Singing Through Siren Sounds

Singing Through Siren Sounds Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

“Yo real talk, Coin might be gone but we still here. We’ll look out for you,” Pompey states.

I think he means it to be nice. It’s not his car burning though. I know why it’s happening. I exposed myself. I went on television and I sang a sad song to the world. I sang a song that drew out emotion. I sang a song that, “started a movement”, in the words of Taz. The video had gone viral of me singing. I hadn’t wanted it to.

But I realized what it led to.

It led to my under-insured car being burnt down in front of me.

“He’s right,” Taz states, “Anything you need man. We got it. I got it. Coin would have wanted me to look for you.”

“I’m good. I just need to go to sleep.”

“You staying in this RACIST fucking place?” Taz asks.

I can hear the sound in his voice. He’s loud as well. The white kids in my school definitely didn’t seem to be so interested in staring when there was a group of us. They seemed quick to leave off the scene. The thing is though I knew that one of them did it. I didn’t know who. I didn’t know any of them. But I knew that one of them did it and something about all of that just drove me fucking nuts.

And maybe I was crazy. Maybe that’s why I turn to Taz and smile.

“No one’s driving me away from the shit I came here to do,” I tell him.

“Pull your phone out. I’m giving you my number,” Pompey states.

“I’m good, man honestly.”

He doesn’t take no for an answer grabbing my phone and saving his number in there. He had a protective spirit about him. But that’s when I notice Taz just staring at the fire. If Pompey had a protective spirit about him then Taz had a different sort of spirit. The way that he was staring at the fire just makes me feel like he has other plans.

Just as he’s doing that someone runs up to me. I jerk back in a defensive stance and my hands in a fist. What I’m surprised at though is there is one person who gets in between me and the person running up on me even quicker than I can react is Taz. Taz damn near pushes me out of the way and he has this deep grunting sound in the back of the throat.

I’m kind of amazed actually when he does it. My heartbeat picks up and my hairs stand on edge. I’m looking at Taz seeing how militant and protective he is of me.

“You know this nigga, D?” he asks me.

That’s when I see the person who is across from him. Wren. He’s dead quiet but that’s because he and Taz have crashed into each other’s chests like two multiracial greek Gods facing off against one another. The way their chests press into one another and they stare each other down is exactly how I imagine a lot of the people in the Hood part of town felt after seeing Coin, one of their own, shot by a white cop.

It was the perfect clash of the two races.

The other white kids at school notice. A crowd was still around. And for a moment I see concern finally spread across their faces, probably wondering who these black kids were in their school acting buck. And Taz may have been the first to stand but I felt like some gay ass princess in a tower or something when Pompey and Kesean stand just behind Taz forming a wall around me or something.

What’s even more impressive though is that during this face-off Wren doesn’t even bat an eye. He definitely was one tough white boy. His chest is still puffed and he has this intimidating look on his face.

I should have known he was tough from when we wrestled.

“He’s good,” I state.

The boys don’t back down or move their walls. Somehow though this doesn’t intimidate Wren in the least bit, because he steps all the way past them to get to me. His eyes never leave Taz’s though. The staredown is real even as Wren is breaking his neck. He doesn’t divert his glare until he’s right next to me.

But when he looks at me, it’s like he really is looking at me. There is this real look of concern even to the point that he drops his guard and isn’t aware the boys---especially Taz was still staring him down HARD.

He’s unconcerned as he puts his hand on my shoulder, “Man I’m sorry this is happening to you. Are you OK?”

“They are trying to scare me. It isn’t working.”

My mouth gets tight. I could have easily switched schools. Maybe found a school that had at least 5 percent black people in it. This neighborhood was for middle-class white folk. The kind of folk who weren’t all the way uncomfortably rich but weren’t anywhere near the poor folk black folk of the bottom. These were the kind of folks who never grew up with black people and felt like the brown people weren’t taking over their country.

I knew good white people. I knew very liberal white people. I knew cool conservative white people. But these people weren’t any of them.

