Dad, just get outta my way!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, as my eyes filled with tears.
I physically tried to move my father. However, he would not budge. My dad was angry, but I was angrier.
“You’re not going anywhere. Sit down. Let’s finish our dinner, and let’s pretend like she never even came here,” he tried selling me, like the time he told me spinach tasted like cake so I would eat it.
I wanted to yell, “What kind of crack are you smoking? Mom is the one high, but you’re making absolutely no sense.” Of course I wanted to keep all of my teeth, so I did not say anything. My eyes turned red. Instinctively, I looked back at Amir who was glazed over by the whole ordeal, and I gave him a look signifying that I needed his help. I guess that was all he needed because he came straight over to the man of the house and pleaded my case.
The guy who had my heart and had forgiven me for my drunken scene days earlier said, “Sir, please just . . . just let me take her out. I will help her look for her mom. I’ll bring her back. I won’t let her go anywhere alone, sir.”
When my dad looked away, I added, “Dad, if my mom leaves here and overdoses or something, I will never forgive you.”
“Honey, just let her go,” Greta came over to my father and said. It made my skin crawl that his girlfriend had more influence with him than me.
My dad stepped out of the way, which was our signal to take off and find her. We did not waste any time and went to the places I knew my mom was frequenting. I took him everywhere except to Big Daddy Wayne’s house because I was scared. Unfortunately, when we didn’t find her, I turned to Amir and confessed all.
Taking a deep breath I said, “She’s probably where she was a few days ago.”
He boldly said, “Okay, why didn’t you tell me to go there first?”
I couldn’t even face him. I could not even talk about what happened to me at that trashy place. I knew he must have thought very little of me, having to take me around to find my trashed and coked-out mother.
“You can talk to me,” Amir said in a soothing voice.
I really didn’t deserve this guy. His words and actions showed he wanted to fix my world. I was so happy I did not have to go through this alone. I did not want to do anything to push him away.
Turning toward the window, I said, “It’s just so hard. I feel so embarrassed.”
He took one hand off the steering wheel and put it on the back of my neck. I rolled my neck toward him and my face ended up cupped in his hand.
“Please tell me what happened, Hallie.”
Wanting to connect, I said, “I’m not a drinker, but I went and found my mom and this guy . . .”
I didn’t want to finish, but Amir pulled the car into a parking lot and just had me talk to him. He was astounded when I told him my experience at the crack house. As soon as I finished telling him my story, he drove silently to Big Daddy Wayne’s house. He was so disgusted. He told me to stay put.
I shouted, “I can’t stay in the car.”
Amir looked at me like I was nuts. “Absolutely not! What if that same guy sees you again? Men like you described take what they want. It won’t be any good for you or your mom, and I’m certainly not gonna stand by and watch some guy try to rape you. It’s just not going down like that. But if he pulls out a gun or a knife, or some of his boys jump me . . . I mean, there’s no good way that that could play out. I know what your mom looks like. Let me see if I can find her. Let me see if anyone knows if she’s here. Lock the door. Keep your phone in your hand.”
While Amir was gone, I could not relax. I wanted my mom to be there, but I knew if she was there she would degrade and debase herself to score some crack. I wondered why my father could not let her remain at our place, get some coffee in her system, sober her up, and talk to her like he used to do. I needed him to care. This was my mom, not just some trick trying to hustle us.
Amir came back and had his hands up. He didn’t have to say a word. I knew she was not there. I felt the worry course through my veins, and it made me feel worse than my bout with alcohol from a few nights before.
“I’m sorry, she was not in there,” he said. Amir shrugged.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Where else you wanna look?”
“I don’t know anywhere else to look,” I sighed.
I didn’t want to go off on him, but I was frustrated. I was upset. I needed to calm down. I did not want to break.
“Why is this happening to me?” I screamed out. “Why do I feel so alone? My dad hates my mom, and my mom hates herself. We used to be a family. There . . . there used to be love.”
I was so into my own pain that I almost missed that Amir was teary-eyed himself. We ended up driving to a park. No one was there. I saw his eyes had care and concern in them. I knew deep down I wanted to feel real good. I put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled his face toward mine. I kissed him, and I was so into it. My tongue knew what to do. I started lifting my shirt. When it was off, his eyes twinkled. I kissed his neck. I was forgetting my pain, and I started unbuttoning his shirt.
Amir pulled back and said, “Wait, wait, wait. Hold up.”
“What do you mean hold up? You said I’m not alone. Be with me.”
“You’re not alone. I’m right here.”
I reached back over to him and said, “Then make me feel good, please.”
“No, you’re doing this for the wrong reasons. You want to dull the pain, but you have to understand that life is always going to throw curves. You can’t turn to alcohol. You can’t turn to sex. Those things are not going to make your life instantly better.”
