LONDON LENAE DIVINCENZO
"Why not? Why can't we go see him?!" I shouted to my father, as my mother took his side.
"Because, why do you have a delinquent as a friend, London?! If he's been arrested then you need to go separate yourself from him!" My father replied calmly.
I scoffed and shook my head. "You don't even know him! Plus, Aunt Maria and Auntie Amour have been arrested several times and you still hang around them!"
"This ain't got shit to do with us." Aunt Maria said with a shake of her head.
Auntie Amour shrugged. "Eh. Kid's got a point."
"Amour hush," Dad said sternly. Turning to me he said, "I said no, and I meant it. Who is this Mikey kid anyways?"
Suddenly, I didn't have anything to say, because to me, it wasn't my fathers business who Mikey was in particular, and also, I didn't know what Mikey was to me anymore, I guess I can only blame that on the both of us honestly.
There was no communication between us whatsoever except for earlier when he yanked me into the janitors closet. I didn't know if we were friends or more, plus I also didn't know if I was ready for Mikey; he's been in countless relationships, has way more experience than I do, and I've never even had a boyfriend before. What if I just wasn't all that Mikey wanted—or even worse, what if Mikey wasn't all that I thought or wanted.
That's what scares me.
"Cat got your tongue?" My mother asked, tilting her head to the side.
Shrugging I crossed my arms and shook my head. "He's just my friend. That's it, and I need to go see him!"
"No, you don't," Mom said sternly. "Back me up here guys."
I turned to face my aunts and uncles, and they all turned their heads away, either scratching their necks or looking down at their phones or up at the ceiling as if to avoid the question.
"Look, Auntie," Jelena said standing up. "We're all friends with him, and honestly our whole friend group is going to see him. We all just wanna know what happened, and we all wanna go."
Canon nodded. "Yeah. If it's any better on your conscience, I could drive, because I'm on the team with Mikey. I wanna make sure he's okay."
"I think the think NOT!" Steph said with a shake of his head.
Asia shook her head. "Yeah, y'all are not going. If you guys wanna know what's happened with him getting arrested, you can find out tomorrow at school."
"What makes you think people will know at school?" Harmonie asked, crossing her arms.
"You're teenagers in high school," Klay chuckled. "All y'all do is spread gossip. It'll get around."
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my phone and my house keys, then walked out of the house. I wasn't going to go see Mikey; that was one thing about me, I wasn't that type of kid who would just disobey their parents because I was upset about them not letting me do something. That would mean breaking their trust, and that's the last thing that I wanted to do.
I didn't know exactly where I was gonna go, so I just decided to walk around. It wasn't late, it was actually still early and I'm sure school was still going on. Checking the time on my Apple Watch, I saw that it was only 2:45 which meant school was out.
I didn't want to go back to the school, so I decided to just go to the McDonald's that was a few blocks away from my aunt and uncle's house. So I wouldn't get any texts or calls, I decided to also put my phone on Do Not Disturb and slid it into my back pocket.
Once I walked inside, I sat down at a table and looked down at my hands as if I were trying to figure something out—and I was because I just didn't know what to think or do in the moment.
How could Mikey have gotten arrested? He was kind, sweet, funny, and smart. Smart enough to not get himself into things like this. Not being able to withhold myself any longer, I grabbed my phone from out of my pocket and opened Google, and what was the first thing to pop up? This:
Superstar High School Athlete Mikey Williams Arrested On Five Gun Charges In San Diego
My heart sank into my stomach as I read over the headline over and over again. There was no way this was Mikey. This had to be a mistake...
Five Gun Charges?
Is this the real side of Mikey or the fake side of Mikey? Was this all on Mikey or was he being framed? But...things like that only happened in movies, and I'm sure if he was arrested on five charges because of assault with a deadly weapon, this must be real. I just couldn't believe it.
"London."
I looked up from my phone and saw my cousins and my brother standing in front of me. I pushed my hair from out of my face and quickly set my phone down and placed a small smile on my face to make it seem like I was okay.
"H-Hey..." I said with an uneasy laugh. "Uh...how did you guys know I was here?"
"Your location is on." Adrian said, holding up his phone.
"Oh." I said, looking at my hands.
I knew I should've turned my location off.
Canon sighed and sat down across from me, as did Jelena, Adrian, Landon, and Harmonie, while Deuce, Malachi, Riley, Ryan, Olive, Cash and DJ pulled up chairs and sat down at the table with me.