These were the worst kind of white people.

And I wasn’t gonna let it scare me.

“Man ---- you’re so impressive,” he tells me, “I love how fuckin tough you are…”

His eyes linger onto mine for a while and this smile spreads cross his teeth as though he really meant what he was saying. He was so goddam charming without even wanting to be. There was this natural charisma about Wren. The kind of charisma that brought butterflies in my stomach. Butterflies that I hadn’t felt since I’d had my first kiss or the first time I had sex. This felt like a first too, somehow.

“Thank you.”

He takes a deep breath looking at my car that’s still on fire, before turning back to me, “I have another car. I wanted to do some work on it before I sold it after I got my new car. But honestly...that can wait. I can let you drive it if you want. It’s pretty dope. A black jaguar…”

“I’m good,” I state.

I say it a little sharply. I don’t know why his question doesn’t sit well with me. The truth is I had a feel Wren was actually being well-intentioned when he said it. Even through the All-American smile with the icy blonde cut, I could tell that he wasn’t a product of his environment. Not like the other folks who are watching me from a distance. Could he possibly have been one of the good ones?

“You sure. Honestly, it gets expensive going back and forth.”

I look down and notice he literally has his keys in his hand and he’s passing it to me. I might be imagining it but looking down it feels almost as though he intentionally makes a few of our fingers interlock with one another. Wren has this smile on my face that is so damn charming that a part of me thinks I’m going to melt into the ground just from standing there. He couldn’t possibly realize he’s touching me right now? Could he? Was he doing this on purpose? Was he doing this by accident?

No. It couldn’t be purposeful. I think he’s just trying to convince me to take the keys but all of a sudden my heart is beating all hard wondering if he had the intention of interlocking our fingers like this.

Or was it a big accident?

Out of nowhere, we are roughly separated. Our fingers are torn apart by a stiff hand to chest. It shoves Wren back a few feet.

My eyes jerk up and realize the person who shoves him back in Taz. Wren immediately seems to get in his emotions. The two bump into each other's chests again and I swear I think Taz is going to hit him. The tension is so hot between the two that I literally have to throw myself in the middle of them to stop Taz from swinging on Wren.

“He said he doesn’t want your help white boy,” Taz attacks him with his chest puffed out and his teeth gnashing together. He really took offense to Wren insisting on helping me.

I look Taz in his eyes and keep my hand’s on his chest. I have to admit pressing up on his hard muscular chest makes me realize just how perfect a specimen Taz was. Secretly my dick was getting hard as I felt those hard muscles flexing on my fingers. I feel how carved out his abdomen is against my fingertips. I can feel each ab as I slide my hands up and down his body to keep him from going after Wren. Something about this was turning on me on in a weird ass way.

“Taz...fall back man.”

“Nah shawty,” he tells me, “This fool out here trying to play white savior after what his fam did to our boy.”

Taz was taking this really personal for some reason. I didn’t really understand why as I’m standing there. Either way, they look like they are really going to get out into.

I turn to Pompey, the only one out of them that I knew had a little bit of sense to him. I am literally pleading with him with my eyes before I let out a nervous, “Can you please help me wit your boy?”

Pompey, being somewhat of a clown in this moment lets out a laugh at my desperation. I had to admit it was sexy holding Taz back but it was also a lot. Any moment the dam was going to break. Pompey grabs Taz by the back and starts to pull him away towards the car.

“Alright Tazmanian Devil nigga,” he grapples him.

It takes boy Pompey and Kesean to get Taz back into the car but they manage to do it and shortly after they pull off.

~

The night is awkward, to say the least when we get back to the room. It was a hard night but I wasn’t going to give up. I wasn’t going to let this shit break me. That just wasn’t in my character in any way. The night is even awkward with Wren. He’s sitting on his bed across from mine and I have the music playing.

