever, I just keep grabbing my stuff and say nothing.

  “So what, you ain’t talking now?”

  “Please, talking to you is an exercise in futility.”

  “What?” he says, apparently clueless. Seeing his expression, it hits me. He probably doesn’t know what I just said. His boys, standing behind him, start laughing at him instead of with him.

  He glares at me. His expression is completely blank, and he’s speechless. It occurs to me that saying something so obviously sarcastic might have whiplashed his brain. Still, Troy Carson speechless. I kinda like the sound of that. All of a sudden I’m feeling much better, so I keep going. “For real, your ego is unbelievable. Exactly what fragments of your tiny cerebrum have disconnected from your vocal cords?”

  “What did you just say to me?” he mumbles, obviously trying to figure out what I said. See, in this school, girls aren’t supposed to talk to him like this. He’s Troy Carson, football player, quarterback and the shit. We’re just supposed to jump when he says so and be happy about it. Not.

  “You heard exactly what I said.” I’m smiling as I close my locker. “Tell you what, when you figure out what that means, get back to me.” Of course now I’m lovin’ this ’cause his boys are really laughing at him now even though they don’t have a clue, either. I look at them. They are all cracking up except one, Boyce. I don’t know his last name. He’s not the type of person you want to know all that well. He’s a stone-cold thug with serious lockdown issues. Everything about him pointed to an ending involving a needle in the arm or a bullet in the head. It was just a matter of time for either or both.

  “Come on, man, screw her stuck-up ass. We ain’t got time for this shit. We got stuff to do,” Boyce says anxiously.

  “Nah, nah, I want to hear this,” Troy begins playfully.

  “You’s a stupid ass, why you kissing up behind her, man?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t need her shit. Let’s go.”

  “Yo, man, can you hold up a minute?” Troy says. The other guys are deathly quiet. No one seems to even be breathing.

  “Yo, screw this and screw this schoolgirl shit.”

  Troy turns to him, and the rest of his crew seem to take a step back. Nobody says a word and I just stand there, ’cause it is obvious something is about to jump off since Boyce had stepped up to Troy. “Let’s go, man,” Boyce reiterates forcefully.

  Troy doesn’t say anything to him this time. He just turns back to me. “A’ight this time—frontin’ with jokes just ’cause you think you know two big words.”

  “That’s two more than you know,” I say, as I start walking away. I had enough of this game. Unfortunately, I have to walk past his friends to get to my exit. Boyce glares at me as I pass him. I swear he looked like pure evil. I looked away. Hell, I wasn’t crazy.

  “Bitch,” Troy says, loud enough for me to hear.

  “Takes one to know one, bitch,” I whisper under my breath louder than I thought. His boys hear me and start laughing at him again.

  “What did you say?” he asks quickly.

  “That’s an excellent question, Mr. Carson. Exactly what did you just say?”

  Everybody turns and sees Ms. Grayson approaching. Troy doesn’t turn. Instead he’s looking right at me. His eyes are really dark as he glares. I know he’s pissed, but right now I don’t really care. Ms. Grayson pulls him to the side. His boys start walking away slowly.

  I walk away, knowing he’d have a headache the rest of the day. Ms. Grayson is talking to him about having respect. He said something, blaming me, but I didn’t hear it. I start laughing anyway. Okay, I admit it. That was fun. Messing with Troy’s head was like playing with my little brothers. The only difference is they’re not yet five. Still, mentally there’s not a lot of difference.

  So I get to the end of the hall nearest my exit and see my ex-friend Cassie. She’s sitting on the bench at the exit. We used to meet up like this all the time and walk home together. She stands when I approach. I shake my head and roll my eyes. I know this bitch isn’t about to try and talk to me after everything she did.

  “Kenisha, can we talk?” she says quietly.

  I have nothing to say to her. Still don’t, so I just keep walking. I don’t even bother saying, “hell, no.”

  “Kenisha. Kenisha. Kenisha.”

  She keeps calling me, so I finally stop and stare at her like she’s crazy. I can’t believe she has the nerve to try and talk to me after what she did. Like I’m not supposed to remember she caused all this drama in the first place. Having somebody stab me in the back once is all the lesson I need to learn. I don’t trust her, and she knows it. So how am I supposed to be friends with someone I don’t trust? I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, or what she’s up to, but whatever.

  She hurries and stands in front of me, blocking my way. “Kenisha, I know you’re mad at me. But for real, it wasn’t my fault. Whatever happened, I don’t remember most of it. I swear. It was Darien. He gave me something. He made me do it. I didn’t want to call you like that. But I was scared of him. He said he was gonna cut me if I didn’t call you. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I swear I didn’t.”

  I don’t say anything to her. I just start walking again. She’s still playing all innocent. She does that all the time. Nobody knows what she’s really like, but I do. I saw it in her eyes that night. At least with my used-to-be friend Chili Rodriguez, we all knew she was a hater. But Cassie is undercover with her stuff.

  “Kenisha, wait, it wasn’t my fault. It was Darien.”

  “Look, Cassie,” I finally say, breaking my long silence with her, “I’m done with all that mess. I don’t really care.”

  “So can’t we be friends again?” she asks quietly.

  I just look at her thinking about everything she did to set me up. “You called me on the phone. You lied and told me Ursula needed my help. Then when I went over there, you ran out and left me alone with crazy-ass Darien. Friends! Please, do you really need me to answer that question?” To her credit, she looked almost horrified at hearing what I’d said. Like she didn’t know, please.

  “Kenisha, I’m sorry. I was scared and Darien gave me something. I didn’t know what he was gonna do, I swear.”

  “Whatever. Like I sa
id, I’m done with all that drama.” I move around her to walk away.

  “But, wait. I know you’re still mad at me, but I just wanted to warn you that he knows about the stuff you took from him.”

  “What stuff I took? I didn’t take anything from him.”

  “He thinks you did, from his room that night.”

  “I don’t know what game he’s playing, but I didn’t take anything from his room. Why would I? I don’t need or want anything from him.”

  She shrugs. “That’s just what I heard,” she says.

  Okay, this is more drama that I don’t need to be dealing with right now. Darien was locked up and that’s all I care about. “Whatever,” I say and start walking again. So a minute later I get outside and see that it’s been drizzling. It’s not enough to soak everything but just enough to be messy. I pull my hoodie up, put my earbuds in but decide not to turn my music on just yet. I adjust my backpack on my shoulder, then start walking. Mostly everybody else takes a school bus and they’re all gone, but since I only live a few blocks away, I walk.

  Darien, Cassie, Troy, forget all that. I need to focus and try to figure out what happened to my transfer papers. But also, there’s a tingling feeling in the back of my mind thinking that it was all some big joke on me. Like it never happened, like I never passed the readmission test, and the letter was just a mistake.

  I walk home alone and it’s okay with me. It gives me time to think. The last thing I need are more pretend friends like Cassie and Chili. I have for-real friends, Jalisa and Diamond, and that’s enough for me. So, I’m walking and trying to figure out what happened, then I hear somebody calling my name. I keep walking like I don’t hear anything, but it’s kinda hard not to. They’re screaming my name across the parking lot. I seriously don’t want to be bothered right now.

  CHAPTER 3

  From Bad to Worse, to Even Worse