Debt

1: Collected

Abrielle felt the flash of cameras as she accepted her diploma and shook hands with the principal, smiling wide.

She tossed her cap up with the graduating class of 2009, hugging her friends, Trina and Larielle.

The threesome took pictures together, smiling wide for their parents' cameras, arms around each other.

The girls had been friends since freshman year. They had discovered that all three of them were Latina, spoke Spanish, and liked them some Antonio Banderas. That man knew he was sexy!

The three were inseparable, always spending the nights with each other, up until three in the morning on school nights, giggling. They did everything together: homework, talent shows, prom fashion show, prom.

"Barbecue at Trina's!" Abrielle announced, smiling at her friend.

Trina raised a brow, looking at her friend. "Don't be inviting folks to my cookout, Bri!"

Abrielle giggled, taking her robe off and giving it to her mother. The three families rode out, heading to Trina's parents' house. Theirs was the largest and had the most backyard.

Her father started the grill and her mother started the fish fryer. Trina's older brother, Daryl, started playing music, throwing a flirtatious smile over at Abrielle. She blushed, looking down.

She danced with him when he came over and asked her to dance. "You turn eighteen this summer?" he asked. She nodded.

Daryl was twenty-four. And although she assured him that a relationship was legal, he told her he'd rather she be of age. Well, she was almost there.

"What do you have planned for your birthday?"

"I'm trying to waitress at this high scale café at a hotel a little ways out," she told him. "Then I can move out of my parents' house. I might stay though. My daddy said I can drive his car," she said smiling.

Honestly, the car was a metal piece of shit with an engine. But if it got her where she had to be, she wasn't going to complain about its state and instead make it work.

When there was fish done, no one had to tell Abrielle twice. She was on it!

After the cookout, Abrielle's parents went home, kissing her head and hugging her tightly. "We'll see you in the morning. Have fun."

"I love you."

Her parents simultaneously told her, "I love you, too." Then they were gone.

She went in the house and took her shower behind Trina before putting on her sweatpants and the t-shirt she got for the senior all night party. She put her hair in a ponytail and headed out with her friends, walking to the high school.

"What should we do first?" Larielle wondered as they checked in.

"Eat!" Abrielle said and laughed, as if she hadn't just left a cookout an hour ago.

"Greedy ass," Trina told her, rolling her eyes.

Abrielle laughed, pulling her friends into the caf. They went to get slushies and sat down to play a hand of Tonk with a teacher.

She asked about the girls' future plans, and Trina was accepted into Spelman and her family was driving with her down to Atlanta in July. Larielle was staying closer to home and going to Eastern Michigan University on a full scholarship.

"I'm going to WC3 and trying to work," Abrielle told her.

Abrielle was a stellar student, but she knew that even on a scholarship to any university, she would have living expenses, and staying home was free.