I'm Not Dying with You Tonight

by Kimberly Jones

like being that person in her life who gives her the little extras.

“Love you later,” I shout. She hates goodbye. That’s the last thing her mom said to her before she passed away from a heroin overdose. She’s never said the word goodbye to anyone since.

sitting in the middle of a sunbeam.

But LaShunda in serious mode. Unlike Black, I can never talk her out of being real when she in that mindset.

“You are my friend. My friend, my side.” LaShunda lets out a long sigh. “I stand on the side of truth, and the truth is, you can be a gnat.”

It’s nothing close to a smile. But it’s there.

I can’t believe she did that. Wait, actually, I can. She has a serious phone-grabbing problem.

There ain’t no mousey teenage girls anywhere in my line of sight.

I. See. Red.

“I’m not dying with you tonight.”

The shout that had been winding up inside me dies.

Underneath my fury, I get that them standing up for me is a big deal.

either. But my dad calling the cops on Lena and Black would be one more wrong in the longest

night of wrongs in my entire life.

I know the words that are getting stuck in her throat. They’re the same ones that won’t come out of mine.

For the moment, we sit in silence as hours pass,