The Crazee Life

After I cleaned up my room, I thought about how I was supposed to stop this whole thing from happening. All I wanted more than anything was to ask Priest how she truly feels. I want her to tell me about everything that's on her mind, no matter how important or minuscule. I wasn't sure if I should call her, but I think she needs time to process her feelings on what happened and about her life. I just hate that we complicated things. Even if we never get together, we've already slept together. There is no coming back from that. So, where do we go from here?

As I pondered where Priest and I's relationship would go, I heard a knock on my door. Honestly, I didn't want to be bothered with anyone else for a long while. I was unpleasantly surprised when a detective showed me his badge. He was a skinny mixed man, who looked to be around 35 years old, and around 6 feet tall. He had a sharp cut and made sure to put on his newest suit for this visit.

"Hello, I'm detective Marco Grant. Before I was only an Officer, but I've been promoted." I nodded my head slightly. Now that he said his name, I recognized him from the scene at Vicky's house. "Congratulations..." I said.

"You are Zuri Ford, correct?" He asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I have a few questions to ask you, concerning the death of Victoria Caruso. May I come in?"

I responded by moving aside from the door and allowing him in.

I lead Officer Grant to my couch. He was lucky I had gotten around to clean it. Less than 24 hours ago, I was hanging onto it for dear life.

I sit across from him, on my coffee table.

"How did you say you came to meet the victim, again?"

"Well, I don't recall ever telling you this, but we first ran into each other at a grocery store, and once again in a comic store. We established our friendship then." I reply.

He writes something down on a pad of paper. "Okay, do you know how long ago that was?"

"Ooh, not very long ago. I couldn't have known her for longer than a month, if that."

"What did you usually converse about?" He asked.

"Honestly, we didn't even get past the stage of small talk. We haven't talked about anything of substance." I replied.

"Okay. What were you doing on the day of April 19th?"

"I mostly stayed at home. I mean, I'm sure I picked up a few things from the store, but it was probably the convenience store. I also took my younger sisters to school. Other than that, though, I stayed home."

"Do you have anyone that could confirm that you at least dropped your sisters off?"

"Maybe you can ask their teachers or something. I know I dropped Britt off a little bit later because that was the day she had a field trip."

"Okay. Do you have their teachers' names and numbers?"
Hmm, he sounds more interested in this conversation than he wants me to know. I didn't care, though. He would never pin me to any crime. Especially not Vicky's.

"Uh, yeah. My sister Brittany is in a lady named Kathy Ribble's class, and Joey--Josephine has more than one teacher, so I don't know all of them. I can write down the names of their schools and the numbers to their main offices.." I offered.

"That won't be necessary, I'll just hit them down." commented Officer-Turned-Detective Grant.

So, I went ahead and told him what he wanted to know. He then thanked me for my time and told me to keep an eye on my phone, just in case he had any more questions. I nodded and he walked out.

Since I was done with the fast life, I decided that I wanted to start a business for my sisters so they could have something to fall back on. I thought about what they liked the most.

Britt was always a fashionable person in her own right. She's big on trends that she learns about in school. Right now, everyone in her grade is raving about these new bracelets that light up. She goes to school with at least three of them daily. They say the bracelets represent different things about them-- like if you're wearing a blue bracelet, it means you like Disney Channel. If you wear an orange one, you like Nickolodeon. If you wear a red one, it means you can handle spicy food. It was hilarious to me because it was so innocent. Hell, when I was growing up, those bracelets told a much less innocent story about you. I guess the fact that these light up bracelets were sparkly made it seem all the more innocent.

Joey was a very sarcastic person who loved to wear random tee-shirts. That's something that I got her into. I mean, today I was wearing a shirt that said "girl, bye." I would have to ask her about more of her interests. She was such a mysterious person. She was basically an introvert. That is hilarious, considering she is the loudest one of my sisters.

I knew I would have to keep myself occupied with this business for awhile. Actually, I'm really glad that things like this take a little time; I had nothing but time and energy. It would help tremendously in forgetting about my life and recent events I've been through.

I was so into it, a week later, I was up to my ankles in paperwork. Doing shit the legal way was annoying, but this was the safest way to go about it. I looked at my phone for maybe the third time that week and discovered that Priest had left me a text message.
I'm finally ready.

I read it in confusion. Ready for what? Even though I was nowhere near close to finishing with this paperwork, I decided I needed a break. I wanted to go see P and hopefully have a real conversation with her.

