Chapter 3
I glared at Summer’s beautiful smile, asking myself how any of this was even fair. I picked up my phone from the table and started typing a text out to her, explaining that I’d be leaving soon. When I had to press the send button, my heart just wouldn’t allow it. I looked up at her, and she was still smiling, glaring at her phone. She was waiting for my text, and I didn’t want to send her a text that would let her down, not when she was that happy. So, I deleted everything and typed out something else.
I just wanted to let you know that you mean a lot to me, more than I thought you did. Me and you are forever, I hope you know that.
I love you.
She read my text and then looked up at me with red cheeks. I wanted to break open my window so badly. She started typing as well. I love you more. I threw myself on my bed and fell asleep before I even knew it.
I woke up to the sound of my mother yelling and banging on my door.
“Amari! If you don’t open this door right now, I will make sure you never leave this house!” she yells.
I jumped out of bed and unlocked the door for her. She pushed the door open and barged into the room pulling two bags.She opened my wardrobe and started stuffing my clothes into the bags.
“Mom, what are you doing?” I ask her.
“What am I doing?” she laughs. “I’m doing what you were supposed to be doing last night after I told you about boarding school. Why haven’t you packed yet?”
“Mom, it’s not like I’m leaving today.”
“Yes, you are Amari. Your new school is very strict and doesn’t appreciate lateness.”
“But you said I start next week! I didn’t even get time to go back to school one more time and say goodbye to Jason and…” I pause remembering that my mom doesn’t know anything about Summer and I. She stops packing and looks at me suspiciously.
“What is all of this really about Amari? Why won’t you just accept your new school?” she asks.
“Because me moving to a new school makes the Vipers think they have control over our lives…my life mom. I don’t want to go to boarding school, and I don’t want to run away every time I see a Viper.”
“You’re lying to me Amari. You only want to stay here because of that girl, it’s her isn’t it? Listen son, there are plenty more beautiful girls out there, that girl is only one of them. You can always find someone else,” she says.
I chuckle in disbelief. “You know what mom, you’re just like your father. You speak about him like he’s trash, yet you’re just like him. Your father didn’t want you to be with dad, and you hate him for that. Yet, you’re doing the exact same thing to me mom!”
“Do not raise your voice at me Amari. I am your mother and I know best.”
“Why do you keep on saying that? You’re not my mother, you don’t act like my mother!” I storm out of my room and my mother follows me.
“Leave me alone!” I yell.
I run towards the door attempting to go outside, but she pulls me back and drags me to my room like a little kid. “I will not tolerate this type of disrespect, Amari! I am so sorry, I’m so sorry that this is the type of life you have to live, but we have no choice. I loved your father. I would do anything for him. I’d go as far as killing for him, and I’d do the same for you, Amari,” she says in between sobs.
“I am doing this for you, for us Amari. So, sit there and stop making this harder than it already is.” She locks my door and then continues packing my bags.
By the time she has emptied half of my wardrobe, both bags are full.
“I need to get an extra bag for your shoes. Wait here,” my mother says leaving the room.
I looked through the window, and this time, Summer wasn’t there. She was probably already at school. I didn’t know if she’d ever forgive me after she finds out that I had left without telling her. I started writing a note that I planned on leaving on the wall that she usually sits on when she’s waiting for me. Dear Summer, I’m sorry that I had to leave this way. I thought I still had time, and that I’d be able to explain everything to you at school, but I was wrong. I’m leaving, to study in a boarding school which is probably out of Detroit, because there aren’t any of those here. I would stay if I could, but my mother is giving me no choice. I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but I hope you forgive me and that you never lose hope in us.
This distance is just a little rough patch. I promise you that when I can, I’ll come back to you, and one day I’ll probably marry you too. I love you forever, and I hope you do too. I stretched my hand out of the window and placed the note underneath a stone on the wall. My mother came in just after I closed the window.
“Please don’t tell me you were looking for her again. She’s probably already at school, Amari,” my mother says. I nod and continue to watch her pack.
I wanted to ask her why she had to choose a school outside of Detroit. There are so many good schools here, yet she chose to take me to the furthest she could find. My mother loaded my bags while I said my goodbyes to Jamila and the nanny. Jamila wouldn’t stop crying. She didn’t understand why I had to leave so unannounced and out of the blue, and neither did I. When my mother felt it was safe, she gave me the go ahead to go into the car. Jamila hugged me one more time, and then I left. The drive was long, silent and sad. At 14:00, I knew that Summer was already back home from school. Seeing that I wasn’t at school, she’d probably rush to the wall before even changing out of her uniform. At 14:30, she would have read through the note five times already, refusing to believe that anything I wrote on it was true.
