Separate But Equal

Not So Different

Three times, three times he's kissed me, and two of those times I've kissed back. What's happening to me, he's the enemy. Why is he always there when something goes wrong? Damnit, I need answers.

"Selena!!" I yell out in my head.

"What ya need babydoll?"

"What's happening, why is he getting to me like this?"

"I can't answer that pud I can only warn you of things about to happen." Great, she wasn't any help. Tonight I'm at one of my dads meetings, most of the time I'm never at a meeting.

"Okay," My dad says rising from his seat at the long business table. "so Aaron Brown and his people know about Zahra cause she's in the open now. She's the most innocent one we got I need y'all to watch her for real."

"Dad I can," He stopped me right there.

"I know you can take care of yourself. But please just listen to me." I nodded, and left cause I knew there was no point in fighting he'd already made his statement clear. I wanted to clear my head, so I went out for a run. I sped right past Langston like I've done ever since that night. I took off on my usual route that I always take when I go on a run. I get to my normal stop that I stop at before I turn back to run home, but something kept telling me to run further. The closer I got to wherever I wanted to go the more my birthmark burned, and the more my shoulder hurt. Minutes later I felt like I was in the right place so I stopped. I spotted little specks of blood on the concrete so I followed it. I heard somebody's voice. Touching my burning shoulder I felt trickles of liquid on it. I looked at my hand to see it was blood. What the fuck? I got closer to where the voice and blood were coming from to see the person.

"Chris?" He jumped and looked to where I was.

"Zah, what you doing out here?" Honestly I don't even know how to answer that. Like I can't just say 'Oh nothing just a vibe told me to come this way.' I chose not to answer at all. Walking closer I could see he was tending to a bloody shoulder.

"Let me help." I offered taking the medical supplies. "What happened?"

"Drug deal gone wrong. Got shot by one of the youngins, and- Ahhh!" He yelled as I pulled the bullet out and put pressure on the wound.

"The fuck you doing going by yourself on something like that?"

"Last minute, I'm my dads best worker." I patched it up after I stopped the bleeding, and cleaned the wound with antiseptic. "How do you know how to do all of this?" He was referring to the fact that I just cleaned a gunshot wound like it was nothing.

"Langston." I admitted. He looked at me as if he wanted me to continue so I did. "I was spending the night at his place, and he got called for a run. The deal didn't go wrong one of the guys turned on him, and shot him in the leg. He told me him and my brother took the guy out when he did it. But anyway he came back all bloodied, and he wouldn't go to the hospital so he just told me what to do. The whole process has stuck with me since then." I stared off thinking about that night, I was scared as hell I begged him to let me take him to a hospital, but I went along and did it myself.

"Don't do that?"

"Do what?"

"Think about that nigga, it's only gone hurt you?"

"How'd you...?"

"It's in ya facial expression." He went from sincere to worried. "What happened to your arm?" I looked at my shoulder and shrugged.

"Don't know." He patched me up just like I'd done to him minutes ago. I wonder if Langston would have done this for me? Lately I've been wondering a lot of things about him. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss him we got a history.

"Tell me about him." I heard snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Huh?" I was taken aback.

"You keep drifting to him, you miss him. So talk about him."

"I'd always had a thing for Langston even when we were kids. It was always me him and Julian. Three amigos, even though Julian was my brother I always drifted to Langston. So you can imagine how I felt when I was twelve, and he was thirteen when he told me he liked me too. From then on it was us together always, our first kiss was in my room. The first time I had sex with him was the first time we told each other we loved each other." As I talked to him I thought about all the good times I had with him. Then the image of him in bed with that girl filled my head. Surprisingly I didn't cry I just felt anger and hurt.

"I'm not gonna lie and say I know the feeling cause I don't, I've had Draya telling me she loves me since we were little. But I know it's not true she's in love with me for what I have and my position in the gang. I do know it hurts you though, and you shouldn't have to go through that." We always end up being open to each other. I caught him rubbing his birthmark.

"It's burning isn't it?" I asked referring to his birthmark.

"Yeah," he nodded. "how'd you know." Might as well be honest.

"Mines has been doing it since I meet, to be specific the day I punched you." He laughed.

"What?"

"That's when mines started acting up too." I smiled back at him, maybe we're not so different when it comes to certain things.