I look up at him and notice how tense his body is. He’s shirtless. He has this sexy framed body with these elegant deep cuts all around. He has the body of some sort of bodybuilder. He was one of the most toned people that I’ve met in my life. I think the only thing that takes my mind off of his sexy ass tense body is when I finally get to his face.

The boy-next-door American jock look had been changed completely. He looks over at me and he had this deep grimace all over his face.

“Damn you good?” I ask him.

His eyes cross over at me with all this pure anger in them, “Is that what you think of me, man? You think I’m trying to be your white savior?”

“Taz said that, I never said that,” I state.

“But you didn’t correct him.”

“You don’t get it,” I state, taking a deep breath and turning away from him so he can’t see how vulnerable my face looks in that moment, “After something like what happened to me happened to me, black people have to face this reality that this country hasn’t always been fair to us. We sometimes have our guard up.”

I was trying to take up for Taz in away. I knew Wren was still probably half-mad that Taz came at him that way and probably a little mad that I hadn’t done more to stop it from happening. I did what I could. I broke them up. But emotionally I did so little to defend Wren. I understood where he was coming from.

And the more I look at his face, the more I realize I probably did hurt his feelings in a way.

“Man---I requested to be your roommate. After I heard you were the boy who was in the car with Cory Washington I requested to be with you.”

Everything about the statement is weird. Hearing Coin being called by his government name in person was weird. I’d seen it all over tv. Of course, you had to see it on the tv. But no one who knew Coin called him Cory Washington. Even his mother called him Coin. I’d heard it so much tossed around at the funeral. But the fact that he requested me as his roommate was even weirder.

“Why?”

“A lot of people were starting to show their colors. They were saying all these racist things. Overheard one night them planning to put someone in your room to harass you off-campus. People were showing their true colors. So I did what I had to do. I pulled some strings and decided to room with someone I didn’t know in order to stop that kind of shit from happening. To show you that not all of us are like that.”

I look away. Was it that serious? Was I that much of a threat to them? Good. I wanted them to feel uncomfortable. I smile a little bit which I don’t think Wren expects as he looks back at me.

“I got ‘em on the ropes,” I state.

“You’re crazy? You know that?” he laughs.

“Yeah, some people say that. What’s really crazy though is how I’ve been treating you…” I admit.

“Oh?”

He raises an eyebrow and smiles a little bit, “How so?”

He smiles in a teasing way. He laughs. I laugh. The laughter faces but he’s still smiling at me. I smile back. The smile lingers on a second or two longer than comfortable in the silence. That’s when I quickly clear my throat to break the silence.

“I honestly should be thanking you,” I shrug, “God knows who I would have had to room with if it weren’t for you.

“So we cool?” he asks, “We can start over?”

“Yeah, we can start over.”

“Cool hug it out.”

Wren says it in the most white jock way I’d ever seen. I remember growing up I used to love going through the categories of porns and clicking on jocks. I remember they all had a look. They were all white for the most part, blonde and muscular as hell. They always looked like they would stay young and fit forever. It just seems to almost crack me up that Wren looks like one of those porn models.

The hug I give him a hand. There’s a way men, many in the black community, hug where you shake the person’s hand before hugging them but allowing only your forearms to touch. He doesn’t hug me that way. To my surprise, he gives me a full hug. A close hug. A hug where our dicks touch through our pants. I want to laugh a little bit because it’s just like a jock to hug in this way.

“Alright dude, so does that mean you’ll come to my rugby games?”

“I was wondering what sport it was…”

“Rugby all day…”

“Is it a shame I don’t know what rugby is?”

“Oh I can show you,” he states, “It’s high contact. Hard. Rough. Pushing. Pulling. Action.”

I don’t know how I settling on his lips as he’s talking. My mind is immediately thrown to the gutter as my dick throbs watching his pink lips move to what he’s saying. I pull my knees up to hide what’s happening and he doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Well I’ll come to see. Whenever you want.”

“Cool...I’d like that…”

~

The week goes by quickly. I step out of my last class for the week and look around. He should be here by now. As I’m turning I feel the long arm grasp me from behind. It pulls me into them pushing my head up against his chest.

