Thinking Outside of the Box

Chap. 16

Chap. 16

Kyla smiled timidly at the crowd then tentatively slammed her locker closed, hoping for one more escape route before they closed in.

“Hey, new girl, eh?” A girl asked. The girl crew had reached her first, leaving the boy crew wandering around.

“Yeah,” Kyla muttered clinging to her one and only notebook from her father. She hadn’t used it or opened it yet. Maybe a part of her was scared, or maybe she just didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

“And real pretty,” a light skinned girl from the back said nastily.

Another girl stepped forward and twirled around a lock of Kyla’s curly hair, reminding her that she needed to buy a flat iron. Discomfort settled over her. Personal space much?

“Bet you’re smart too,” She said.

“And has plenty of boyfriends. Quenton himself was walking her down the hall to every class, clinging on to her like she has some kind of static,” The first girl snapped. Kyla declared her the leader. “Ya’ll got something going on? You his girlfriend? ‘Cause I know he ain’t over Lola.”

“I’m his cousin,” Kyla whispered then cleared her throat, making it come out clearer, “from Detroit.”

The girl snorted as if questioning the real truth behind her existence. “What’s yo’ name girl?”

“Kyla.”

“Pretty, you sure have a lot of pretty things going on about you,” The light skinned one drawled.

They sounded really insecure right now, Kyla thought with a grimace.

The warning bell rang. “We’ll talk later. You free after school?”

Kyla frowned. “I guess.”

“Today after school.”

“Sure,” Kyla murmured. Did she really want to hang out with a bunch of girls who had just spent 5 minutes insulting her in spite of their own insecurity?

“Fine, girl. Get yo' ass to class before MJ and them catch up with you.” The girl had a frightened look in her eye, and cringed when she said MJ's name. If this was the way these girls felt about him, Kyla didn't want to associate with MJ.

“I’m warning you,” A girl said. “They can be real mean and stubborn. Even raped a couple of girls, they the reason why there ain’t no virgins in this school. You a virgin?”

Kyla gulped, her throat suddenly very dry. Images of Anferni and Ramon flooded her vision. The girl took that as a yes.

She put one of her long pretty fingernails in her mouth, sucking on it. “Then you just like fresh meat.”

Kyla dismissed herself and made it to Science before the late bell rang.

She hoped MJ would leave her alone after she declared herself not a virgin, but she had a feeling, from her own experience, that it wouldn’t be much like that.

~~~Thinking Outside of the Box~~~

MJ and the boys approached her while she was wrestling her new locker opened. She tried just ignoring them for a second, but a dark complexioned boy tugged roughly on her arm.

“You ain’t got nowhere to be, stop pretending like we ain’t here.”

She glanced past the boys, who were now circling around her, frantically. Where was Quenton when Kyla needed him?