"Every month," Vera yells her question and jumps to her feet. Her eyes are as wide as saucers and filled with the terror of someone who's seen a ghost. "I have to do this every month?"
"Until you're older, but most girls won't know when that'll be until their mom no longer has hers," Judith explains, and Vera blinks forward.
"Mom still has hers? She's like fifty!" She chuckles at her and shakes her head.
"Judy, come downstairs!" They turn to the door, and Vera watches Judith stand to her feet. She walks into the hall with her little sister close behind, and they stop at the top of the stairs. "That boy up the street is outside right now. Go talk to him so he can leave."
Jerome?
Judith scampers down the rest of the steps and toward the door where her mother is standing. She has it held open a crack just wide enough for him to hear her disdain but not enough to see into her living room.
As her daughter approaches, she releases the knob and returns to the sofa. Judith steps onto the porch and shuts the door behind her, greeted by the back of his sweatshirt.
"Jerome," she calls him with uncertainty, and he turns to her. She scans his simple, usual appearance then twists her mouth at him. "I suppose you just got off work?"
"Yeah." She nods her head as it lowers. "Is it true?"
"Is what true," Judith asks, and as he forces out a sigh of annoyance, she shuts her eyes. She knows he's referring to David, and she feels his frustration, but she doesn't want to tell him what happened.
"Judy, please stop playing games with me." His stern tone brings tears to her eyes, and she keeps her head hung to avoid him seeing. "Everyone I know is talking about it, and whether you realize it or not, I don't care who you date. All I want is honesty and to not be dragged into drama."
"I didn't have sex with David," she tells him, choking over her words. He narrows his eyes.
"Then why're you crying?" She quickly wipes her face before her sadness falls from her lashes.
"Because you're mad at me, and I just want – I don't want you to be mad at me," she blubbers, and he closes his eyes with a sharp inhale to relax. "I promise I didn't have sex with him. He's lying to everyone."
They avert their gazes to her right when they hear whistling. David strolls toward her yard with a smile. His arms are swinging at his sides, and the paper in his hand is rustling with the breeze.
"Well, here he comes. I guess we'll see what he says." Jerome drops his arms and turns his body to watch him approach.
"If it isn't The Land of the Giants' biggest star," David teases, stopping at the bottom of the steps with a smirk. Judith wipes away her tears as more accumulate on her eyelashes. "No pun intended."
"Is it true that you and Judith had sex?" David looks at her, and she drops her gaze without shifting her head.
"What's it to you?" He ascends the first step and folds his arms. "Last I heard, she was up for grabs."
"She's not loose change," Jerome reminds him, looking him from his head to his suede shoes. David chuckles, and Judith looks at them.
"You're right. She's just loose." Judith draws her fist back, and as it nears his face, he looks at her. She punches his nose, and it crunches against her firm knuckles. Her face is scrunched as she sends him to the ground with the page he was holding, and Jerome's eyes widen.
Stevie cruises toward his yard from the cul-de-sac's dead end, the wheels of his black bike unhurriedly spinning and his arms dangling at his sides.
Behind him on blue and pink bicycles are a freckly pale boy with a sandy red bowl-cut and chestnut eyes, and a dark-skinned girl with waist-length Fulani braids.
Jerome steps between them as David rushes to his feet, a red trail dripping from his left nostril. The former couple glare at each other with scorned intensity, and Jerome's grateful that looks can't kill.
"So we're hitting each other now," David asks her, and she shrugs nonchalantly, shaking her burning hand. The trio of thirteen-year-olds stop in the middle of the road across from the house and watch the scene.
"No use pretending like it's our first time." David chuckles, then drags the back of his hand across his philtrum.
He bends down, his eyes trained on hers behind Jerome's protective barrier. He lifts the sheet he brought with him and extends it to her, but before she can reach around to grab it, Jerome snatches it in his right hand.
"Even after she cheated on you, you're still ready to save her." David lets out a scoff after he runs his eyes across Jerome with disgust. "And she's convinced I'm not a real man. At least I know when to send a lousy car back to the factory."
