I've been mad before, mad at my mother for waking me up at 6 am on a Saturday just to clean the kitchen because I forgot the night before, mad at my best friend for stealing my Sour Patch Kids, but nothing compares to the feeling of lost hope and despair than when I walked into the Barnes and Nobles teen fiction section to only see a blank space where the sequel to One of Us is Lying is supposed to be. I stared at the empty space like a book is magically supposed to appear, but alas the first book still stands hopelessly alone, surrounded by the other series happily standing with their counterparts.
I mean, after all, it is Valentines' Day.
I look to my right at the makeshift Starbucks littered with couples holding hands over a nice Vanilla Bean Frappuccino. I focus on one couple, in particular, the boy is walking towards her about to topple with only two cups in his hand.
The girl is laughing at his less than graceful attempt to carry both scalding hot cups at once. He is smiling even though he's one misstep away from ruining his navy blue button-up. She helps him once he finally reaches the table, but she grabs the cup too quickly or he lets it go early and the grande drops out of his hand splattering onto the floor. I try to cover up my laughter, in case anybody is watching, but I don't have to because the couple laughs loud enough for everybody to hear.
I return to the shelf my mood deflating when I look back and see there are still no more copies. Grunting, I walk to the other side to see what bestsellers there are in Teen Fiction.
I let my delicate fingers graze over every book in my vicinity. Feeling the hard spines and glossing over every title that I have yet to read. This is my domain. My safe space. Away from the terrors of reality here with these paperbacks, I can truly escape.
My eyes gravitated to a book that I haven't seen before about two college students falling in love. I picked it up and went to the children's section. This section has the best seats- comfy armchair heaven- and considering it's seven at night there are no actual kids there.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see a boy has taken my place. A boy who looks like he wouldn't step anywhere near a bookstore. A boy who would rather be out with a girl instead of here.
I clear my throat and he looks up from the pages of his John Green novel to see me staring down at him.
"Can I help you?" He questions in a kind voice with a sarcastic undertone.
"Yes, actually you're in my seat." He scrunches his thick brown eyebrows before raising them in a challenge which I'm prepared to win.
"This is my seat I sit here every Friday and last time I checked," He picks up his phone from the table beside him before putting it down with a satisfied grin. "It's Friday."
"Shouldn't you be out with a girlfriend or something?" I say annoyed even though I really shouldn't be picking fights with strangers
"Shouldn't you?" I glare at him and he glares back.
"Listen here, I just want to sit down, but you're in my favorite seat. I think it would be better if you would just pack up your things and go."
He runs a hand through his wild curly hair, pushing it back from his forehead where I can see his obnoxiously clear skin. Thinking about the sea of pimples scattered across my forehead, his lack of them ticks me off.
"Let me remind you, I was sitting quietly unbothered before you came over here." He put down his book with one hand while the other was resting next to him like he didn't have a care in the world. Meanwhile, I was always tense and never had the opportunity to relax.
"Why are you even here, this definitely isn't your type of place?" Treating him like a
stereotype, real nice Scarlet. Sometimes I don't even know what comes out my mouth, but I'm too deep in to stop now.
"You don't even know me." Very true.
"I know my fair share of boys like you," I say smugly, digging myself into a deeper hole.
"Why are you being so difficult about this? I was here first and won the seat, fair and
square." He crossed his arms and I knew I would be here for a while.
"Well, I'm not leaving," I say sitting down on the plush chair across from him.
"Neither am I."
"Aren't you too young to be in the kid's section?" I asked ten minutes later annoyed by the presence of another human being in my reading nook.
"Aren't you?" He replies as annoyed with me as I was with him.
"This is the quietest place in the store when there are no kids here." He nods and I'm silent again.
An hour later I'm halfway done with my new obsession while the boy who has yet to leave is a few pages away from the end of his tearjerker John Green's specialty. I decide to call it quits if I want to get home before my mother worries that somebody's kidnapped me. Heaven forbid, I actually have a date this year.
We stand and stretch walking out of Barnes and Noble together before going our separate ways to the parking lot on either side of the shopping center.
I walk past all the couples skating at the ice rink a few shops down and sharing popcorn as they walk outside from the movie theater. I feel a twinge in the pit of my stomach that can only be described as longing, but my mind is telling me someday.