“How was the class little man?”

I push Wren off of me giving him a teasing soft jab to the side to get him off of me. He has a tendency to be very touchy with me and I thought it meant something until I saw that he was the exact same when I saw him with his friends around school. Him walking around with me through the campus definitely drew some stares from kids in school but then again I drew attention without him too. So it really didn’t matter.

He looks really handsome with his Armani exchange shirt on, slim fit jeans, aviator glasses drinking out of a some to-go Margarita. He looked like an editorial.

“It was cool,” I state, “General studies. Still struggling to think about what I want to major in.”

“You not taking major in Music performance?” he asks, “Hearing you sing at that memorial on TV was moving…”

“It’s not my thing anymore.”

“Singing?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to get into it right now,” I explain, “It’s a long story.”

He turns to me, “Don’t mean to cut you off but you need to try this margarita. Here. Tilt your head back. Yeah. Just like that. Ok now chug it in. There you go. Damn you got a little bit on your chin…”

The margarita spills out of my mouth a little bit. That’s when Wren scoops up the margarita and scoops it into my mouth. As soon as his finger goes into my mouth I suck the juices of the margarita off.

It happens quick and when he pulls his finger back he looks at me with this wide ass smile, “Dude---did you just suck my finger?”

“You put my finger in my mouth,” I laugh.

“I was helping you out. Doesn’t mean you suck my finger.”

He’s not offended by it. He actually finds it hilarious. We’re standing there laughing together for a minute until he pulls back. Random things like this would happen between us. Not necessarily physical things like me sucking his finger. But just funny things. They happened all week and I had to admit that we’d spent the entire week laughing and getting to know each other. And what’s crazy is that Wren was actually a really enjoyable guy to be around.

“I shudda bit it,” I tease.

“Man my girl bit my dick one time. It hurt like shit. I swear she doesn’t know what she’s doing down there,” he states, “But that’s a story for another day. Speaking of stories. You were going to tell me one. “

“I was? About what?”

“Why you don’t want to study music…” he states snickering, “I didn’t forget…”

“Oh----like I said. It’s a long story.”

“I got time,” he states.

“Do you? Those are your friends heading this way. Your girlfriend too.”

I’d seen him hang out with these people. They were all the popular white kids at school. I recognized his girlfriend almost immediately. She was the prettiest girl in school it seemed like. She almost looked as though she was a model with these honey curls highlighting her face. Next to her were two guys that I’d seen him around with.

He looks over at me, “I can still make time.”

“No. Go hang with your people.”

He stands there for a moment but then looks at me, “How about you meet my so-called ‘people’? ”

I feel nervous all through my body. I’d kept to myself from making friends here. After what happened with my car my nerves were really bad. My guard was up too. You never knew if you were talking to someone who was responsible for this. The only one here at school that I could trust was Wren.

“Where have you been babe?” his girlfriend says, “I’ve been blowing up your phone.”

He gives her a kiss. They were a good looking couple. There was no doubting that in any way. I notice the two other boys were just staring at me. One was bulky and muscular, almost the same exact frame as Wren. He had dark hair and a tight shirt. The other one was smaller slimmer but had hair the same color as Wren.

“Guys this is my friend Dijon,” Wren states, “This is Celine, Andrew, and Vance.”

Andrew and Vance just stare at me for a second. It’s Vance the one who has the same icy blonde haircut as Wren that decides to walk forward and extend a hand to me. He doesn’t smile but the fact that he’s nice enough to extend a handshake is more than I can say for Andrew who hasn’t moved an inch.

“Nice to meet you man,” Vance states.

“We shaking hands now?” Andrew asks.

“Yeah, we are,” Wren shoots him a glare.

Andrew doesn’t shake my hand but he does offer me a head nod. Celine just smiles at me from a distance. There is an awkwardness that I can feel. The way they look at me makes me realize that they knew just who I was.

