Can't Be Friends

Shawn

“Shawn, your friend's here!” I heard my mom yell from downstairs. I ran down to the first floor of my home, smiling. I was excited that Nia was coming over. Any kid my age would've been. Playing video games with my best friend was pretty important to me then.

Nia was standing in the foyer, my mom's hand on the front door handle.

“I'm heading to work, sweetie,” she said and I wrapped my arms around her torso.

“See you, Mom!”

“See you, love you, I'll call you guys from the hospital. Tell your Dad to pull out that left over chicken for dinner, okay?”

“Okay.” My mom kissed my forehead and I begrudgingly wiped it afterward.

Nia giggled. “Hey, Shawn.”

I grinned. “You wanna play video games in my room?”

She nodded and followed me as I bounded up the stairs excitedly.

“Whoa, whoa. Who's this Shawn?”

I looked up at the tall, dark brown skinned man in front of me, whose eyes and smile resembled mine.

“Uh, Dad, this is my friend Nia. Nia, this is my dad.”

Nia waved shyly and my dad's grin grew.

“Whew. That's good, I was sure I only had two kids,” he joked. Nia laughed.

Suddenly, I noticed the shoe box he had in his hand. I knew what that meant. Dad was gonna 'put the needle in his arm and take a nap for a while'. That's what he'd told me years before, but I knew about heroin by that point. Knew it turned my smiling jokester father into a drowsy imposter.

I glanced at Nia, thinking she probably didn't know anything about cardboard boxes.

“Alright, Dad, we're gonna go play video games in my room.”

He nodded, going into his and mom's room. “Nice meeting you, Nia!”

I opened the door to my room and found Robert Cory laying on his bed.

“Rob, this is my friend Nia. We're gonna play some Playstation.”

Robert Cory waved at her. “Can I play?”

“Nah, there's only two controllers. And shouldn't you be reading or something anyway, brainiac?

Rob nodded and walked out of the room.

Nia raised an eyebrow at me. “Why're you so mean to your brother?”

I shrugged, set up the game system. “I'm not. My parents think he's a genius so, shouldn't he be doing genius-y things in his spare time? I'm just trying to help him out.”

I handed her a controller, WWE Smackdown loading on the old TV.

Nia smirked. “Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

We each chose a character to wrestle with and moments, well, really minutes later, games took forever to load back then, we were wrestling on the screen. Nia was surprisingly good, I noticed two minutes in, when she pinned me for the third time.

“Have you played this before?”

“Nah, not really. Maybe once, I think my little brother has it.” With that said, she pinned me one final time and won the match.

“Not fair! Rematch,” I demanded.

Nia smirked, “Sure, Shawn.”

That wouldn't be the last time she beat my ass at that game.

“Shaaawn . . . Shawny . . . Shaaawwwn, wake uuup.”

Gah! Why was someone waking me up so early on a Saturday morning after the night I'd had? Who would do such a thing?

“Shaaawn, I'm hungryyy,” a little voice whined.

Kia.

I groaned heavily, Kia sitting by my side. I peaked an eye open. She was leaning right over my face of course.

“Shawn!”

“Kia. Hi.”

“I'm hungry. Can you make some pancakes?”

I wanted to be angry at the five year old, but how could I?

I surged up, tickling her on the bed as she tried to kick me off. Her giggles took a while to quiet.

I kissed her forehead.

“Eeewww,” she muttered.

“Don't 'eww' me, accept my love.”

Kia's big brown eyes stared into mine. “Your love should be in the form of chocolate chip pancakes.”

I grinned at her comeback. She reminded me so much of Nia.

Nia . . .

“Mom at work?”

“Yeah. She was gone when I woke up.”

“Which was when?”

Kia shrugged. “I don't know. 6?”

Why? Why would she be up so early?

“And what time is it now?”

She shrugged again. “Seben.”
I sighed. Only my little sister could get me out of bed this early.
“Alright, come on, you gotta help.”
Kia grinned.
“Yay! Pancakes!”

“So I told Molly-”

“Uh-huh.”

“That is was my doll and she couldn't have it.”

I raised an eyebrow at my sister. “That's good. I like that you stood up for yourself.”

Kia nodded animatedly.

“What're you guys doing?” Robert Cory asked, walking into the living room.

“Chillin', I made pancakes a couple hours ago, if you want some. They're on the stove.”

Rob nodded and came back with a plate before sitting on the other couch.

Kia was absorbed into her cartoons as I moved to lay down on my half of the couch.

“How was the party last night?” Robert Cory asked me.

Ugh, that was the last thing I wanted to think about.

“It was iight. Aye, man, you should do some homework and studying today. Don't leave it all for Sunday, alright?”

Robert Cory nodded. He glanced at the TV before getting up and leaving the room.
I had about another hour before I had to go to work. Which meant I should probably be getting ready soon. But I was so ready to chill after last night. Last night . . .

Nia.

Nia told me she was in love with me. My best friend told me she was in love with me. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to . . . say? How was I supposed to fix this?

Like how long had she been in love with me? Our whole friendship? Seven long years? Or had this just happened? And why does that even matter? Does it? I-

I was lost. I was baffled, surprised, caught off guard, all of that.

I was fucked up.

This information . . . was troubling . . . confusing.

I hadn't lied to her a few days before, I really didn't think friends should date, it messed relationships up. But . . . Nia? I mean, I would have risk anything for our friendship. But that? I wasn't sure what to do with that. And I really didn't want to think about it.

What I did know . . .

We were never going to be the same. And that sucked.