"Look," DJ said. "We know you're worried about whoever this Mikey dude is, but, he got himself into this situation by doing whatever it was he did."
"We know that it sucks to know that a guy that you like so much and view so highly a this amazing person turns out to be the total opposite." Jelena said, trying her hardest to not look at Deuce.
Can you talk about 'awkward'?
Harmonie nodded in agreement. "Plus, you said it yourself that you were having doubts about Mikey, and we all know that within those short time spans that Jada and Mikey aren't together he tends to...act out."
"So this isn't on you..." Landon said softly.
Shaking my head, I ran my hands through my hair and let out a heavy sigh. "I...I don't wanna talk about this anymore."
My cousins exchanged concerned looks and glanced over at me. I knew that they wanted to still say something and try to get me to talk about me, my feelings for Mikey and how I felt about this entire situation, but they weren't going to force me. Which is also how I could tell that they were trying to figure out what to say next.
It was dead silent for a few moments before Olive started laughing to herself, causing for all of us to look at each other and at Olive like she was insane—and trust me, sometimes we thought she was.
"What are you laughing at?" DJ asked, eying his little sister.
"Do you remember when we went to the Bahamas last summer? And we were with the dolphins?—"
"And the dolphin came from under DJ and flipped him in the air!" Riley said, laughing.
All of us doubled over with laughter as DJ sat there with a look of embarrassment and humiliation all over his face as we all relived and remembered the moment from last summer.
"Bro," DJ said with a stone face. "We swore we wasn't bringing that up again!"
Jelena shook her head. "I didn't agree to anything!"
"Neither did I." Canon said through his laughter.
"I had my fingers crossed!" I added as I struggled to stay upright as Riley, Olive and I leaned on each other as we laughed.
DJ kissed his teeth and shook his head. "Man, y'all ain't shit. I don't wanna talk about it no more..."
"Okay..." Cash said with a grin.
We all looked at each other, discreetly we all counted down from three and as soon as we could barely mumble the number one, DJ's head shot up.
"Man, that dolphin threw me so high, I thought I met God at the pearly gates." DJ exclaimed, causing us all to start laughing again.
"Trust me, DJ," Malachi chuckled. "Your ass would not be going to Heaven."
"Nigga neither would you!" DJ exclaimed, mushing Malachi's face.
"W-What was that song we sang when we had the bonfire on the beach?" I asked, snapping my fingers.
"Oh shit. I know exactly what you're talking about! Uhmm...oh my gosh what was it called.." Harmonie said snapping her fingers as well.
Deuce tapped his hand on the table. "Oh! It's Stand By Me! By that Ben E. King guy!"
We all exclaimed happily after finally remembering and being reminded of the song, then suddenly we had gotten quiet, all exchanging the same grin, thinking the exact same thing.
"When the night...has come, and the land is dark.." Adrian sang as a smile crept on his face.
"And the moon is the only light we'll see..." Jelena continued, resting her head on Adrian's shoulder with a soft smile.
Deuce and Malachi grinned as they tapped the beat on the table. "No I won't be afraid. No I won't be afraid just as long as you stand, stand by me."
"So darlin, darlin stand by me!" Canon, Riley and Ryan sang at the top of their lungs.
"Oh, stand by me!" DJ, Cash, and Olive continued. "Oh, stand. Stand by me...stand by me!"
Harmonie and I held our phones as if they were microphones and sat on top of the table. "If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall, or the mountains should crumble to the sea!"
"No, I won't, I won't cry," Adrian sang. "No I won't shed a tear! Just as long as you stand, stand by me!"
The boys added an extra growl in their voices as they threw their heads back and sang, "And darlin', darlin' stand by me! Oh stand, stand by me. Oh stand now. Stand by me, stand by me!"
"And darlin, darlin stand by me! Oh, stand by me. Oh, stand now..." Us girls sang swinging our legs back and forth on the table.
It was moments like this where I forgot about the world around me and really focused in on my world, and my family.
Sure, we were drama filled and dysfunctional at times, but we had our good moments; our wholesome moments like singing a song from the 60's in the middle of a McDonald's with no care in the world.