Trying to touch the muscles that were bulging from his chest to change his mind, I said, “Come on. I want to feel better, but you know I care for you.”
“Hallie, we haven’t really talked about your drinking binge the other night. Hearing about all that you went through, I get it. That still wasn’t a wise choice. I mean, guys at the party were looking like they wanted to tap you, and there are guys who won’t take no for an answer.”
I didn’t care what he was saying. I wasn’t listening. I straddled his lap and started kissing his ear. I took his hand and put it on my chest, but he did not caress me. I’m not saying I had watermelons, but I was nicely formed and burning for some skin-to-skin contact. I did not know what was wrong with the brother.
“You’re not gay or anything?” I blurted.
Then he became angry. He made sure I was over on my side of his car. He huffed.
He sighed, “Hallie, you just don’t get it.”
“No, you just don’t get it!” I yelled back at him. “All I wanted to do is have a little fun. Just take me home. I thought you could make me feel good. You’re such a wimp. You won’t even play football, jerk.”
He didn’t disrespect me, but he gave me a slight grunt, like he knew something that I did not know. At that point I did not care what it was. I could not stand him. I did not need him to do me any favors in terms of keeping my dignity. I needed him to honor my request and help me feel good. What use was he if he would not do that?
“You sure you don’t mind taking extra time to teach me the routine again?” I said to Charli. I felt so guilty that she was spending so much free time with me. She had to go over everything with me multiple times. I was not the fastest learner. I tried getting the placement down, but I was bumping into everyone.
Charli said in a sweet voice, “When are you going to get that I love you, girl? Let’s just break the routine up into thirds. We can go over the first half, really get that down, finish the middle, and then come back and do the end. Then later we can hook up with Brenton and Amir. Brenton says they’re hanging out some now.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Why? Amir is a loner. He doesn’t want friends. He makes it impossible to get to know him.”
“From the stories he told Brenton, he’s made a pretty good effort at trying to support you. I know firsthand that you can be high maintenance. So you might want to cut the brother some slack,” Charli said, as she pushed play on the CD player.
Not only was Charli a dynamite dancer, she was also a really cool instructor. I didn’t know if Cheertowne had dance, but she would be a great one to work with the little kids. She didn’t treat me like I was different—you know, the one riding the special bus—but she accommodated my pace. Before I knew it, I had the first part down. Then she plopped down and put both of her hands on her head, as if she was exhausted.
I said, “Charli, I’m sorry. I know this has taken a lot out of you, having to do it over and over again. Though you like dancing, this might be excruciating to teach the same basic moves a million times over.”
“Please, girl, it ain’t even that at all. I’m captain, and I should work overtime with anyone on the squad who needs it. Can I ask you a question?” Charli inquired.
“Sure.” I squinted and I wondered what was so heavy.
“Here’s the thing, how do you always stay so fired up, so excited? I mean, yeah, lately you’ve been going through about this thing with your mom, but your mom has been tripping for years, and you’ve always seemed to hold it in. My dad has only been out of our house for a few weeks. I can’t even sleep at night. Can you please tell me how you do it?”
I plopped down beside her. “I don’t know if I am doing it. I’ve been feeling like my life has been unraveling lately, and I’m not able to keep it together. I guess I just pretended to hold it in. I never really felt good enough, you know? Would a mother abandon a perfect child? Well, my mom abandoned me, and I haven’t felt good about myself since. That’s no way to be. No way to feel. That’s no way to think. Being down on yourself only makes you unattractive because the insecurities come out in many ways. Your grades suffer. You don’t care how you dress. You get self-conscious about how you dance. Charli Black, you can’t force your parents to work out their problems.”
“Tell me about it,” she agreed.
“But you can be there for them. Just keep telling yourself it has nothing to do with you. Hold your head up high, keep your confidence, and you’ll learn to adapt. I’ve got a feeling in your case it’s gonna work itself out. Keep moving and don’t focus on the drama,” I said. We hugged. And I realized that maybe I should follow my own advice.
Later that day I was practicing with my stunting group. Eva, Ella, Randal, and I were having trouble keeping our stunt up. As we got ready for our first competition and we kept practicing, our pyramid was the one that kept falling. So we got together outside of practice to work on it. Randal’s tiny self was on top. Eva and Ella were the bases, and I was the back spot. Randal was really having a time with the switch up where you start from the ground and switch legs before stopping the stunt. Two people were to hold one foot, and then they had to let go and grab the opposite foot. If the person up top did not stay tight, they’d fall.
When Ella and Eva dropped Randal for the third time, Randal sat down in the middle of the mat and said, “I don’t wanna do it anymore. I don’t care about doing it. You will have to find someone else to put up. Try Hallie.”