We arrived at my new school at exactly 15:00. My mother punched in a code at the intercom, and the huge wooden gates opened for her. She drove for about a minute before stopping in front of a huge lake. To our left, was what I assumed was the main school buildings. They were huge and looked very modern.
“See, it’s a beautiful school, you’re going to love it,” my mother says excitedly. Of course, I will.
We went behind the car to get my bags out. As we walked in, a bell rang, and a bunch of children came flying out of the gate. Some were wearing swimming costumes while others held them in their hands. They were going to swim in the lake.
“That bell rings at 15:00 every day. It indicates that the learners swimming time has begun,” my mother says smiling.
Clearly, she has done all her research about this school.
We went into the office and signed a bunch of papers before I was led into the school building. The learners had already left so it was quiet. The school was spotless, you could tell only rich kids attended it. The lockers were intact, and the field didn’t have a single piece of paper on it. It was a good-looking school, but it could never compare to D-Field High.
After my mother shed all the tears she could, she left me in what would be my new home. When I went into it, the room was empty because my roommate, Kevin, had gone swimming. How did I know all of this? It was a rule in the school that whenever you left your room, you had to leave a sign on your bed that had your name on it and stated where you were going. Apparently, they did this for safety reasons.
For example, if I left the room and then got kidnapped while I was out, they’d know where to start searching for me using the sign. The room was quite spacious allowing our beds to be very far apart. The bathroom was just a door away from my bed, and thankfully, it was pretty clean too. My roommate’s side of the room looked pretty neat, so I assumed he was a decent guy. I started packing my books on the bookshelf next to my bed. Then, I packed my clothes and shoes in my new wardrobe and locked it. I made sure to bring my lock along because you never what may happen while your asleep. I took a nap and woke up when I heard a bunch of guys yelling. I slowly turned around and faced them. It was a bunch of nerds sitting around a board game. Some of them were on their feet celebrating. They had probably just won their nerdy game. When they noticed me staring at them, they all went quiet and stared back at me. Their huge eyes looked like they were piercing through my skin. They stared at me like it was their first time seeing a human being.
“ Uhm, can you guys keep it down?” I ask them awkwardly.
They looked at one another as if they were communicating through their eyes, and then marched out of the room, leaving only one of them behind. He came towards me and gave me his hand.
“Hello, my name is Kevin, and I am your new roommate. Welcome to Sparring-ton High School,” he says.
I looked at him waiting for him to tell me that he was joking, but he didn’t. The guy spoke like a robot! I began to wonder if all of them were like that. He was still waiting for me to shake his hand, so I hesitantly did so. He held onto my hand for longer than usual, and all I could do was pray to God that he would let me go. Just then, my phone rang.
“Uhm, I have to get that, so if you don’t mind I just…”
Before I could complete my statement, he lets go of my hand and walks to the door.
“I’ll give you some time alone to answer that,” he says with a creepy smile. I nod my head while faking a smile as well. Kevin leaves the room and I stare at my phone before answering. Summer was calling. I sighed deeply and then picked up.
“Hey Summer,” I say.
“Well, you sound happy to be away from me,” she says rudely.
“What? Now you know that’s not true. Summer, I thought I explained everything on the note.”
“The note isn’t enough, Amari. The note isn’t going to replace you, and the note isn’t going to be at your windowsill to talk to me every day! Why didn’t you tell me the day before you left?” she asks.
She sounded as if she was crying, and that cut me deep because I couldn’t be there to comfort her.
“Summer I thought I’d see you again. I wanted to tell you face to face,” I explain. She remains quiet and all I can hear is her sniffing. “Fine,” she says after a long silence.
“How is your new home?” “Terrible, I have the weirdest roommate one could ever ask for, and their rules are insane. I’m probably going to be friendless for the rest of my school years,” I say.
I hear her giggle faintly and a smile begins to grow from the corner of my mouth.
“Yeah, well luckily I’ve got Cassie, but I’ll probably feel friendless without you too,” she says softly.
Our call went on for about an hour. We had to hang up because dinner was being served. I put on my pyjamas and went to the dining hall alone. On the way there, a lot of the kids were staring at me strangely. They probably just noticed I was a new kid. As soon as I was about to walk into the hall, a teacher grabbed my pyjama sleeve and pulled me back.
“Where on earth do you think you are going young man?" he asks me. I push his hand off my sleeve and show him the plate in my hand.
“I’m getting dinner, just like everyone else.”
“Not when you’re dressed like that. Go back to your room and put on something decent,” the old man says disgusted.