It was moments like these that I loved the most, because for once, it felt as if we were normal kids with no spotlight or expectations set on us; and that's when I realized...in this very moment, I realized that as much as my family may annoy me, that I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
We were always there when we needed each other, and if we somehow fell behind with keeping up with each other, we made it our responsibility to put each other in check and not lose that connection that we have.
I guess that's why this song is so important to us, because like the song says, if the entire world was crashing down around us, we'd be perfectly fine as long as we stood by each other.
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JELENA RONELLE TOSCANO-ANDERSON
2 Hours Later...
Finally, after two hours of sitting in the middle of McDonald's just talking, having occasional outbursts of songs, laughing and joking around, we were back at my parents house.
Instead of going inside, we stayed out front and sat down on the porch, sitting on the porch swing, steps or sitting on the railing.
"Do you guys think...that when we get older, that we're gonna be just like our parents?" Canon asked, a worried look crossing his face.
Malachi shrugged. "I hope not. We have too many expectations weighed down on us already, we don't need any extra weight on us. That's a lot for us to live up to."
Landon nodded. "Exactly, and people kind of frown down on us if we pick a different path."
"I'll say," Deuce huffed. "People are still walking around with a stick up their ass about me picking to actually complete college and be an engineer."
Canon nodded. "Exactly. Like hooping is a hobby for me, but in reality, when I go to college, I'm not hooping. I'm majoring in Biochemistry so I can move forward and pursue a career in Forensic science."
"Yeah, well imagine having an award winning director as your mother and the first Mexican-American to win an NBA Championship as your father," I said. "Talk about pressure."
Malachi scoffed. "That's light work. I have three dads. One is an entrepreneur who has several successful businesses worldwide, and the other two are in the NBA. You wanna talk about pressure? I got it, for sure."
"Puh-lease!" Harmonie scoffed. "Being JP3's daughter came with endless types of problems, especially since I don't hoop. Like I can but I choose not to!"
London nodded. "I feel you. I love basketball, but that's not my life! That's not our lives. When will people realize that just because our parents play or played basketball that we, as their kids, don't have to follow in their footsteps."
Adrian nodded. "Exactly. But, it's the world we live in, sadly."
"What do you wanna do Adrian?" Olive asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Model..." Adrian said with a shrug. "I wanna model."
OH?
"What about you, Lena?" London asked, motioning to me.
Smiling dreamily, I leaned against the railing of the porch and said, "I wanna be like Auntie Esh and be a chef. I wanna open my own restaurant, too."
"I wanna be a designer. I'm gonna be bigger than any brand you can think of." Harmonie said with a proud smile.
London smirked. "I wanna go into politics."
We all got caught up in a deep conversation about what we want to be when we're older and what we want to major in when it's time for us to go to college, and it made me realize how different we all were, and also how similar we all were in someways.
We all had our dreams that blossomed beyond what others expected of us, and we all had the same gut wrenching fear of becoming a second version of our parents or falling behind or into our parents shadows. We all wanted to make a name for ourselves that branched out beyond who our parents were.
Most of all, we just wanted to be...well, normal.
"Oh my gosh," a female voice said. "Deuce Tatum, is that you?"
We all looked down and saw the girl that has always had Deuce's heart from day one—literally—, Nadia. Deuce had this starstruck look on his face as he laid eyes on her. As I watched, I realized that usually, this would upset me and make me sad, but I also realized that I didn't feel anything at all towards this moment.
"Nadia, hey!" Deuce said, hopping from off of the railing and walking over to her.
Nothing.
I still felt nothing.
Even when Deuce and Nadia hugged tightly and rocked side to side, I didn't feel anything. Not a twinge of jealousy, envy, anger—nothing.
Is this what it felt like when a crush dies? Is this how it would be from now on? I would feel nothing towards who Deuce was with or around?
If so...I loved the feeling.
Had I finally let go? That quick? I knew that letting go didn't mean that one was fully healed yet, but I didn't expect to feel this numb or nonchalant to Deuce and other females this fast.
"Jelena," Adrian said, making me look away from Deuce and Nadia, and over to him. "You okay?"
Just as I was about to answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled my phone out and checked to see what the notification was.
Kiyan🩵: Hey, JellyBean. You free to work on the project tomorrow after school?
I felt warmth creep up into my cheeks as my heart quickened it's pace. Quickly, I typed a response to Kiyan and looked back at my brother and nodded.
"Yeah, I'm great."
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END OF CH. 13
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