It’s Vance who confirms it, “You’re him, aren’t you? The guy who was in the car when Officer McHenry got charged after the accident.”

Murder. He meant murder.

Andrew gives me this look. He just looks like he has a bad attitude. There was something about him. It has to do with the vice grip of a stare he gives me when Vance seems to have the audacity to give me a smile. I’m not sure what is weirder, Vance’s niceness, or Andrew’s immediate disapproval.

“Of course that’s him. The kid who might be sending an innocent man to jail,” Andrew states, turning his body physically away from me as though the rudeness from the initial introduction wasn’t enough for me to get the idea that he had a real problem with me for some reason.

“Drew be cool,” Wren says with this look that seemed to speak a language I didn’t understand.

The boys both seemed to fit. They were all handsome. Whether it was Wren with his round, handsome face and almond eyes to the more sharp-featured green eyes Vance. They all looked like All-American jocks. All of them. They all had looked like those goddam pornstars from back in the day. They looked like your typical jock white boys that got pissy drunk all the time, called each other Brooooo, and spent way too much time doing questionably gay things to make each other laugh.

“I’m cool. Just shocked YOU are of all people,” Andrew states.

It’s weird how he says that. I turn over to Wren expecting Wren to explain what his friend is talking about. Wren doesn’t though. He just stares towards the ground. He’s avoiding Andrew’s stare. Or maybe he is avoiding mine. I’m not sure at that moment but he’s definitely acting a little weird.

I break the silence after realizing how weird this is getting, “I’m assuming you must have known the McHenrys…”

“We all do,” Wren responds.

Wren knowing the Officer McHenry was a shock to me. He had never mentioned it. He looks away. This was awkward. I should have known by the reaction of my car getting burned that I had some people in this school who were taking me testifying against McHenry last week personally.

Why hadn’t he told me?

The long pregnant pause is drawn out to its maximum. It’s Vance who continues to smile at me and breaks the silence saying, “Regardless of how we feel about what happened. We can all agree on one thing. You’re singing was amazing man.”

I swear I see Andrew roll his eyes a little bit when he completely turns his back on the whole conversation and acts like there is something more interesting happening on his phone. I don’t get why he didn’t just walk away with all the attitude he was showing.

“Thank you,” I tell Vance smiling back.

At least he had one friend that was acting civil. And I say one because there was Celine. Andrew’s straight-up hostility makes me feel uncomfortable but I wasn’t getting good vibes from Celine either. She hadn’t stopped looking me up and down since she got there. She clung to her boyfriend Wren as though his dick was some golden ticket in a Willy Wonka fantasy. Her look just lets me know it’s only a matter of time before she says something ignorant.

“That boy can sang...that boy can sang. Oowee….that boy can sang,” she says in some sing-songy tone that sounds like it comes straight out of a 1950s pre-civil rights union movie.

I look over at Wren and then look at Vance and then at Wren again. I’m wondering if the reasonable people among the group realized what this girl just said to me.

“Why are you talking like that?” I ask, looking over at the others again and asking in a clearly offended way, “Why’s she talking like that?”

I’d heard rumors about this school. I’d heard it specifically from Coinz. “Them white boys out there ain’t right man. Something’s wrong with the babies or sumthin. But be that racist ass titty milk…”

That was his way of saying that this place had a serious issue with race. There was a rumor that local tensions had made this school one of the most segregated schools still left in America. I figured they were ignorant but hearing her put on best “homeboy” impersonation while she was talking to me when clearly felt more than just out of touch.

“That sounds racist as fuck, Celine,” Vance calls her out.

“That does not sound racist. Oh my god. He’s not even offended…”

She looks at me. Maybe she thought I was one of those black boys who would try to bow down and say that it was OK just to make her feel comfortable in her white privilege. I don’t do it. I don’t even come close to doing it. I just look away. She wasn’t going to get any defense over those actions from me.

