There I was, standing in a Party City aisle with gold light up glasses that had 2016 across them for the New Year. I turned around to show the glasses to my mother, who was shopping for last minute party decorations for the house.
"Aubrey Sumia Moore, are you just gonna stand there playing with glasses or are you actually gonna help your mother find decorations?" She said with a frustrated tone. I put the glasses in the cart, and helped her look for gold and black decorations and utensils. After almost half an hour of shopping, I put a few sets of plastic champagne flutes in the cart before we headed to the register to check out. My oldest brother popped in the store with two bags from the supermarket that was in the same lot. Each bag contained two bottles of sparkling apple cider, as requested by my mother. He waited until we were finished in the Party City before he walked to the car with us, and drove off.
My brother drove through the overly crowded streets of downtown Philadelphia to stop by his probation officer's office for his last check in, of this year that is. I stretched my legs out across the entire backseat, and grabbed my phone from my Louis Vuitton Speedy 30. I unlocked my phone, looking at the ton of Instagram notifications on my screen. I clicked on one, which lead to a comment under my most recent picture. Frowning my face up almost immediately at the comment, my fingers started typing as fast as lighting and before I knew it, I was arguing with a former friend, who was faker than the synthetic pack hair in her head. I mentally rolled my eyes at the thought of me actually entertaining this girl. She was ridiculous, and not to mention, she deserved this curse out. Anybody that wears fishnet stockings with a denim skort and a crop top, and "compliments" it with leg warmers that don't match at all in the wintertime needs to be cursed out. I wrapped up the little Instagram argument, and decided to post my last picture of 2015. I posted a picture of me holding my Louis Vuitton bag and wearing my white low-top Giuseppe Zanotti sneakers — just to be petty because I knew that "ol' girl" would see it. Underneath the picture was a long, drawn-out caption about how I was thankful for all of the negative forces in my life because they made me stronger.
About four hours later it was finally nine o'clock. The food was finished cooking on the stove, the decorations were hung, and my mother was filling up the last of the champagne flutes.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
All of my siblings were out enjoying the night, while I was stuck home with my mother, since I was the youngest. All of a sudden, the doorbell rang and my mother hurried to the door and opened it. In walked three men, two of them I knew and the other one was unfamiliar looking. I didn't know him, but trust and believe me, I sure as hell wanted to. He was finer than fine, and my eyes traced his every move when he walked through the door. He walked in after Tyhir and Tymir, two twins that I grew up with on the block. They were older than me by three, maybe, four years at the most and looked out for me like they were my own blood. The twins hugged and smiled at my mom, while mystery man also greeted her. He was about six foot one, caramel brown skin with freshly done, long braids. The logo on the sleeve of his puffy black coat read Moncler and matched his shirt, as well as his sneakers. His sneakers were Gucci, and he wore a pair of dark wash Mike Amiri jeans. He smelled like Jean Paul Gaultier with a slight undertone of marijuana. The tattoos all over his arms and hands were exposed when he removed his coat and draped it on the coat rack. I glanced at him and got a smile out of him. Lord Jesus, this man was fine, but in the back of my mind I knew damn well that he was older than me.
I finally caught his name an hour after he arrived at my house. They called him Snoop and apparently he was super close with the twins. I damn near stalked him the entire night, he was perfect. The only problem was that I know for a fact, he wouldn't want to be messing around with a fifteen (and a half) year old, whether I was in high school or not. I caught him glancing at me a few times during the night, trying to act like he wasn't but I was playing the same game he was — hard to get.
"5...4...3...2...1, Happy New Year! Wooo!" shouted my mother as she brought the champagne filled plastic flutes to everyone. I held my plastic flute in my hand as I watched everyone on the television in Times Square. There was confetti in everyone's hair, balloons were floating amongst the crowd of couples who were kissing since the countdown. Drunk men and women were screaming into the camera, excited and filled with adrenaline. The camera man panned the entire scene one more before heading back to talk to the host of "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve." I chugged the champagne down before sitting my empty flute on to the coffee table. A few gun shots went off outside of the house and was followed up with a round of fireworks. Everyone in the house was excited for the new year except for me. It was meaningless, a new year never really changes anybody or their bullshit. Period. I walked to the kitchen and made myself a plate of pot roast, collard greens and black eyed peas. My phone was blowing up with text messages and notifications from family and friends wishing me a "Happy New Year". By the time I returned to the living room with my plate, Snoop and the twins had their coats back on and were on their way out. They hugged my mother goodbye and told her that they planned on heading to the club. Of course, she told them to be safe, she had to... those boys were reckless. I hugged the twins and waved goodbye as they left before shutting and locking the door behind them. I went to sleep that night with the image of Snoop imprinted in my mind. All I could think about was when and how I would see him again, so I could get to know him. Forget that "being too young" bull shit, I wanted him, badly. I was destined to make Snoop mine in 2016.