Well, that explains why all those people were looking at me like that. The least they could have done was tell me that I wasn’t dressed according to the rules, instead of glaring at me like that. I was disappointed in Kevin as well. He saw me leave the room dressed in my pyjamas and he didn’t say a word. I went back to my room, put on sweatpants and a t-shirt, then went out again.
“You’re really going to have dinner in the dining hall? I mean they’re breakfast, and lunch is good, but I wouldn’t recommend theird inner,” a voice says behind me. I turned around and saw a short guy with long braided hair.
“The name’s Deshae,” he says.
“Were you following me?’ I ask.
“Nah, I was just on my way to get some dinner, like you.”
“But the dining hall’s that way,” I say pointing in its direction.
“Fool, did you not hear a word I just said? The dining hall serves the worst dinner! All that’s ever served there is Boiled veggies with no salt. On some nights, they give us meat, but that doesn’t have salt either and it’s always boiled!”
When Deshae said this, I felt like running back home for my mother’s cooking. No more fried chicken, no more fries and no more burgers for dinner. How was I ever going to survive?
“If you’re not going to the dining hall, where are you going to get your dinner?” I ask him.
“Follow me,” he says walking away. I hesitantly walked behind Deshae until I saw that we were approaching the main gate. I stopped behind him.
“We’re leaving the school yard?” I ask him.
“Come on, a lot of kids do this all the time. Just follow me,” he says. Now, usually, I would never follow a stranger without knowing where were going, especially at night. But when I thought about eating boiled veggies with no salt, I didn’t have to think twice about following him. I continued to walk with him until we were outside a mall that I had passed by with my mom on our way there.
“What do you want? Popeyes or McDonalds?” he asks. Before I can even respond, he laughs and holds his hand in front of my face.
“Just kidding, I’ll choose since I’m the one paying,” he says walking towards Popeyes. He ordered two meals, one for himself and the other, I assumed was for me. He even paid for my meal. I thanked him and he told me that it was just a welcome gift. I also realized that Deshae wasn’t lying.
There were a lot of other kids hanging around different restaurants having dinner. Deshae became my friend, and soon, we were getting dinner at Popeyes and Mcdonalds every night. We never got caught, although one time, we almost did. A few teachers had noticed that we were never at the dining hall at night, so they went around looking for us. Luckily, we got back to our rooms just before they could check in there. Every night, I’d make sure to call Summer and tell her everything about my day. I never left out a single thing.
She knew about Deshae, the lake, our trips to Popeyes and McDonalds every night and the horrible food at the dining hall. She'd also tell me about everything that happens in Detroit. I missed her badly, and there was nothing I could do to bring her closer to me. Jason and I would text each other too. Even with this distance, Jason was still a loyal friend to me. Over that one month, my mom and I would speak at least once a week.
One morning, I was going to the dining hall for breakfast. I heard that a group of girl scouts were going to be serving doughnuts, so I made sure to wake up extra early. Deshae and I met up there and immediately stood in line for our doughnuts. He was going on and on about a girl that he had met a few weeks ago. She didn’t live on the school premises, and the previous night, Deshae brought her back to the room with him.
“Okay, I get it Deshae, she’s your girlfriend,” I say rolling my eyes.
“Do you? Do you really get it Amari, or do you just want me to stop talking because you don’t have a girlfriend?”
“For the 100th time, I do have a girlfriend, she lives in Detroit,” I say to him.
“There you go with your imaginary girlfriend again,” Deshae says.
“Actually, Amari is telling the truth. His girlfriend is very real,” one of the scout girls say. I look up to find Cassie smiling at me.
“Cassie? What are you doing here?” I ask surprised.
“Wait, wait, wait, hold up! This, is your girlfriend?” Deshae asks.
“No, but I am his girlfriends’ friend,” Cassie responds.
“Exactly.What are you doing here Cassie?” I ask her. She flips her hair and blinks dramatically.
“Well, I’m one of the girl scouts. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be getting any of these doughnuts.”
“Well, thanks for that mysterious but pretty girl,” Deshae says leaning closer to her.
“This school is hours away from D-Field High Cassie, why would you travel all this way just to give us doughnuts?” I ask her.
“My mom actually lives a few houses away from this school. I visit her every weekend. This weekend, the girl scouts and I decided to do a little giving in all the local schools, this just so happened to be our first stop.” I nod my head hesitantly.
It still didn’t make sense to me why someone would travel such a long distance every weekend. I attended all of my classes and then stayed in my room while all the other kids went swimming in the lake. I considered joining everyone else in the lake, but I didn’t really have anything to swim in. I got dressed up and took my wallet with me. I planned on walking to the mall and getting myself swimming shorts. On my way out, my phone rang. Summer was calling, which was odd because we usually only speak at night.
