Who Am I Without Him? Read Online Free PDF Page B

friends talk all at once. “Naw, man, I ain’t taking her.”
    â€œShe a dog, man. Ruff! Ruff! Give a dog a bone,” one kid says, throwing a big thick pencil my way.
    Nock’s fingers pull at my long black hair. He shakes his head and spits. “God gives you good hair like this, and a face like that. It don’t seem right. Do it?”
    My left foot moves. My right foot follows.
    Nock gets mad. “I tell you to go, girl?”
    I look around. More kids are pressing in on me. “No,” I say, taking two more giant steps.
    Nock is knock-kneed—that’s how he got his nickname. When he moves toward me, his jeans rub together.
    â€œYo, Nock,” a boy in the crowd yells. “You take her to prom, man. You be beauty, she be the beast.”
    They all laugh, even the janitor just picking up leaves under the dogwood tree.
    Nock’s girlfriend, Nicole, comes over. She tells him that she should drop him just for talking to something like me.
    I put my head down and walk into the crowd. They part like sliced butter, ’cause they afraid they gonna get what I got.
    â€œIll,” people say, like looking at me makes ’em sick to the stomach.
    And even though I know better, I rub my hand across my lumpy face and slide it through one girl’s long brown hair. I pat another boy on the cheek, just when he’s trying to get out my way. I reach back as far as I can and pinch Nock’s girlfriend’s arm. Then I run just as fast as I can.
    â€œThe principal called,” my grandmother says when I get home.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œSaid you attacked some kids. Just like you used to do in the other school.”
    I throw my books down on the table. Jump up and sit down on the cold, green kitchen counter. “If they wasn’t so stupid they would know what I got ain’t catching, just ugly.”
    My grandmother’s arms jiggle, like Nicole’s fat booty, when she lifts ’em and points to me. “How many schools you been to now, gal?”
    My baby brother, Barley, walks in the room and answers for me. “Seven.” He holds up five fingers and his thumbs. “I bet it’s gonna be eleven by the time you graduate.”
    I jump to the floor. Watch my grandmother shake her head. “Lord. What I’m gonna do with that girl?”
    Before I answer, Barley puts in his two cents. “Just ’cause you ugly, don’t mean you can’t have friends.”
    The chair creaks like it’s breaking when my grandmother leans over and smacks Barley across the mouth.
    â€œI just meant . . .” Barley says, running to me with his arms out.
    He’s squeezing the blood outta me. I’m staring at myself in the metal paper towel holder. It’s a ugly face. He ain’t lying about that.
    Barley is nine years old. Too big to be picked up. I do it anyhow. “Shhhh. I know what you was trying to say.”
    He twists my long curls around his finger like spaghetti on a fork. “I mean . . . you gotta be ’specially nice to people, if you want ’em to like you.” He looks up at me. “Treat ’em like you do me.”
    I put Barley down and head for my room. My grandmother says I better call my father at work and tell him what happened. He knows, I say. He knows it was coming, anyhow.
    I go in my room and lock the door behind me. Cut on the TV. Cut on the stereo. Close the lavender shades. Yell at Barley when he turns the knob and asks to come in here with me.
    I lie across the bed. And even with the music on I can hear Ramon’s soft voice. You know I’m taking you to the prom tonight , he says.
    I kneel down by my bed. Pull back the pink, flowered spread and grab magazines from under the bed. “I know,” I say, turning to page twenty-seven and kissing Ramon on the lips.
    Ramon is not Hispanic like you might think. He is Jamaican. He’s studying to be a lawyer. He’s too old for me,