All Roads Lead Back To You

Chapter 1 : How It All Started

Chapter 1 : How It all Started
THEME : Dial My Heart - The Boys
Year : May 1986
POV - Mani

Wassup y'all! My name is Armani Denice Perkins but everybody calls me Mani for short. I mean there isn't really much to say about me. My life really ain't all that interesting 😂. I am originally from Atlanta but when I was about 2 years old my family relocated to Charlotte, NC because of my dads job offer at a law firm. A better paying position, a larger home, an easier way to provide for your family? Who in they right mind turning that down? Mind y'all it's like 5 of us in the house, so as our family grew we needed the extra space 😂.

Speaking of my family I live with my parents Martha and Dennis and my 2 younger siblings who happen to be twins Honey and Dennis Jr or DJ for short. They are only 1 year younger than me. 

My parents always raised us in church. like it could rain,sleet,hail, or snow our asses would be in church every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday but luckily for our us my dad has an old highschool band mate named Donald Degrate that has his own ministry in Charlotte and we attend his church and when I tell y'all that the choir is so fly here! and our families have grown a close bond. Their family consists of Mrs.Degrate ( or Ma Mary for short ), Pastor Degrate ( Uncle Don ) and they have three sons Don Jr , Dalvin , and Derek.

The Degrates only live about 2 houses down from ours so our home was theirs and their home was ours. Our families did practically everything together vacations,revivals, Sunday dinners you name it! And the kids in the family had just as tight a bond as our parents. But I believe it's safe to say that our big ol blended family was always held together by everyone's love and gift of music.

We all could pretty much sing and dance but only my father , Uncle Don ,  Don Jr and myself could play just about any instrument. This came from all of our years leading the choir at church and also our own little gospel band called " The starlights of Christ". Me and Don Jr would help our fathers create music for the choir to sing while the four of us alternating between the organ, piano, drums , and bass every Sunday. We really had a tight thing going on and soon Dalvin quickly picked up how to play the drums. Even my lil siblings aka lil nigglets knew how to make some shake on the piano.

And although we are church girls I definitely can say that me and Honey have grown to be pretty girls. We always had the flyest clothes,nails and hair was always done and plus my mama and ma Degrate had just brought Donny and I cars too! Ya girl is poppin OKK! The boys constantly was checkin for us...especially in the neighborhood speaking of boys in the neighborhood, there are these 2 niggas down the street named Joel and Cedric that's cool with Dalvin and Donny they always tried to leave notes on our front porch when my dad wasn't home. One of them even tried to get cool with DJ just to get in the house to see Honey. But I tolerate them because they can sing they assess off! They pretty much got the same church background we have they just don't play instruments.

Another person who I believe have started to notice all these boys around me is Don Jr. Even though he's a few months older than me he always makes my feel like I'm way younger than him and always is telling me what to do like he my dad or something like nigga 😑. He always tells me that I can't wear this and I can't wear that because it's too grown and shit like I can't handle myself. But don't let a boy try to approach me in school or at work , he's all down my ass talking bout " don't act grown" "imma tell Uncle Den" and his favorite line " I'll bust they ass" 😂.

But I can honestly say through all the bullshit that me and Donny have encountered in our friendship he is truly my best friend and a great big brother to me and I wouldn't want to change for the world I know he will always have my back and I'll always have his ashy ass back to 😂. Even when it comes to his hoe ass girlfriend Iesha. This girl is such a hoe y'all she pop her coochie from east to west. I mean I know Donny like to fuck some hoes but he actually cuffed this bitch y'all. I always have to be the one person in they relationship to stop the arguments cause they always fighting and shit like I stay in the middle of they shit but shawty girl know my loyalty with Donny but  I bout whooped that ass when she spit on him that one time!  But I mean I never understood why he stayed with her because she won't nothing but a jump off but who knows I'm mean am I am I right or am I right?🤷🏾‍♀️.

At school things were good. I stayed on honor roll but truth be told I hate school sometimes I feel it's a waste of my time but people insist that I " stick with it " but I know my heart ain't in them books it's in music. I had some homegirls from around the way but because of the way my trust set up ion really hang with them or consider them close friends. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the nigglets , the degrate nigglets and I have such a tight bond that it's almost hard to explain. A lot of times they was using me to get with Donny Dj and Dalvin. Like girls would literally walk up to me asking to hang with me after school and specify to meet up at my house just so they could sneak out to the degrate house and I eventually just stopped fucking with them bitches all together.

Getting back to Donny. We've had our fair share of moments and when I say moment a I mean we've almost took it to the next level with our friendship. I mean of course we've grown to have a bond but being around somebody for majority of your of the opposite sex that's attractive you can't help but grow some sort of attraction and feelings to them shit.

Donny isn't  an ugly guy. He was a little under six feet , had nice teeth which is a MAJOR turn on for me. He had these beautiful hazel eyes that complimented his light caramel skin tone. He also had these big ol pink luscious lips oh my gawddd. He had this high top fade going on it was like a honey blonde color at one point. He was super skinny though like skin and bones which I don't understand why he's so skinny cause the nigga can eat a whole horse if you'd let him but that's not the point. I definitely can see why he had all these girl sneaking in and out his window.

Knocking me out my thoughts I heard the house phone that I kept in my room on my nightstand ringing.
" wassup?"

" Yo Mani come to my house so we can talk and roll up. " Donny said knowing that's our favorite thing to do.

After he rushed me off the phone I couldn't help but think that this would be the perfect time to finally tell him about something that I've been putting off for a while. I'm got accepted into college. I know that me and Donny had plans to stay in charlotte and do music but right now I need way more stability than that.

But me going to college isn't the worst part, I chose a school in New York. I'm hoping he doesn't take the news too hard, but right now I have to do what's best for me.