"Compare me to something else. Give me a reason to hit you again," she yells, a vein forming on her neck. Stevie stands between the handles and his seat, his black and white Chuck Taylors on the pavement.
"No one's hitting no one!" David sits his fist in his left hand and pops his knuckles. Stevie glances at the boy accompanying him, then at the girl. With a stern tone, Jerome says, "Judy, go inside while things are copastetic."
"While things are copastetic? Nothing about this is copastetic," she declares with air quotes, and Jerome rolls his eyes. Stevie swings his right leg around to the other, then walks his bicycle to the edge of his yard. "You lied about us, and then you threw my Dad's death in my face to hurt me? After everything I've done to keep the peace between us, you shit on my feelings?"
"Spare me the theatrics, Judy." David throws his hand up, fanning away her comments with insensitivity. "I told you I only told Mary because she was on my back about you and me."
"Then why'd Justin say you told everyone we had sex?" Jerome scrunches his eyebrows and looks at her over his shoulder. Stevie strolls past the mailbox, his friends watching him.
"Who the fuck is Justin," David asks, peering from his left to his right. They watch as her youngest brother continues past while glaring at David.
"Stevie, go inside," she instructs him, but he stops beside her ex and drops his bike on the steps.
"Jive turkey," Stevie says, looking him up and down. Jerome snickers as he folds the paper, knowing his comment fueled David's rage.
Judith's eyes widen, and David looks at her reaction as Jerome tucks the paper into his pocket. David scoffs at her brother, then steps to him.
"Little man," he begins, taking a deep breath of the afternoon air. "I think you'd better listen to your sister and walk inside while your teeth are still clicking."
"Don't threaten him." She steps to Jerome's right, and he turns on his heels, then places his hand on her stomach to keep her away from David. David and Stevie continue scowling in silence.
Though he's towering over him, Stevie refuses to let himself cower away. His usual tactic of scrunching his face to intimidate doesn't work on Stevie, and the way David shifts his jaw as his teeth grind reveals that he knows he's not afraid.
David licks his lips before they dry, then he scrapes the bottom one between his teeth and looks at Judith.
"Your brother best head inside while I'm in a good mood," he warns her. She looks at Stevie as he folds his hands into fists, waiting to strike him.
"Stevie," she calls him, and when her voice cracks, she clears her throat.
"No, Judy, I'm the man of the house now. So you know what I say?" He steps closer to David and looks up at him. "I say you need to leave."
He chuckles, wipes his palms on his jeans, then leans into Stevie's face. "How about you make me leave?"
Stevie pulls his arm back and jabs David's left eye without a thought. He playfully winces and lets out a chilling chuckle.
He cranes his neck to watch David rise above him. Through pitiful snickers, he says, "Man of the house, and you hit about the same as a bitch."
David punches him, and his knuckles scrape his nose, heading diagonally. Judith flicks her eyes wider and shoves through Jerome's hold as her brother plummets onto the seat of his denim capris.
She lunges at David's right side and tackles him to the ground. Each fist, she draws back and fires at him with the speed of a bullet, adrenaline rushing through her veins and racing her heart.
Stevie pushes himself onto his elbows as his friends jump off their bikes. Blood drips from his nose and between his lips, but he watches his sister attack her ex while Jerome struggles to pull her off.
"Get off of me," Judith hollers when Jerome lifts her off her feet. She kicks her legs as David wobbles upright and the base of her sneakers strikes his mouth.
The boy and girl rush to Stevie's side, and as she squats in her denim midi skirt, the boy stands behind him and stares at Judy.
"Are you crazy?" Jerome drops her to her feet and knits his brows at her in disappointment. "You don't hit a man!"
"Are you fucking kidding me," she yells with her eyes narrowed, huffing and puffing. Her bruised, blood-stained knuckles shoot a ray of pain up her arms.