Someday
Someday
I get in my car, hand me down from my dad before he got his new Jeep with the money from the promotion he received at work. It took months of begging for a car after I got my license the summer before junior year, but when I returned to school in September, I returned with a new ride. From outside my window, I see the coffee couple again, a few cars down making out under the stars that I can never see from my house. They get to enjoy this, stars not hiding from the bright orange glow of streetlights. Their streets are not riddled with police cars and yellow tape. And most importantly no fear.
I ride past the rundown brick houses that have been condemned for as long as I can remember. The woman hanging out on the corner outside the nightclub that I swore was shut down last week. A little girl with no shoes on chasing a boy with a ratty white t-shirt and basketball shorts in the dead of winter. Turning down my street and the houses get bigger and the condition gets better, but it's all the same. The same zip code, the same street, the same city. All I want to do is get out and head off to who the fuck knows where with my 3.7 GPA and only an immense love of romance books and movies under my belt. I don't know what I'm meant to do with my life, but what I do know is that I can't stay here. Not in this house, this city, this state. I need to leave, see the world and everything it has to offer me. Because if I stay here the next thing I know I'll be another statistic and that's one thing I refuse to be.
My dad's car is in the driveway, he and mom must've finished their dinner early. My mom, Tiana Johnson is an elementary school teacher with a pretty southern smile and a soft voice to everybody who isn't her child. My father, Brandon Johnson is a computer programmer who works downtown for an insurance company.
My dad is the reason we're stuck here. He grew up right down the street and refuses to leave. No matter how much my mother and I beg. We learned a long time ago that no matter how bad it gets, there's nothing he loves more than this neighborhood. He wanted his kids to love it too. One of us did. The other didn't. Guess which one I was?
I hated the cracks on the sidewalks and the bumpy unkempt roads. I hate the junkies that ask me for money outside the corner store. I hate the guns and drugs that pave the streets of the inner city. I hate the sirens that keep me up in the middle of the night when I have a test the next morning.
I struggle with the door. My hands freezing in the height of Maryland winter. When I finally get inside I'm met with the warmth of the heat blasting and my sister staring me down. Her hair was already pinned up for the night and her face pulled into a tight grimace while she's draped in my fluffy red robe. My older sister by one year and two months, Brielle who was swallowed whole by this neighborhood four years ago and spit back out as a hood- rat version of a Kardashian. All whilst, shaming my whole family in the process.
"Where have you been?" I roll my eyes and push past her.
"Get out of my clothes!" I yell back to her. She follows me upstairs to our parents' room where we sit on the edge of their bed. They are both laying down with their reading glasses on and Good Times playing on the TV.
"Daddy, Scarlet is always out, why can't I go out?" My sister whines and I shut my eyes reciting what he's about to say in my mind. She asks this question at least twice a day and every time he replies with the same answer.
"Scarlet doesn't hang out with troublemaking young men like you. She knows my rules about going out and the surefire way not to get pregnant. No sex until marriage and until you can follow those rules there is no way you're leaving."
"Honey, don't say it like that!" My mom scolds, trying to calm him down. He gets agitated whenever my sister asks this ridiculous question. I know he loves us deeply, but we are all disappointed in the way my sister turned out.
My parents are firm believers in good Christian values while I don't hook up with randoms like Brielle. It's definitely not for the same reasons. While my family is Christian I am respectfully not- god forbid I tell that to my parents-. While I am not a hardcore Atheist, I don't believe there is a concept such as religion. I promise the whole thing is less complicated than it sounds.
"Daddy, I'm almost 18 that must count for something." He shakes his head, rubbing his temples. At this rate with the way she's stressing her out, he's going to have a full head of grey hair by the time he's 50.
"Brielle, my one rule is no sex until marriage and you continuously break that rule. Maybe if you were with respectful boys I would reconsider, but these hoodlums aren't getting you anywhere." Maybe, if you moved us out of this shitty neighborhood and pulled us out of that ghetto school then she could find some respectful boys.
Don't get me wrong they aren't crazy strict. He lets us go on dates and have boyfriends (not that I've ever partaken in that), but Brielle is a different case because she doesn't do relationships. All she likes to do is have sex with countless thugs who already have their fair share of baby mothers. It's by the grace of "God" that she hasn't gotten pregnant yet.
I yawned while Brielle was still trying to convince him and decided to call it quits for the night. I kissed my parents on the forehead and said good night before heading across the hall to my room.
When I arrive at my fortress of all things good in the world; I go over to my massive bookcase to try and find some space to add my newest addition. I find a spot in between The Hate U Give and The Book Thief before going through my nightly routine. I turned on a Romance movie that I've already watched in the spirit of today, Valentine's Day with its stellar casting and amazing storylines. The epitome of all things I love in a romance movie.
