CHAPTER 20: LIKE KNIVES

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 "You was my heart, and you still is."...

My real daddy voice echoes in my ears while I drive my new car...

This is my first time coming to my daddy,  Delontae's  house.. way out here in the suburbs.

I been to all of his traphouses around the way, me and all my friends -- but when I pull into Creekbend Estates, and see the big houses and nice grass like Bo's neighborhood, my heart kinda gets excited. And it feels like I'm meeting Tae all over again, for the first time.

But still, I think about my other daddy, Zo Butler. I feel bad for him and I do love him. So I'm gone still get up in the morning and go pay his bills some kinda way. Like I told his drunk ass before I left last night: he still my daddy, and I know he need me. Me and him stuck together through a bunch of shit. So I can't see it no other way. I take a deep breath.

My new car so fresh and clean, it gives me confidence to rememba what Delontae said, and I still got on his ring, so hopefully his family, my new family, will respect it. Half of em already know me and treat me like family. Well, the young folks my age do.. I look around me at how these houses get bigger and bigger the deeper we get to the back of this neighborhood. Miss Beverly led me all the way over here to Vinings, because she didn't want me to get caught without no license. She told me Bo would kill her and be so mad at her if she let somethin' happen to me. She don't know I still got his phone.

"Bo gone have a fit when I tell him yo daddy made you leave, but it's probably best you come on and meetcha folks," Miss Beverly told me.  I stare at the purple balloons tied to the mailbox of this house coming up, and sure enough, Miss Beverly slows up and turns into this driveway. Wow, them balloons must be for me.

I have to grab my stomach I got so many butterflies

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I have to grab my stomach I got so many butterflies. This my family. My whole, new family. This my Grandmama's house. I stare up at it.

Miss Beverly gets out her Benz, and reach back in her window and blow the horn. I keep my gaze and stare up at this mansion, and get out my car.

"It's too damn hot, this long ass driveway shit -- the front door needs to be open, soon as we hit the front damn steps," Miss Beverly explains to me why she blowin' her horn, and I laugh, nervous. The noonday sun just beatin' down. I shade my eyes. This Tae mama, Miss Donna -- my grandmama's house, I remind myself, looking up at this beautiful house again. It's just as big or bigger than Miss Beverly's house. They got one of those driveways that circles all the way around, just like Miss Beverly's too. Bo is used to living like this I think to myself. But I'm not.

 But I'm not

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