Mirror Coal (Crawford Collins)

Don't Be Quiet About It

"Hey"
She looked up from looking at her sketch and looked at me as I sat down across from her.
"I um noticed you were here by yourself."
She looked at me and began to look at her sketch.
"Sorry I didn't introduced myself. My name is-"
"Crawford." She finished my sentence.
She looked up and stared at me with her green, hazel eyes.
"Yea, my name is Crawford. I just wanted to sit with you to make company."
She looked down at her coal and began to use the chisel and the hammer.
Who even uses coal in the cafeteria you may ask. Well, she does.
No wonder they call her weird, but I wasn't gonna be too quick to judge her.
She was ignoring me the whole time.
Not gonna lie, I felt stupid sitting there being ignored by a cute girl breaking coal at lunch, but I wasn't gonna pussy out and leave her just yet, so I began to ask questions.
"What are you doing there?"
She stopped what she was doing and handed me her sketchbook.
It was a picture of a little girl holding an umbrella.
It was a pretty good drawing. I was about to go through her other drawings until she snatched the drawings away from my hands.
As she did, I saw her wrists.
She had scars.
She kept quiet until she said, "leave now!"
"No."
I kept sitting down.
I got up and sat right next to her.
"You should eat."
She shook her head and kept working on the rock of coal.
Yeah....I felt stupid enough already.
"You can have my nachos. I didn't touch them and my juice." And that's when I got up and left my tray with her.  I was probably a bother already.
As I left without looking behind me, I heard her munching on the nachos. I just smiled and kept walking towards Andrew and Gabriel.

✱

The 3:30 bell rung. Everyone left the classes and building to the busses or waiting for a car ride while others left the school grounds by walking home.
I was frustrated with school work and the drama my brother and Josh did.
I was outside waiting by the car for my brother to come and drive us home.
Meanwhile I waited, I got on my phone and scrolled through twitter.
"You better tell your brother to watch out, Crawford boy. I ain't playing."
I looked up and saw Josh getting in his car.
"Tell him to get out my way and there won't be any problems."
I got closer to his dumbass and said, "Nah bro. You tell Eva to get away from my brother and stop asking for rides to school when she already has a man to do that for her."
He kept staring at me. He got in his car, started it, and left.
Whatever.
Josh acts like if him and Eva are a thing.
My brother came just when Josh left.
"How you doing, bro? Better?"
"I guess you can say that, Crawford."
He's mad. I know it.
He unlocked the doors and we both went inside the car.
"Mom's gonna be so pissed when I get home. I'm suspended for 3 days."
"But you didn't do anything other than g–"
"Yea I know, but the school already called mom and told her I got in a fight."
"Bro it's your fault tho!"
"What you mean?"
"You went to get Eva!"
He shook his head and started the car.
"I didn't know she had a boyfriend. Maybe if I did, I wouldn't have gone to pick her up."
"Let's just go home. I'm pissed already."
"Why?"
I threw my backpack in the back of the seats.
"Because bro. I tried talking to this girl and she don't even talk back."
Chris puts on the AC.
"Who?"
"Vanessa Merrell"
Chris looked at me and asked, "the crazy girl?"
"Wow. You too?"
"Well she is kinda crazy."
"And Eva is a hoe. Your point is?"
Chris gave me a look and drove us home.
On the way home, he was quiet.
I just stared out the window thinking if I took things too far, but he's wrong for thinking that anyways.

When we arrived home, he went up stairs in his room and slammed the door all mad.
I sat in the living room and turned on the tv.
My little sister, Karisma, came to me and asked softly, "What happened to Chris's face?"
"He got fucked up fighting for a hoe."