I started scrolling through Instagram when my best friend Destiny FaceTimes me. I answer and my screen is taken over by her glowing skin and wide hazel eyes.
"Hello, my favorite light skin!" She moves back from the camera, I see her hair already pinned up and bonnet on.
"Yo, my favorite brown skin!" I asked her about her day and she heaves a sigh signaling that a rant was coming.
"Girl, them boys in my first period was trying me. They walk around thinking I owe them some D just cause I twerked on them a few times at homecoming." I raised my eyebrows, knowing my best friend did a little more than twerk
"Why do you waste your time on these ghetto Turner boys anyway?" I would never date a boy within ten miles of my school. They all wannabe gangsters and rappers who think they are the next Tupac.
"Oh sorry ma'am, I forgot you only fuck with them white boys from those little fairytales." She said laughing her ass off while I contemplated if I want to waste my energy by driving fifteen minutes to her house so I can beat her ass. My type isn't all white boys.
"Better than you being baby momma number whatever to Dondre from Algebra 2."
"Don't hate on Dondre he fine as hell." She sends me a picture from his Instagram where he's holding up the middle finger with a Nike hat on backward and a weird look on his face.
"He looks like he's constipated," I muttered.
"I know he's not your type, but I know somebody who might be..."
"I swear if you say-"
"Latrell is perfect for you, remember when he won the spelling bee freshman year?" I groaned, she never let me forget it.
"Yippee!" I enthuse. "He can read at a third-grade level." She ignored my jab and flipped onto her back making weird faces in the camera. I join her and we laugh it off a few minutes later.
"It's Valentine's Day sis and you're a junior who's never been on a date." She says seriously and I look away to a poster on my wall with Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. My all-time favorite Disney movie.
I focus back on my friend awaiting my response, "Yeah, I know Des, but guys don't come falling out of thin air to date girls like me. Especially, not at our school they want girls like you
"Wait, what you mean a girl like you? What's wrong with you?"
"I'm loud, but not proud. I'm smart, but not really. I'm nice, but barely." She snickers at the nice one. "A girl like me isn't getting asked when there's a girl like you standing next to me."
She constantly tries to prove me wrong, but it's been like this since freshman year. I've always been in the background when it came to Destiny and I's friendship. She was the girl that the boys raved about. I was the girl they talked to in order to get to her.
"You have so much to offer these high school losers Scarlet, but you never put yourself out there..." I can't handle another self-esteem speech from Destiny tonight.
"You know what Des, I'm really tired from this week." She gives me a sad smile.
"You know I love you right Scar." I nod and wish her good night before hanging up.
I walk across my room to the light switch and turn it off before flopping into my bed. I tell Alexa to turn on Taylor Swift, my secret idol and if anybody from my hood ratchet school found out they would disown me.
Destiny said I've never been on a date and it's not like I don't want to. I can't watch all these romance movies and read all these books and listen to all these songs without wanting just a little bit for myself, but it's not my time. It's not my time for my great love story.
I don't know how, but I'll know before it happens. I'm going to see a guy and it's going to instant sparks, a connection that bonds us forever. At least that's wishful thinking. It's funny, your soulmate could be anybody. A person you know. A person you've seen. A famous person. And by one mischance you'll meet and that's it. You may have never seen it coming, maybe it's that awkward boy from your sophomore Trig class or the cute boy you bumped into at Starbucks. You don't know anything until it happens and even then you might not even have paid attention. The one who was once a forgotten stranger is now the most important person in your life. One chance encounter could be enough to change your life.
______________________________
I had a dream last night, it was hazy when I woke up, but I remembered something. I wasn't worried or afraid of anything, everything was calm. The air was clean and the sky was bright. It made me smile.
But then I woke up to construction workers yelling outside my house and my sister is shaking me awake so I can lend her some lotion. The air was no longer clean; it smelled of smoke and toxic gases in the air, along with the clear air went the blue skies overclouded by a gray haze.
The weekend went as fast as it came. My reality was back and ready to kick me in the face just in time for school. I stand handing my sister the lotion so she can leave and let me get dressed before I fall asleep again. I trudge over to my closet and put on my khakis and a random shirt, knowing I'm just going to put on a hoodie and wear it the whole day, therefore, there is no reason to wear the navy blue polo with my school's name on it.