“Hey Summer-time,” I say picking up. She laughs loudly. She loves it when I call her that. Girls always love weird nick names.
“Do you have any plans today?” she asks.
“Well, I was heading out toget myself swimming shorts, but it’s nothing much.”
“Good, because I’m outside your school.” She then hangs up leaving me stunned. I ran as fast as I could to the main gate, where, as she promised, Summer was waiting with a gift bag in her hands.
“You…you’re really here,” I stutter. I couldn’t believe it. She took a 5-hour trip, just to see me! “Surprise!” she yells while giggling. I squeezed her in a tight hug while kissing her.
“I would have come on the weekend of your birthday, but it took a lot to convince Cassie’s mom to let me come here,” she explains.
“Cassie? I should have known she had something to do with this!”
“And, I got you something, but you can only open it when you’re alone,” she says winking. I ran back into the school with the gift bag, placed it underneath my bed in the room, and then ran back out to Summer. I kissed her cheek and her forehead,
“Let’s go.”
We started off in the bowling alley, where Summer showed no mercy on me. I didn’t know I was that terrible in bowling until that day. I thought after that, we’d go for dinner and then I’d go back to school while she goes back to Cassie’s house, but Summer had other plans. She took me to the arcade, the cinema, and forced me to pick out new clothes that she wanted to pay for herself. We only went for dinner at 1 am, and after that Summer walked me back to school. We stood outside the school talking for hours before we decided that she needed to get back to Cassie’s house. Cassie’s mom was going to pick her up.
“Now, how am I going to explain all these new clothes to my mom?” I ask laughing.
“Just, tell her that you found a new beautiful girl who buys you clothes here in Sparrington High, just like she wanted,” she says sarcastically. I sigh and pull her closer to me.
“I’m sorry that things have to be this way Summer. You know I really can’t help but blame myself for this distance between us,” I say.
“Well it’s not your fault, Mari. Besides, we only have two years of school, and then we can be together again,” she says excitedly.
“Forever?” I ask with a smirk. She nods her head quickly and smiles.
“Forever.” Summer called Cassie’s mom who arrived quicker than expected. I had to run away as soon as her car turned into the road, so that Cassie’s mom wouldn’t suspect Summer was with a guy. I slowly strolled to my room, with Summer on my mind the whole way. I still couldn’t believe she had made such a huge sacrifice for me. I opened the door slowly and found Kevin sitting on my bed…with my gift in his hands!
“Kevin! What the hell are you doing man? That’s my side of the bed and you are invading my privacy!” I yell.
He gets a fright and jumps up, dropping the gift bag to the floor.
“It…it was a mistake,” he stutters.
“A mistake? Did you accidentally trip and fall all the way to my side of the room, on my bed!? Did your hands then accidentally open my birthday gift!?” He doesn’t respond.
Instead he slowly walks to his side of the room with his head down. I’ll never understand that guy. Luckily, all my other belongings were still intact, and nothing was stolen. I laid on my bed with the gift bag, ready to finally open it up.
“Just so you know, I…I ripped off the wrapping paper as well,” Kevin says shyly from his side of the room.
“Come on! Really man? Did you really have to?”
“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help it. I wanted to know how it feels to receive a gift from a friend or loved one,” he says in almost whisper. I sit up straight and look at him.
“You’re telling me, that you have never received a gift in your whole life?” I ask him. He shakes his head.
“What about your family? Don’t they get you Christmas or birthday gifts?” He shrugs his shoulders.
“I’ve never really met my family,” he whispers. I nod my head slowly while still looking at him.
“Well, I’m sorry about that,” I say to him.
He nods and covers himself in his blankets before switching his light off. I sighed and went back to opening my gift. Since Kevin had already taken off the wrapping paper for me, all I had to do was pull the gift out. It was a book, but not just any book. A book with pictures…my pictures to be specific. I didn’t even know that some of those pictures existed, and I had no idea how Summer got them. I realized that some of my pictures were quite old.
They may have been from five years ago. I was only 12, and most of them looked like they were taken without me knowledge. As I paged through these old photos, I also realized that they were set in a specific order. It showed all the pictures from when I was younger to when I turned 16. Then, there were pictures of Summer and I, the pictures that we took when I still lived in Detroit. I never really got hold of those pictures because Summer refused to send them to me. On the last page, were the words:
“You’ve always been my crush. You still are, and you always will be,” next to one of our best photos.
“You’re a lucky guy, Amari. I don’t know who she is, but I know she loves you,” Kevin says without turning around. I nod my head in agreement. “Yep, she really does Kev. She really does.”