That’s all Vance needs to look over at her with this disgusted look on his face, “He’s clearly offended. Wren get your girl…”

Celine looks as though she is really offended someone is calling her out for racism right now. She has her hand on her chest and is having this dramatic moment looking around with pouted lips and sulking eyes at everyone else to defend her against Vance’s accusation. I’m glad Vance actually was man enough to say it.

Celine finally sets her eyes on Wren, “Wren would you tell this fuckin’ idiot that I’m like the least racist person you’ve ever seen.”

Wren’s face squirms a little bit, “Babe, that was kind of insensitive…”

I didn’t like that doesn’t say flat out that it’s racist like Vance does. It’s almost as though he was trying to spare her feelings . She looks like she is mad that he isn’t completely on her side by how she hits his shoulder a few times and giving him this pissed off look. It wasn’t enough. He heard what she said. She was being VERY insensitive. She was being VERY racist.

“I always say Beyonce is my favorite artist. I’m the least racist person in the fucking world,” she states, “I’m just pissed my man doesn’t see that…”

“Oh, Beyonce?” I ask, “You’re like a Black Panther, I guess, at that point. With Beyonce being your favorite artist…”

She looks embarrassed.

It’s Andrew who turns to Celine, “Oh he has jokes, Celine. Right. Here’s a joke. Why does Beyonce always sing to the Left! To the Left! Cause deze days niggahs ain’t got no Rights.”

At that point, Celine laughs almost spitting out of her mouth before saying, “Oh my god. I can’t believe you said that Drew.”

She cups her mouth to stop the laughing. At this point, I just can’t help myself. I push Andrew. I can’t help it. I just give him a shove to his chest.

“You think that’s funny man.”

“YO it’s a fuckin’ joke!”

He pushes me back. Hard. So hard that I fall to the ground. He’s a bigger guy but I don’t care. I jerk off the ground fast and would almost get in his face if it wasn’t for Wren in my face trying to hold me back.

“Why the fuck you holding ME back?” I ask Wren, “Oh I get it. Dangerous black boy right?”

I turn and start storming off. I’m heated. The anger is flowing out of me. It feels just like that night. I remember it like some old fashioned movie. It didn’t feel like real life the night that Coin died. And all that comes back to my mind as I start storming off.

I hear someone calling out for me but I’m so pissed that I don’t stop running until I get back to the room.

~

I’m in the room heated. It still feels fresh when Wren gets back to the room almost 30 minutes later. He walks into the room silently, both hands behind his back as he approaches tucked into his ass pockets. He turns to me and looks over at me. It takes him a while to say something. It’s almost as though he expect me to say something to him first.

When I don’t he just says, “Why’d you run out of there like that?”

I’d been sitting on the bed when he gets to the room. My shirt is off and I’m just doing crunches. It’s the only thing that can take my mind off of wanting to do something horrible to Andrew.

“Your racist ass friends clearly felt like that joke was appropriate.”

“Not all my friends. Vance didn’t participate in that.”

“No, but you did.”

“What’s that mean! You think I knew they were gonna pull that shit?” he asks me.

He’s passionate. I had to admit it was kind of sexy seeing him raise his voice like he was doing. There were veins coming out of his neck. His face gets a bit red. He doesn’t aggressively walk up to me or anything like that...not like in the way say a Taz would. He keeps his distance in his aggression as though still being respectful of my space.

“I think you held me back. You don’t know what it feels like. You have no idea what it feels when I see people taking the side of a cop who killed my friend just because he was scared of a black boy. You are ALL scared. And let me guess. You’re mad because I was the one who supposedly hit him first... “

Angry black boy. I could hear them all now.

“Yes I’m mad,” he argues.

I shake my eyes, “I’m not surprised.”

“I’m mad you didn’t let ME hit him first,” Wren explains to me showing me his hands, “I made sure to hit him second though.”

That’s when I realize his hands are covered in blood and bruises. Something most definitely went down out thereafter I left and seeing Wren’s hands covered in blood makes me so aware of just how bad it had gotten.

