Lips Like Coffee

cup: 28

NORMA

This was not what I expected. I don't know what I expected, but this was not it. My face was being squished between the shoulders of Mi'chel and Junior. Slowly, they were squeezing the life out of me, and my ribs were puncturing my lungs. Who knew my grieving brothers would be the way I died.

"Let her breathe, y'all," James said with his arms crossed over his chest.

Mi'chel let go of me, but Junior continued to crush me in his grip. It wasn't so bad with one of them, but I was still breathless. James tapped him on the shoulder, and he let me go as he rubbed the top of my head. When did they start doing that? None of them have ever rubbed the top of my head, and now they were. I hate it.

James stared at me as I fixed my hair, but I didn't look back at him. He would see the truth on my face if I met his gaze and I didn't want to explain myself to him. It was so weird for him to be this protective when he was never like this before.

"I still can't believe you're alive," Mi'chel said, pulling on my cheek.

"Why do y'all do that," I groaned, rubbing my face after he let go.

"Cos you got cute cheeks," Junior said, pinching the other.

I gave them flat looks as I moved from between them. A reunion with my brothers after two years and they treat me like I'm five. They were acting like I was a child, and it was irritating. Where was all this affection and mushiness coming from anyway? Not even when I was five did they treat me like this.

"Will you stop treating me like a little girl," I huffed, folding my arms across my chest.

All three of them looked at each other, then back at me. "You are a little girl."

That shocked me. An epiphany slapped me in the face as I stared back at my older siblings. It took them believing that I was dead to see me as a girl. All my life, they treated me like one of them, like I was a boy. Thinking harder, they weren't the only ones who saw me that way. Most of the kids in high school treated me that way as well. No one ever saw me as a girl.

Nobody saw me as a girl, until Pen did. He noticed that I didn't feel comfortable in the dress he bought me. When I had money to buy my own clothes, he asked why I didn't buy skirts or pretty shirts. All I bought was more sweat pants and tee shirts. I didn't wear jewelry, but he bought me a pair of earrings just in case I felt like wearing them. Pen called me beautiful. No one had ever called me beautiful before.

"I need y'all to understand that I am not little anymore," I said, standing up straighter. "Once you've watched someone die from the bullet you put between their eyes, you are no longer a child."

Mi'chel and Junior's eyes widened. James pinched the space between his eyebrows, then shook his head. It was a hard way to put it, but it was true. Just because my age still had teen in it, they were choosing to still see me as a little kid. If they had treated me this way when I was younger, I wouldn't have been as upset. Now I was almost twenty and they wanted to baby me because of a misunderstanding.

"I'm sorry," Mi'chel said, tucking his hands under his armpits.

"We're just happy to see you, it's been so long," Junior added, slipping his thumbs in his pockets as he shrugged.

Annnd, I felt like shit. I wasn't trying to be snappy or mean, especially seeing them after so long. I just hated being babied. What was the point of treating me like a child now that I was an adult?

"So, how did you find out about...me," I asked, scratching the back of my neck.

"Someone sent us a photo of you two," Mi'chel said, pointing to James and I.