I half-way sped to her house. I'd been waiting for a little while for her to hit me up. I didn't want to waste one more second.

As I lock my door, I feel a little nervous. When I saw her silhouette, I cursed myself for remembering what went down a couple days ago. She is wearing a hoodie with basketball shorts; the ultimate 'Im not going anywhere.' outfit. When she sees me, she does not smile. She only holds the door open for me to come in. I walk in and stand still like I haven't been here a thousand times. I felt shy around her again. I felt like a child who knew she was gonna get a scolding from her parents.

She motions for me to go into her living room, so I head in there and she followed behind me. I sat on the loveseat, while she sat across from me in the La-Z-Boy recliner. She stared at me for a full three minutes before she said anything.

While she was staring at me, I also stared back, while searching for any emotion in her eyes. I mean, was she mad at me? Sad? Was she lustful again? What was it?

"I've finally accepted myself for who I am." she says, clasping her hands together.

"That's great, P. I knew you would."

"Yeah, but it's so crazy. I've always had sex with girls, but I could never accept that I wasn't... normal." she says. I nod, signaling for her to keep going.

"After we... uh.." she began.
"Fucked. We fucked. There's literally no other way to put it."

She chuckled. "Well, yeah. After that, it really opened my eyes to see what kind of person I actually am, instead of what my father told me I was. I was proud of it for the first time. After being shamed by my dad about being gay for so long, I finally felt proud."

When I didn't say anything, she continued. "Zee, I have always felt guilty about sex with other women, but not this time. It scared me that I didn't feel the same pang of guilt that I always do. I think I finally realized that my dad was wrong. In a world where everything he said and did was always right, knowing that he was wrong completely shook my whole foundation."

"Aw, P." I said, noticing the crack in her voice.

"I finally feel, like... free. It's funny 'cause I didn't feel this horrible selling drugs and possibly killing people. Not physically, but indirectly. The one thing I felt the most bad about was the one thing that was perfectly legal in the eyes of the law, but was the worst quality ever in my dad's eyes."

"I'm so glad you resolved that issue with yourself. So, what's next with you?" I asked, finally relaxing into the couch.

"I shut off all contact with my dad. I will no longer waste my time trying to explain the same thing over and over to him again. I actually gave up religion. If there's something wrong with one part of it, then the whole thing is wrong, and I want no parts of it."

"Really? How did you feel after denouncing it?"

"I felt like I could be myself with no apologies. God loves you and me as we are. I don't think religion is required to know something like that."

I raised my eyebrows at that. "Wow. That was very brave of you. So, tell me something. Do you feel better now? Because this week without you was so hard."

She chuckled. "Yes. Priest is back." she declared.

I smiled widely. It was good to see her finally smiling again. "Now, the elephant is still in the room. What made you kiss me last week?"

"I don't know what got into me. I promise, I didn't know I would ever do something like that until I actually did it." she says, rubbing her neck. "Now let me ask you something. Why'd you take so long to kiss me back? I know you don't think I didn't notice that."

"I wasn't sure if we should've been doing that, really. I felt like you were still in emotional distress and wanted to use sex as a way to make you feel better. And, usually, it doesn't."

"Sounds plausible. And thanks for kind of looking out for me, I guess. Now, what made you kiss back?"

I felt my cheeks turn red. I was smiling from ear to ear, remembering what happened. "I'm sure you know why. Let me tell you, you're a very good kisser."

"Aw, shucks!" she says, jokingly.

"I don't wanna be 'that girl', but P... what the hell do we do now? We opened up a can of worms when we did our thing."

"Mmm, we don't have to do anything we don't want to do. Literally nothing has to change about our friendship. Some friends like to mess around, and some don't. Obviously we're not platonic anymore, and we don't have to be. We don't have to let things get complicated, you know?"

I nodded my head to let her know that I understood what she said. I let out a huge sigh of relief. "I thought you were embarrassed that you slept with me. I felt like you thought I took advantage of you or something."

She cackled. "No, Zee. I just felt very weird about myself, which is why I left and didn't say anything for awhile. I'm sorry for that."

"Don't apologize for that. You do need to apologize for this damn hickey." I said, showing P her handiwork. It was huge. "Ooowee. That's how I KNOW it was good. I know everybody was all in your business. Anyway, enough about me, Zee. What's been going on with you?"

"Well, I'm finally in the beginning process of creating a business in honor of my sisters."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked. "Tell me all about it."

And so I did.