South Side, Baby ~ Shameless

12

When Lip and Ian told me they found a new way to make money this summer I never figured it would be fighting.

I also didn't think I'd get into it.

Lip takes my jacket as it's my turn. I disconnect my meter and hand it to him. I step out into the middle.

The other girl is at least half my height and half my size but she probably didn't grow up on the south side or had been in a gang.

She takes a swing and I duck, nailing her in the jaw. She stumbles back and tries to take another hit. She doesn't get a single one in.

I win. And I also win the money.

"We should just have her fight instead of Lip. She's a lot better." Mandy says as we walk home.

"No. This isn't going to be a usual thing of you fighting. Last thing I need is Fiona knowing I'm doing this let alone that I dragged the two of you into it." Lip says passing me the cigarette. I reconnected my meter so now it's beeping as it reloads.

We part ways with Mandy and we go home. We go inside the house and I see Fiona she's standing by the couch. Ian and Lip go upstairs to bed.

I look at the TV. A picture of crime scene tape is plastered across it. "A teenage girl shot and killed. Doctors trying to save her but she died hours later." Fiona turns around and grabs me as I see my best friends face plastered across the TV.

"Livy, calm down. Breathe." Fiona grabs me and holds me as i start to cry.

"No. They're wrong. It can't be her." I can barely breathe. The meter beeps loudly three times and Fiona lowers me onto the ground as I seize.

It's the quickest I've ever went into one and the quickest I've came out of one. Lip and Ian are downstairs and they kind of stand back as Fiona helps me sit against the couch.

"It's real, Livy. Vontay is in the hospital too. V just called and told me. They've been there all night." Fiona says. She hugs me and I just cry.

"Do they know what happened?" I ask.

"They said it was probably a drive by. The bullet went through her and got Vontay. He tried to save her." Fiona says. She grabs me and I start sobbing more.

"I want to go see him." I say. She nods.

"In the morning. You need to get some rest." Lip helps me upstairs and he sleeps next to me. But I don't sleep.

——-

I go to see Vontay early the next morning. He got discharged late last night. I'm there so early Kev and V aren't even up. He looks at me when I walk in.

"Livy, come here." He reaches his arms out and I walk over.

"Where did it get you? I don't want to hurt you." I say. He pulls me against him and I start crying.

"I tried to save her. Know that. I don't want you to hate me." He says.

"I don't hate you. I'm glad she wasn't alone." I say. He hugs me against him and I just say there.

"Have you slept?" I shake my head.

He moves over on the bed and I lay next to him. I end up falling asleep. I feel him move and it holds me awake. V is in there checking his arm where the bullet grazed him.

"Go back to sleep. You're fine." Vontay tells me. I shake my head and sit up.

"I want to go out flowers on the corner." I say. Vontay looks at me confused. "The corner is where we sit up things for everyone who has been killed in a drive by from the south side. There's a lot." I say.

"I'll go with you."  He says standing up.

"If you do you are careful." V tells him.

We leave soon after. I get the things from the house that I got to put up for Addy. I'm using a picture from a few years ago of the two of us here. She was staying the night because her house was even worse than mine.

Her dad was a heroin addict and they had just got stable housing not long ago. Her mom was dead. She died when she had Addy's brother.

Vontay puts his arm around me and gives me a side hug.

We walk up to the corner and I set everything up. No one has put anything up for her yet. I set everything up and stand back.

"Her funeral is tomorrow. Her dad wanted her in the ground quick I guess." I tell Vontay.

He hugs me against him. "When's Dom coming back?" He asks.

"End of the summer basically. He's deployed until then. Unless he gets kicked out." I say. Vontay laughs a little.

"He probably will." Vontay says as we walk back.

"That was Addy's vote. I owed her a pack of camal's if he did." I'm trying not to cry again.

I just lost my best friend. Everything is falling apart.