Sweet Thing

Sneak Peek!!!

---Excerpt from Black Queenz---

***Ra***

"Samira, I want you to be good for grandma and grandpa, okay?" I had tears in my eyes, but I couldn't let them go. It'd only make it all worse.

"Okay, but why you gotta leave, Ra?" she asked, wiping her face dry. "Me and LaLa gonna be alone here. And Khalil be mean to us, too. You can't go, Ra."

"I gotta. My dad wants me to live with him. But I'll visit y'all, I promise."

I knew I shouldn't have promised since I wasn't completely sure. I'd only be moving thirty minutes away, but that was like thirty thousand miles to Samira since she was only five and a half. She didn't really understand any of this situation.

LaLa jogged down the steps and jumped on the couch when she saw me. She was eight, so she understood, but it didn't mean she wasn't gonna fight it for as long as she could.

"Ra, when you gonna come back?" she wanted to know.

"I don't know when, but I will," I replied, patting her shoulder. "I gotta go say goodbye to Khalil now, girls. My dad is on the way and I wanna get to him, too."

I called his name from the bottom of the steps and waited. My grandparents wouldn't be there to say good bye before I left since they were at work, but I knew they wouldn't be able to anyway. It'd just hurt them.

They'd been raising me and my siblings for nearly three years now. It started when my mother had switched to working nights, and she just needed them to watch us for a few nights a week. She just started working more and more, and eventually, we ended up living with them. My mom still did her best to visit every weekend, but she couldn't support four kids and her taste for liquor and ugly men on the same budget.

After a few moments without response, I ran up the steps to find Khalil. Knowing him, he was probably playing video games or watching anime. When I knocked on the door that used to be my room, Khalil opened it with a PS3 controller in his hand.

"I'm leaving any minute, bro," I told him. "I just wanted to say bye."

"Oh, I forgot." He cleared his throat and we bumped fists. His lip trembled like it did when our mom first told us that we wouldn't live with her anymore.

"I'll miss you, my dude."

"Yeah," he muttered. "See you around, Ra." I was ready to say something else to him, but I heard a car honk outside. It was my dad. I had to go.

Khalil marched down the stairs behind me, so Samira and LaLa followed closely with their heavy frowns drooping off their faces. I picked up two of my bags, and Khalil carried my last little one that held my shoe box full of cash. My grandma was always telling me to put it in the bank, but I didn't trust them or the government. I'd heard of those bankers embezzling and making off with billions. They weren't gonna get a dime from me.

"Hey, Rashaa. How you been, baby girl?" my dad asked. I hated when he tried to act like the two of us were really close or something. I wanted to tell him in that second that he could go sit on a cactus and eat a booty sandwich, but the girls were still out there with me and I didn't want them to her me say mean things. I'd made it my New Year's resolution to stop cussing, too.

"Fine," I mumbled. I wanted to speak to him as little as possible. He'd gone all this time without giving two you-know-whats about me, but now that he saw I'd be turning eighteen in less than a year and that I hadn't grown out of my tomboy phase, he thought he needed to swoop in and try to change me.

"Hey, kids. How are y'all?" The girls let out deflated little 'hellos,' but Khalil had turned his frown into a grimace and tried to mask his sadness with anger the way preteen boys do.