Eva was about to go off, and Ella was about to tell her not to worry about it and that she’d get it. Randal needed more than someone being over-the-top mean, but she didn’t need someone telling her what she wanted to hear because that wouldn’t make it happen either. I told them both to take a break.
I sat down beside Randal and said, “Girl, you can do this.”
“I just like tumbling across the front, but since I can’t do fulls and layouts, Charli is chosen to flip across the front. Now I have to go up in the air. I wish I was more like you.”
I started coughing at that moment. What in the world could Randal be talking about . . . she admired me? Uh-uh! I was so taken aback.
“You got this desire,” she said. She could tell that I thought she was mistaken and possibly a little crazy.
“What do you mean by desire?” I asked dubiously.
“I mean, you want to be a cheerleader. You want to master every part of it. You’re fearless.”
Disagreeing, I said, “No, I have a mental block.”
“Yeah, but that’s only in tumbling. You wanna get it. I don’t want to do some of this stuff. I just wish I cared as much as you did. You’re like the poster child for cheerleading, for goodness’ sake. Where does that drive come from? To keep going and working and trying and pushing. Everybody’s been giving you a hard time on the squad for not holding up your end, but truth be told, there’s so many of us who don’t have things right. Some folks don’t have tight arms. Some girls’ jumps are a little off. It’s just obvious because you can’t tumble, but we all need to be on point if we wanna win, and I just wanna know how you don’t ever let any of that get to you.”
“Cheering is a dream come true. When it comes to this mental block thing, I’m trying to push past it. I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not all the way there. But I got to deal with myself about that and face my fears head on. The sky is the limit for me, and the sky is the limit for you too. I’m not only going to cheer for myself, but I wanna do my part for the team. You must ask yourself, how badly do you want this, and who are you really doing it for? And if you got a firm grasp on why this is important to you, you’ll figure out how to master it. I’ve been going to this gym, and I didn’t wanna tell anybody, so please don’t share it yet. They can help you get better at this stuff.”
“So do have your tumbling?” Randal asked the magic question.
“Just pray for me,” I responded and she nodded.
I went out to get a sip of water. The twins met me and just kept staring at me. I stared back but could not understand.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” I asked.
Eva said, “Nah, we just saw you over there talking to Randal. You got a gift, girl.”
“You really do,” Ella replied.
“I’m confused. I know I got a mouth on me,” I said, knowing they always called me the bigmouthed one.
“Yeah, lately you’ve been really tamed,” Ella said. “But you are never mean with what you say to people. I like that you have purpose, but you aren’t blunt.”
Eva said, “And I know I need to learn how to be more diplomatic. I’m just not trying to be so political like my sister, sugarcoating everything.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” Ella said. “Though she’s right, Hallie. I hate that I’m so nice. People think I’m a push-over.” She looked at Eva and rolled her eyes. “But I never want to be so mean to people. I like a good balance between the two of us. You are that balance. Actually, you are the balance between all five of us. I mean, Randal barely says anything, so the best time to hang out with her is when you don’t want to be bothered, and Charli—”
Like a twin finishes the other’s thoughts, Eva cut in and said, “And Charli’s so high society. Sometimes I wonder if she can relate to people who aren’t perfect. She would just bounce. We love you, girl. That’s all. So come on, let’s get back out there.”
We all walked back to the mats. I realized that I was so hard on myself because I felt inferior to my friends. After spending time with all four of them, I realized they admired something about me too. Knowing they saw something great in me kept me motivated to keep doing what I was doing, stay in my lane, and be proud of Hallie Ray. I had it going on too. How cool.
It was the second game of the season, and we were 1–0 and so were our rivals, the MLK Tigers. The place was jumping. Before kickoff there was so much hype. The bands were battling. The dancers were trying to outdo each other, and the crowds were yelling back and forth to see who made the most noise. There was absolutely no place in the world I wanted to be more than in front of our home crowd doing my thang.
Right before kickoff Coach Woods came up to me and killed my joyous mood by saying, “So it’s been a couple of weeks. Where are you with the required skills?”
“I’ve got it,” I said to her, knowing that I did know how to tumble, but I had only been working with my girls on our routine and stunting.
“You’ve got it?” she said, wanting reassurance. “Wow, okay. I’m proud of you, Hallie. I knew you could do it.”
“Thanks, Coach, I won’t let you down.” I nervously walked back into position.
I didn’t know if Coach believed me or had to test me, but she said, “Girls, I’m going to play our competition music. Mark the stunts, but I want to make sure you guys have the moves.”
