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listen to you and i by john legend while reading this chapter.
After going to the mall with my girls for a few hours, we decided to get something to eat and smoke in a parking lot for a bit.
"Y'all ever wonder if ya people looking down at you from up there?" Boosie says out of nowhere, breaking the silence between us. The music playing quietly in the background.
I loved times like this with them...when we just sat back and chilled, smoking our heads off and talking about life. These girls were my life if we were being honest. Probably some of the only people I could actually trust in this life.
We had all known each other for years and when I wasn't around them, I was around Von, Milli, and them other niggas. They were the closest people I had to an actual brother.
My brother was close to all of them, we lived around em all of our damn lives but I wasn't aware of them until he introduced to me. He was the reason I met Nuni and T-boo in the first place.
I was only 7, but he was 10 years old and at that point he had been friends with the boys for about 3 years before I was even half way interested in who he was cool with.
He introduced me to Nuni and T-boo on my 7th birthday and we instantly clicked, been friends with them hoes ever since. We met Boosie when we were 11 years old, she was getting picked on for being new so we took her into our little group.
As we grew up, I started seeing milli as more than a friend. He was only a year older than me but to me he was in a whole other lane compared to me and I wanted him.
The same attraction I took to him, I guess T-boo took that same attraction to my brother because they started to get closer until they were almost impossible to keep away from each other so nobody tried.
They were the cutest couple ever, together for almost 3 years when it happened. My brother got caught up in some street shit and he was shot walking to his car after leaving the trap.
His death hit all of us hard, his homeboys separated themselves from us for a while because they didn't want us to get hurt. If would have made us feel safer if they had been there for us though.
T-boo and I were affected for the longest though, she couldn't even come into our house without having a panic attack or crying for almost half a year.
When she finally did get the courage to come into the house, she went straight to his room and broke down while looking at their pictures he kept on his wall. That night all the girls came over and we vented together, letting everything come out.
After almost an entire year, things started to go back to normal... well as normal as it could after we had been mourning for so long.
We started talking to the niggas again eventually. Milli and I got back on track, things were looking up for me for once after everything that had happened.
Then my mom got in an accident one night after visiting Tj's grave. She survived but nothing was ever really the same after that, she was paralyzed from the waist down and I was the only one that was around to take care of her.
My dad left early in my life, when I was still a baby and he got himself a whole new family with some white bitch from arizona. He never called and he definitely said nothing when my brother, his oldest son died and my mother got paralyzed.
All in all, the last few years of my life had been living hell but I still held on... not just for my brother but for my friends and my mom. I almost didn't hold on, that's a story for another time though.
"Xyla...you good boo?" I heard nuni ask, causing me to look away from the window. feeling the tears falling down my cheeks now, not even realizing that I had been crying.
"I miss him so much." I try to say, my voice cracking as I start to sob loudly. Locking eyes with T-boo as she started to tear up also.
It had been 3 years and I still got emotional around this time, with Tj's birthday and his death day around the corner. I tried to stay strong, but it's only so much that someone could take.
I felt T-boo pull me closer to her, her hands shaking as she began to cry also. You and i playing quietly in the background as we held eachother.
I felt empty but so full as we all sat in the car, crying together at a loss that we all suffered through together. You could hear our sobs and whimpers as we all cried in the emptiness of the parking lot.
~
I knocked on Milli's door, hearing him turn down the music he played loudly in the room. I listened to his footsteps until he got to the door and opened it.
He snatched the door open, getting ready to spazz before he saw me at the door with tears in my eyes. He pulled me into his chest, rubbing my back as I cried into his shirt.
He walked backwards, closing the door as he picked me up and took me over to the bed. Grabbing a shirt for me from his drawer, standing beside me and helping occasionally as tears still flowed down my cheeks.
He got into the bed and sat back before he sat me in his lap, rocking slightly as I tried to talk through my tears. "It's okay, I know xy. Let it out, I got you ." He whispered in my ear as he kissed my forehead.
That night I cried myself to sleep in the arms of the boy that I love, feeling safe because I was there with him. I took the time to talk to my brother as I faded into sleep.
I miss you so much Tj. Nothing has been the same since you've been gone.