All of a sudden I feel kind of bad.

“Wren, man….you didn’t have to do that…”

“Yeah, I did…”

I grab him and lead him to the bathroom. I start immediately running warm water over his wounds to clean some of this blood off. While the water is running I can’t help but to see myself looking at him. His hair was platinum blonde and his lips were beyond soft. I can’t help but to notice my heart beating out of my chest standing in the bathroom with him.

“Why you so nice to me man?” I ask, “I’m not used to this shit. What do you want from me?”

I had to ask him. I couldn’t take it anymore. It just felt so weird that he had just beat up his friend for me. Clearly, there were bruises all over his knuckles and none of his face so it was clear that Wren had won the fight. That wasn’t the point though. The fact that he did it---for me, was just weird.

“It’s the same reason that I wanted to room with you. Why I went out of my to request it. I want to make you feel comfortable here. Because that’s what’s right.”

I take a deep breath.

Was Wren one of the good ones?

“Thanks, man,” I state, “I know my guard is up. I know it’s up but if I let my guard down…”

I can’t even finish the thought. He knew what I meant by the look I was giving to him. He was a good guy. I knew that now. Still letting someone in at a time like this in this school just felt hard.

“I got your back,” he tells me, “I mean it…”

And for that moment I believe him.

~

We get closer for the next few weeks. School is busy and I haven’t had the chance to go see the boys in the Bottom. I hadn’t had much time for anything but school...and Wren. Wren, of course, because we were around each other all the time. A lot of our classes just so happened to be in the same direction so we walked everywhere in addition to living together. He just so happened to be good at Math while I happened to be good at English so we spent a lot of time helping each other out to. It was that but it was also the weird things that I didn’t see happening. The little things we had in common. Sure we didn’t like the same music but we both loved Quarantino movies. We spent odd times throughout the day just quoting them. I found it hilarious for some weird reason.

I would say that me and Wren are becoming almost friends. It happens out of nowhere. The long conversations about our past, our present, and our future. Not together It was nothing like that. It wasn’t romantic. Not in the least. It was just...nice. It felt real. A friendship coming out of thin air in a moment that I didn’t understand.

To the point, I was beginning to trust him.

That all changes when I have my appointment with my Guidance Counselor.

Her name was Dianna Fertsbern. She was a nice enough middle-aged white woman with dark brown hair that had unruly split ends. She treats me a bit like glass asking me how I am every couple of minutes as though I’m some sort of victim.

It doesn’t occur to me why she’s acting this way until she says, “I see you didn’t take any music classes. Was that some sort of a mistake…”

“Not my thing ma’am not anymore.”

“Why? You have a beautiful voice…”

I hear it all the time. The beauty in my voice. I don’t see it anymore though. I don’t hear it. All I hear are those sirens calls that lead men to the destruction. The sirens ring through my ears over and over drowning out something that was once so special to me and once so beautiful.

“Well, hopefully, you change your mind…”

I don’t even think about it before shaking my head and saying, “I doubt it.”

“Wel tell me how everything has been going personally...with the bullying.”

I don’t think she means anything by calling it bullying. It was true. But the fact that she had heard about it makes me irritated. Because no one had done anything to stop it. My car had just gone up in flames and no one was in jail. There was no one who seemed to have witnessed a car burning in the middle of the day on a college campus to arrest someone.

“As well as you could imagine,” I state, “I’m getting through.”

“That’s good. We were scared you would leave…”

“Bad publicity huh?” I ask, “The only black kid leaving the all-white school because of racist attacks just so happens to be the same black kid who survived in a police shooting. The liberal media would eat your asses up.”

“Honestly believe it or not kid, we actually care,” she explains, “Some of us do at least. We all tried to stop it…”

“Stop what?”

The guidance counselor seems confused, “Oh you know. Of course, you know. Your roommate situation. But somehow the kid pulled some strings.”

I’m confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you know? Wren is Officer McHenry’s son…”

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