Fitting In (Is Hard to Do) Semester 1

I STAYED ON THE bus so I could get off at Willow’em stop and walk back down like I normally do. I couldn’t believe all that just happened. I pinched the sleeve of my shirt and used the material to scratch the eczema on my arm. Ugh! I wanted to scratch so bad after Roman had touched my arm right there it was driving me nuts!

  “Oh my gosh y’all.” I run to catch up to Willow and Ryder. “Aaaaahhh! Can y’all believe that?” I scream and laugh at the same time.

  It was pure silence. I felt like I was talking to myself. “What’s up? Like why y’all trippin’? I readjust my backpack.

  Willow looks around like she was looking for something. “Ryder? Do you hear anything?”

  N-N-N-ope. N-N-Not n-n-n-othing.” Ryder had a stuttering problem but seemed to only get worse when he was telling a lie.

  “O, come on y’all. This is like one of the happiest days of my life, and this how y’all goin’ do me?”

  “You know, it's mighty funny how you just forgot about us?”

  “No, what’s mighty funny is how you ran and left me that time but we ain’t goin’ talk about that, are we?”

  Willow folds her arms across her chest and taps her feet. “Amber, I already apologized about that so just let it go!”

  I can’t believe how my best friend is seriously hatin’ on me right now. “Fine. But Willow, y’all could have come back there and sat just like I did.” I found myself having to explain my decision. I knew full well if anyone of them had invited Willow and Ryder to the back, any one of them would have flown in the back of the bus. But then again, maybe not because they like being a nobody.

  “B-b-but we weren’t invited, just you!” Ryder chimed in.

  “I know right!” I couldn’t help but sing it while I pop my collar and dust my shoulders off. I couldn’t contain my happiness. All my school life, I had been waiting for a day like today, it has finally come, and I had no one to share it with. It really sucked that they were my friends and couldn’t be happy for me.

  ‘Ugh haters,’ I mumble to myself.

  “I wouldn’t have gone back there anyways.” Willow began. “Those who want to ride in the back of the bus are ignorant. Ignorant to the facts of how and why we fought so hard to be able to sit in the front.”

  Blah, Blah, Blah. I mean can she get any more boring. I mean she couldn’t possibly be serious, like we don’t know our history. I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “Why is you hatin’ Willow?” I stop walking, take my backpack off my back, and slide it to the ground.

  Willow turns around and walk back to where I stop. “Ain’t nobody hatin’.” Willow rocks her neck back and forth. “I just don’t think they’re the kind of people you should hang with. I think they are just trying to set you up for failure.”

  “OMG Willow! You act like somebody is going to take my friendship away from you!” I get close up in Willows face and purse my lips.

  Mimicking me, Willow said, “Honey please, that’s the least of my worries. If someone could take your friendship from me, I gladly give it. Just like when you went to the back! And when they turn around and hurt your feelings, don’t come crying to me about it!”

  “Oh, don’t worry I won’t! You’d probably run away anyhow!”

  ♥♥♥

  I am glad to be rid of the two killjoys. I wasn’t about to let nobody still my joy today, I was too happy. I use my house key to open the door because my mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway. I checked the refrigerator and my mother had a note pinned to it letting me know she had some errands to run with my grandmother and would be back soon.

  My mother has always been a stickler for rules. After school, me and Cam’Ron are to always come straight home, no matter what. We’re to have no company what-so-ever, not even Willow or Ryder. Soon as we get in, we have to change our school clothes, do our homework, and straighten up the house. Those rules are to be followed rather or not she is home. Half the time Cam’Ron doesn’t even follow them, but I do. I am not trying to get into any trouble.

  One thing we didn’t have was a curfew. That was because we were not allowed to be anywhere without my mother, grandmother, or father. If we are outside playing, we have to be in before the streetlights. Yes, my mother was that over-protective.

  I go into my room, change out of my school clothes, and fall back onto my bed and daydream about Roman and me. I wonder, if Roman and Symphony were together all like that, why he asked me to sit with him. If Roman was with Symphony, there was no way he would have did what he did in front of Symphony’s face. Besides, he was the one who came to me and asked me to sit with him at lunch. Even though Symphony was acting funny, it sure beat sitting at a lunch table with random people I didn’t know or by myself. I hated that Ryder and Willow didn’t have the same lunch period as me, but I’m cool eating lunch with my bae.

  Maybe I was just making a big deal out of nothing. I tend to do that from time to time. But not this time, I enjoyed the feeling I got when Roman sat next to me. I loved the way he smelled, his smile, his teeth, and the way his shimmery silver watch glistened against his bronze colored skin tone.

  I search through my closet for something to wear to school tomorrow. I had to make sure I was extra fly. My heart fell into my belly. What if he asks me to sit with him on the bus in the morning? I grin a devilish grin. Aww man, if that happened, Willow would be sooooo mad! O well, forget her… she’ll get over it. I pick out the cutest newest outfit I had.