"I saw what happened just like you did," he reminds her when she motions toward Stevie while pursing her lips. "But what if I wasn't here? He could hurt you, Judy!"
"I don't care!" She shoves his chest, but he stands firm and tall. Her shoulders rack as she chokes off a sob. Hendrix and Zoë pull Stevie upright, and they guide him inside before David staggers to his feet.
Judith lifts her hands over her face, and Jerome takes them in his. David wobbles on his legs and scoffs at the two of them.
"I knew it." They watch him at the bottom of the steps, blood cascading down his chin and lips. He sways on his weak legs, then spits blood in her grass. "I knew it wouldn't be long before you chased after King Kong. You just can't help yourself, and it's fucking insane! We have one fight, and you're ready to hop on his train!"
"Get away from her house," Jerome sternly tells him, and David glances at him, then at her.
"Tell him to leave, or I'll go in there and tell your Mom about the Ipecac in your bag," David threatens, and she chuckles through tears.
"She already knows," she tells him with a smile, shaking her head. David shifts his weight to his other foot and glares at Jerome. "Go home. We have nothing to talk about."
"I'll tell her he got you pregnant," he says to her while glaring at Jerome. He watches them give each other a look, and when Judith nods, the men turn to each other.
Jerome curls his left hand into a fist, and David's eyes lock on it, widening and filling with fear. He shoots his scared gaze to Jerome, then Judith.
"Fine. I'll go." He backs away from them, and when Jerome relaxes his hand, David smiles. "I don't even need you, really. Your little poem made me a hundred dollars richer and earned me a scholarship for that school in Morehead."
"What? I'm going there! How'd you – when'd you," she stutters, and Jerome flicks his attention between them until David strolls down the sidewalk. "Oh, my God."
"Hey, you need to sit and cool down." Judith lowers onto the first step, and Jerome sits beside her. Under his breath, he says, "I don't even get why you let him rile you up."
"Wait, what poem?" She looks at her ex's back as he returns to his house, and Jerome removes the paper from his pocket. He sits it on her hand, and she lowers her head.
He watches her unravel it and read it. He peers over her shoulder to join her. Tears lift across her vision and sit on the brim of her eyes when she reads the final lines: I pray to God but on days like today, I feel he's ignoring me. All I ask is for Him to bring me a boat of people who care enough to pull me off the ocean floor.
"It's not even a poem. What a fucking idiot." She scoffs, then folds it back before Jerome can read it, and she glares down the path to David's house.
"You're going to that school in North Carolina," Judith glances at Jerome and nods, then sighs at her journal entry in hand.
"I mean, I was thinking about it, but I don't know. I think I may just give up on school for now." She takes a deep breath that straightens her posture, and when he asks why, she says, "Everyone needs me now more than ever. I got home from Montgomery late last night and just — I think my Dad's death brought out the worst in us all, and being here more showed me that the kids really need me."
"I say you should go." Judith narrows her eyes at him and sniggers. "What? You need to do what you enjoy and figure out what else you love to do. So far, all I know is that you like tennis, fighting — and you have a sailor's tongue."
She gives a dry laugh like the first and shakes her head. He smiles, then nudges his right arm into hers, rocking her to the side. A moss-green Impala cruises over the hump at the cul-de-sac's entrance. The top's down, and Manuel's driving with Eric and Khalíd in the backseat.
"But in all seriousness, you need to focus on yourself and stop worrying about everyone else. You'll run yourself to the bone pleasing others, and you'll be the one suffering in the end when your problems show." He takes her right hand in his and wipes the droplets of blood away, then caresses her bruised skin under his thumb. Judy meets his gaze, and her heart pounds in her ears, fluttering in her throat.
Manuel stops in the middle of the road across from her yard and slams the ball of his palm into the horn. She flinches, and they look toward him as he honks.
"We just got off work, and we're heading to the store up the road from the school. Wanna join," Manuel asks, and Jerome stands to his feet, then turns to Judy.
"I'll see you later." She watches him jog off her property, and when he reaches the car, she lets out a bleak sigh.