Daya

11| I really really like you

A big surprise the homecoming game came and quickly went with a 36-20 win against Beverly Hills. No one cares about that though the real takeaway from the game was the halftime show where Vicki and Vince were revealed as homecoming queen and king.

I think in that moment when the plastic crown was placed on Vicki's slicked top bun, Jessica Hamlin realized that the 11 year old love she once had with Vince had finally disappeared, even though it was never there in the first place.

Now for homecoming which has been the same for the past 4 years in the Price household.

My whole life I've never lived in a white picket fence house. I've lived in the same pretty spacious 3 bedroom 3 bathroom apartment with noisy neighbors who leave cigarettes everywhere my whole decade and a half on earth. Even when my mom moved out she moved to a 3 bedroom in a worst neighborhood where there is liquor stores known as homeless shelters on every corner, and black cats who climb on your windshield. No neatly cut lawn, abundance of space, and most importantly, the closest thing to a staircase are the three steps that separate the hallways from the middle of the place which is the living room.

So instead of waiting at the bottom of the stairs like in the tv shows everyone including my mom and Tara are scrunched on the couch waiting for Vince to exit his room and walk down the hallway, in the suit he's worn so many times before.

He's been sitting  around all day waiting for the evening to come while I sat on the couch taking out my braids. I got halfway with one bag of poofy hair, and my natural oily hair in a small ponytail. The other half of my head that's still in braids is being played with by Sawyer's who's fidgeting in my lap, getting anxious as Vince proves boys can take their sweet ass time too.

"Here I am," Vince introduces the boys to men side of him, and swings the door open so it makes another dent on the wall.

Mom takes her usual 15 pictures and dad take his perfect one picture that I have a feeling he might accidentally delete when uses too much storage space. Knowing this is not the time to get in on the excessive parenting Tara just smiles, and says, "You look very sharp Vince!" The same compliment she's been paying him since we "accidentally," met her in a corner bakery when we were going shopping.

"Thank you," Vince does a little spin.

Just in time to end Vince's show a loud knock slams on our front door. Vince slowly opens the door and doesn't even attempt to hide his goofy smile when Vicki is looking right at him. 

Vicki as usual looks gorgeous, she's wearing a long bright yellow mermaid dress that makes her shiny skin the center of attention. She does look stunning, but with Jada's fanta dress the two are going to look like a sweet banana and a ghetto orange going to a wedding. Vicki still looks gorgeous though so gorgeous my mom is probably wishing she was her daughter right now. Too bad Sandra Vicki's mom is right by her side in jeans and a purple blouse.

"You look handsome," Sandra snarls at Vince as her and Vicki walk inside.

Sandra's never really liked Vince, but that probably comes from being a single mom and raising Vicki all by herself, I think she likes him a tad more now though. Now that he's not Vicki's best friend and she can fully resume her role which will now include talking about Vince.

If  I would've known Sandra and Vicki were meeting here I would've at least cleaned up some of the hair from the couch to the coffee table.

"No homecoming Daya?" Sandra asks while tilting her head.

"I thought I would just read Odysseus by myself." Sandra and I burst into laughter while everyone else focuses on Vicki and Vince.

Now just because Sandra doesn't like my brother doesn't mean she doesn't like me, Sandra loves me. This love probably has something to do with the fact there is no chance I can get her daughter pregnant. Just to piss Vince off a little who always finds himself being Sandra's puppy, I love her too. So much so last Christmas I gave her my Malcom X graphic tee, and she gave me my Nina Simone shirt.

"Wow Vicki you look gorgeous," my mom gets up from the couch and walks over to her.

I continue my routine of unbraiding and detangling while Vince and Vicki pose for multiple pictures. By the time they are done Sawyer has 5 less braids to play with. I put the bag of dirty old hair in front of her, but she didn't budge and insists on playing with the hair somewhat attached to my scalp.

This is going to be my whole night since Tara has to do a full frontal at the salon. My dad, mom, Sandra and Dani are going out to dinner so when Vicki and Vince go to their uber Vicki turns the lights off forgetting i'm sitting on the couch.

I place Sawyer in her crib where she bounces up and down smiling at the disney channel show playing. It's Austin and Ally which is a compromise between elmo and Being Mary Jane. Not that I think the minute Sawyer sees Gabrielle Union getting it on with a married man her life is immediately ruined.

Braid by braid I finally uncover all of my natural hair after putting Sawyer to bed. Tara finished the frontal, but decided to go grocery shopping so at 8, it's just me, my detangling comb, 4c curls, and old Ralph bags of hair by the kitchen trash can.

I don't bother looking in the mirror just to fool myself in thinking my hair has grown when really I'm still awaiting a huge hairball after I wash it.

I change the tv to Being Mary Jane and fight my hair into a ponytail. As Mary Jane lashes out at her whole family my phone rings loudly like it's on a mission to wake Sawyer up. I dig into my jeans where my phone usually is, but the ringer screams from somewhere outside of the living room.

I rush to the kitchen and stand over one of the brown ralphs bags with all of the hair that was on my head. At the bottom of the bag my Solange screensaver lights up alerting me of what a dumbass I am. Sawyer whines as I grab my phone and place it to my ear.

"Hi I'm Sarah I'm calling about your students loans-" I hang up at the robot's voice and wait for Sawyer to whine again.

I only hear Mary Jane's voice so I guess she's back to sleep. My phone buzzes which I've been getting used to lately as I am that trusting person who puts her number everywhere.

Currently I have about 6 unread messages from planned parenthood, because in 2016 if you weren't an 8th grader who cared about politics you knew nothing about you weren't cool.

Covering half of my screen is a text from Harper, Happy Homecoming Daya! Under that is a picture of Harper and Navia posing in front of Harper's house. They're doing the classic side prom photo where one stands in front of the other, that one is Navia. She's in a red waterfall dress with her hair in a perfect bun. Her bright red ensemble really outshines Harper in her white dress showcasing her tanned legs.

It takes me a good 4 minutes of really looking at the photo to see that Navia whose last name is Lenin is in red and Harper is in white. The whole night I'm probably going to be the only person who can connect their outfits to a world history lesson.

Under that text is Ziyah's name which for some reason is easy for me to forget about. It's from 3 minutes ago, and hey is all he says. I text back the same thing and those annoying three dots take control of my screen. The dots disappear for a second then come right back.

Finally a gray bubble appears. Ziyah:I really really like you. What? I wait for the text that says, "sorry wrong person," but it doesn't come. Maybe he is just doing some annoying song challenge, but if so this is his only lyric.

I barely know Ziyah, and he doesn't know me, he might know the school quiet observant me, but not the real outgoing laughing me that only my family and maybe Vicki know.

Sure he blew some smoke in my face and wiped my glasses a couple of times, but I didn't turn on my flirty irresistible switch that I used on Dylan before passion twists came along. All of my bundled thoughts make my body start pacing back and forth. He's a pothead, he doesn't mean this he's high, his brained slowed down.

I have dead skin covering my lips, I scrunch my face all of the time, and I'm really just the quarterback's sister. How could he like me? Again he's just smoking some really good weed, I remind myself.

Not knowing the right response I let my fingers start typing. Me: Sorry I'm getting my phone taken away see you at school .