  ♥♥♥

  Cam’Ron comes crashing through the door like the Tasmanian Devil and runs into the bathroom.

  “What’s wrong with you? I speak into the brown wooden door.

  “Nothing.”

  “Something is.” I try to turn the doorknob as if I didn’t know he had already locked it. I lean up against the door and wait for him to come out. After waiting for about five minutes, Cam’Ron swings open the door, making me fall back and lose my balance. He grabs a frozen bag of peas from the freezer and places it over his left eye.

  I try to see what he’s hiding on his face by reaching up and trying to remove the peas.

  “Mooove!” He shoves me.

  “Cam’Ron let me see!”

  “Why? So you can tell mommy?”

  “From how you’re making it seem, looks like ma will find out on her own.”

  Slowly he moves the bag of peas from his eye and I jump back and gasp.

  “Is it that bad?” He throws the bag of peas onto the kitchen table and run back to the bathroom mirror. “Damn!”

  I thought my cheek was messed up before but his eye is jacked! When my mother asked about my face, I told her as I was about to come out of my room, Cam’Ron was busting in and the side of the door hit me in the face. Of course, Cam’Ron gladly took the backlash from that. Why? I don’t know. She yelled at him a little and told him to stop hopping and jumping around so much.

  “Were you fighting?” He looks at me as if I’m a moron.

  “Nah!” He says sarcastically. “I slipped on my bed and hit my pillow!” Examining his eye closer in the mirror made him become even angrier. “I know I’m going to get in trouble for this!”

  “Who were you fighting with this time?”

  “I wasn’t fighting…”

  “You just said you were fighting.”

  “’Cause you pissed me off asking stupid questions!”

  “Why are you getting mad at me? I didn’t do it!”

  Cam’Ron looks at me and sits on the edge of the tub. “I wasn’t fighting… not this time, anyway. I was standing by the bus talking to Justin after school and then TJ throws the football at me saying think fast… after he threw the ball and hit me in the face.”

  “A football did all that to your face?”

  “Shut up and leave me alone!” Cam’Ron goes into his room and slams the door. I leave him alone because I know he’s going to go through it as soon as my mom gets home.

  ♥♥♥

  I finished my homework and chores, I even did Cam’Ron’s clea
ning for him because I felt so bad. Now I was left with nothing else to do. My mom should come in soon and I was bored and getting hungry. By now, Willow and I would be knee deep in conversation. I guessed that Willow was still mad since she hasn’t called.

  I pick up the phone to dial Willow’s house. I guess I would have to be the bigger person. “Hello?” Willow answers on the third ring.

  “What you doin’?”

  “Nothing.” Willow was being short with me so I deducted that she was still upset.

  “Look. We’ve been friends for too long to be going through this.”

  “Going through what? I’m cool.”

  Yeah, okay. If she was cool why is she talking so dry?

  Silence.

  I remove the hamburger meat from the refrigerator and brown it in a pan.

  “What are you doing?” Willow finally asks breaking the silence.

  “Girl, browning meat for Sloppy Joes.” I couldn’t wait on my mother any longer. I hoped my mother would be happy that I was taking the initiative. Besides, in my head, Roman and I were already married, and he hadn’t quite gotten home from work yet. Instead of Sloppy Joes, I was making fried chicken, greens, and mac & cheese, with a side of Jiffy Mix Cornbread.

  “All right… I ain’t going to lie.” Willow says hesitantly. “I guess I was a tad bit jealous.”

  Ha! I knew it ya hater! I want to throw Willow’s confession in her face since she was such a killjoy this afternoon but I decide to act mature and let the little situation go. I place myself in Willow’s shoes and thought I’d probably had reacted the same way if not worse. Instead, I said, “Girl, ain’t no reason to be getting jealous.”

  “Says you! I am not a hater though. However, I am happy for you Amber. You said you were going to be popular this year and find yourself a boyfriend, I guess you doing it. But keep in mind, stuff like that, always comes with some kind of price to pay.”

  What? Whatever! I wanted to ask her how much ‘cause I’d gladly pay it! I had to admit to myself that I was finally doing it and my goals were finally being achieved. “See Willow, It’s all in who you know. You got to get in where you fit in.” I was now teaching Willow and hoping she was taking notes.

  “Is that right!” Willow laughed.

  “Yeah, because see… I guess I should thank you for leaving me, if it wasn’t for that, Roman probably wouldn’t have even noticed me.”

  “But why would you want someone to notice you only when something bad happens? If he was really interested, he would have noticed you, anyway.”

  Huh? What they heck is she saying? I sprinkle some sugar into the Sloppy Joes, place a lid on top, and turn the knob to simmer.

  “Willow?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you over there still sippin’ on some Hateraid?” Finally, we both laughed until my jaws were starting to hurt.

  “Nah, but for real though, what did he say to you anyways.”

  10 CHAPTER TEN

  HUNTER SANTOS

  Loud Silence