I knew everyone had the moves but me. Charli worked with me, and now I needed to show her I could do it. When the music played, I did my thing as if we were in front of judges getting scored. As soon as we were done, she gave me a thumbs-up. Thankfully, I passed the coach’s test—the first one anyway.
We got crushed in the first quarter. There were two quick, long passes, a weak left side, and just like that we were behind. Wax had the potential of being a D1 running back, but even he was getting stuffed. When defense was called to get back out on the field, they let a TD get scored off another long bomb.
Lions’ fans held their breaths in the second quarter. We did nothing with our offensive possession, but when defense got out on the field, there was an interception. Our stand went nuts. Not only did the boy catch the ball, but he was ditching and dodging the opposing players. He took the ball in for a score. Our sidelines burst with excitement.
“Amir Knight with the interception and touchdown. Go Lions! Amir, where have you been all our lives?” the announcer joked.
Hearing the loudspeaker, I froze. I knew I heard the name right, but that couldn’t be! Was Amir now playing football? Ever since I’d passionately attacked him, we had not spoken. He didn’t call me, and I wasn’t picking up the phone to call him. Thinking on it, I realized that he had not been at Cheertowne. Was it because he was on the football team? Now everything was making sense.
We made the extra point, and after the kickoff we were back on defense. I wanted to cheer. I wanted to yell. I wanted to shake my tushie. However, there was something in me that ignored the crowd. I turned and looked at the field. On the first play of that series, there was another long throw and it was intercepted again, but not because the quarterback didn’t throw it to his man. Amir came clear across field and took it. Though he didn’t take it in that time for a touchdown, he was still amazing.
The announcer screamed, “Amir Knight with another interception.”
Our quarterback, Blake Strong, came in and threw a touchdown pass to Landon King. Just like that we were back in the game, tied with the Tigers 14–14. I was still tripping Amir was ballin’.
Charli came over to me and started jumping up and down, “Did you see that? Do you know who that was? Two interceptions! The boy is bad. Oh my gosh!”
Eva came rushing over to me. “Why didn’t you tell us your boy could play?”
“Right,” Ella said. “He’s got swag, girl.”
Randal chimed in. “You told us he wasn’t in any activities. Your Amir went from benchwarmer to stud.”
Throwing up my pom-poms I said, “No, honestly y’all, I didn’t know he was playing football.”
I looked over at Charli who had a very bold grin. She knew something. I should have known when she said Brenton was hanging with Amir that there was more to it.
“What?” she giggled.
“Did you know? You said he was hanging out with Brenton. Is this why? Are they teammates now?” I asked Charli.
“Yes.”
“Uh, why didn’t you tell me?” I wondered.
Charli blurted out, “He didn’t want you to know.”
“Huh?” Eva said, “That’s crazy, why not? She loves football. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t be any good.”
I chimed in, “No, that’s not what it is. He hates me. We’re not talking anymore. We had a big blowup. I guess he felt that it was none of my business. I’m happy for him though. He is really good. He should be out there, and that’s where we needed him. So we’ve got a secondary.”
“Look at you, acting like you don’t care,” Charli said. She gave me a little shove. “He likes you, girl, I know he does. Brenton says he talks about you all the time.”
“Ladies, quit yapping your mouths and get out there on the field,” Coach Woods shouted. “It’s halftime. You need to be able to walk straight on when the players go off so you don’t waste time on the clock. The band has to play after you are introduced!”
The team was running past us, and out of all the ninety-something players, I immediately spotted Amir. I did not know if he wanted me to find him or what because his helmet was still on. It was like we had magnetic chemistry. We were just drawn together. Amir must have wanted to see me because he stopped running and took off his helmet.
I asked, “You’re playing ball now?”
He turned the tables on me. “So you’re flipping now?”
“Amir, get on to that locker room. There’s no time for socializing,” Coach Strong called out.
The cheerleaders lined up in alphabetical order for the introductions. With the last name Ray, I was at the end. When it came time for us to tumble, I just knew I could do it. I had been practicing at the gym. Mentally I was ready. My girls believed in me, and I believed in myself. Even Amir cared enough to give me a psychological boost. I knew he meant it if he was out there doing what I thought he could do. Now I needed to get out there and do what he knew I could. When my name was called, I just stood there. Nobody had me tied up. Nobody was laughing. Yeah, it seemed as if everything was going in slow motion.
I heard Charli call out, “You got this, Hallie, flip.”
Ella said, “Come on, Hallie, just tumble. You can do it, sweetie.”
Salty Eva mouthed, “If you don’t tumble . . .”
Randal smiled and crossed her fingers. Running was not an option. Sink or swim, I had to stand there. All the hard work did not matter. All the positive words meant nothing. All the trying was pointless because when it came time to show up, I shut down and could not do it.