When I'm about to head out the door, my dad calls me into his office. He is seated behind his desk with the TV playing the news in the background.
"Have a good day, my darling." I walk over and give him a strong hug before stepping out of the room again.
"Brielle, let's go!" She bounds down the stairs looking like a star off of Love and Hip Hop with her large hoop earrings, ass long crochet braids, and fake lashes that look like they are about to fall off her face.
"I'm already here." She flashes her award-winning smile.
"We are already running late," I say pushing past her to walk out the door
She jumps in the passenger seat and as soon as I pull off, she takes out her AirPods and phone to start flashing selfies. God, could she be more self-absorbed?
I focus back on the road and not on my sister's acrylic neon green stripper nails. Fifteen minutes later we arrive at school and get out of the car wordlessly. She walks toward the old, ugly red brick building and towards her friends, who all look like copies of her just with different DNA.
I haven't even made it out of the car before Destiny appeared at my window. I met her freshman year when she was in my English class and we were assigned to work on a project together. We started talking and bonding over our love of One Direction and Harry Style's dimples.
I get out of the car, now looking up at her 5'5 frame and she hooks her arm in mine as we walk into the school. Many people wave to her as she walks past and just as many guys give her second looks. She smiles and waves back, occasionally stopping for a hug which I don't mind. People speak to me after they speak to her because after all these years of standing in the shadow of her popularity she made sure everybody knew that I was her best friend.
It's a wonder Des and I stayed friends this long. She is more like my sister than me, but to the surprise of everybody, they hate each other. Maybe it's because they were so similar that they clashed, but I never figured it out. Destiny is the most social person I know, always smiling and making new friends, trying to get me out of my comfort zone. I have friends outside of Destiny, but none who I'm as close with and I think it's the same for her. She's my girl and despite everything that makes us different I wouldn't trade her for the world. We reach Destiny's first period and she winks at me before going over to sit on Dondre's desk.
"Yo, Scar!" I hear his voice before I see him and immediately regret walking down this hallway to get to my first period. I just keep walking hoping he takes the hint and leaves. "SCARLET!"
Shit. I turn around and hide the grimace, glancing down at Latrell's sagging pants.
"Hi." There it is, straightforward leaving no room for interpretation.
"You free Friday?" Yes
"No, I have plans." Lie
"How bout Saturday?"
"Dentist." He tries to think of another date and I realize what a waste of time this is.
"Actually, instead of having you list off dates and me trying to think of lies to get out of them let me tell it to you straight," I turn towards him, stopping him in his tracks. "Latrell, we could never satisfy each other and I have no interest in going on a date with you," I look behind him to see my classroom.
"Have a good day," I say before ducking into the room leaving him speechless.
The bell rings as soon as I sit down and my official school day starts.
When I get to the cafeteria I see Destiny in the lunch line which is unusual considering how much she despises cafeteria food.
Until I see Dondre and his backward hat, saggy jeans with his underwear out looking ass, feeling up my best friend. She's giggling and I know I won't be seeing her at the table today unless I want to take an impromptu visit to the computer lab and see a real-life sex ed experience. I see my friend Erika across the room and decide to sit with her.
"Hey Scarlet, what a nice surprise!" She says in her signature really peppy, nice Erika voice.
"Hey, what's up?" I slide in the seat across from her and wave at the others at the table that I know from various classes over the years.
"Just talking about the epic rich kid party I went to on Valentine's Day." I lean in closer intrigued
"I still can't believe you went to an Elkridge party!" A girl from my freshman year Biology class Madison squealed. She was one of the only two white kids in the junior class. The other one was a boy named Eric who had a full-grown beard and smoked weed in the quad during lunch.
I know about Elkridge, it's an all-boys private school right down the street from Barnes and Noble. Most of the teenagers I see come in there with their preppy private school uniform on and they all look like they could get Tik Tok famous by just posting a video of them smiling. I didn't even know people from my school knew what Elkridge was. I made sure I was careful to pick a location where I was guaranteed not to run into anybody.
"All I can say is them white people up Elkridge party way differently than we do down here. They had that good shit."
"Yeah, cause they go to a rich school and they have mommy and daddy's credit card to buy MDMA and coke and all that shit." I popped open my Arizona iced tea I got from the vending machine and took a sip.
"You right, Scar. They having another one on Saturday, we should go and bring Destiny." I scrunch up my face at the idea of going to a stupid party with all those nasty germs.
"Yeah, thanks for the invite Erika, but no thanks. There's no way in hell I'm going to that party."