Losing Romeo
Authors: A.J. Byrd
A.J. Byrd
To my BFFs
Kathy Alba and Elliott Goins.
Thanks for always having my back and keeping me grounded.
To my family and friends, thanks for all the support and love that you've given me. Again to my editor, Evette Porter, thanks for lovin' my stories and being so patient with me on this project. To my wonderful fans and readers, thank you for allowing me to do what I do. It's always a pleasure to entertain you. The fan letters have been wonderful and have encouraged me to continue writing this series.
I wish you all the best of love.
Always do what you say you're going to do.
RomeoâTeenage Dad
“What
did you just say?” I ask, convinced that I heard my ex-girlfriend wrong. When she pulled me into a back room in the middle of my boy Shadiq's party, I had no way of anticipating this bomb being dropped on me. In fact, my new girlfriend, Anjenai, is outside waiting for me to return.
Phoenix sweeps her blond hair back from her face and takes a deep breath. “I said
I'm pregnant.
”
“By who?”
She rolls her eyes up at me and crosses her arms. “Don't even play me. You know that you're the only one I've ever been with.”
“I don't know no such thing. You're always rubbing up and flirting with some damn body.”
“That was always just to make you jealousâkeep you interested. You are the only one I've ever slept with.”
I step away from the door and her. “Naw. Naw,” I say. “This is just another one of your games. You're lying.”
“I'm not lying, Romeo. I've had morning sickness since school started. It was so bad yesterday that I stayed home. I'm pregnant.” She opens the small string purse on her shoulder and hands me some kind of stick.
“What the hell is that?”
“It's a pregnancy test. Read it.”
I don't take the stick, but I glance down and see the word
pregnant
on a digital screen. “What? That's supposed to be proof? That just means you got a pregnant girl to piss on that thing. I didn't see you take the test.”
She goes back into her purse and removes a slim object wrapped in foil. “Would you like for me to pee on it right now?”
I swallow, but nod my head. This bedroom has an adjoining bathroom. I follow her to it and watch her do the test. Less than three minutes later I'm looking at a duplicate stick with the word
pregnant
printed on it. “Oh, shit.”
Phoenix flushes the toilet and washes her hands. “Satisfied?”
“Oh, shit,” I say again.
“We're going to have a baby,” she states the obvious. “Oh, shit.”
“Now do you understand why I came here tonight? We have to get back together. I'm not raising this baby alone.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Will you
please
stop saying that?”
“I can't! Oh, shit!” I pace the floor and then stop. “We can't have a baby.”
“Why the hell not?”
“We're
fifteen,
” I shout.
“That didn't stop us from having sex, now, did it?”
“Why weren't you on the pill?”
“Why didn't you use a condom?” she yells back.
My mind draws a blank as I plop down on the corner of the bed. My entire short life flashes before my eyes. “My father is going to kill me when he finds out. And that's
if
I'm lucky. My father's dreams for me are high, and he doesn't take to disappointment well.”
“Don't look like that,” Phoenix says. “It's not like we'll be broke and living off welfare. Our parents will help us.”
I glance up at her and try to imagine being tied to her for God knows how many years while raising a baby. “I don't know what to do.”
Phoenix walks over to the bed and sits down next to me. “The first thing you need to do is break it off with your new girlfriend.
Now.
”
My mind reels back to Anjenai. Sweet, smart andâimportantlyâdrama-free Anjenai. The past few weeks I've been really getting to know her while also helping her make the girls' basketball team. And quite frankly I've been really feeling her, thinking that we'd make a great team. Now this.
“What?” Phoenix's hazel eyes tend to turn more green when she's angry and right now they look like glowing kryptonite. “I know you're not thinking about running out on your responsibilities.”
I don't say anythingâI can't.
Phoenix's voice starts rising. “Romeo, I didn't get pregnant by myself!”
“I know that!” I explode off the bed and start pacing again.
“Then what's the problem?” she asks, folding her arms and staring me down.
“The problem is that this is a whole lot to just be dumping on me right now.” I start rubbing my hand along my jaw while I try to decide whether to yell or throw something. What the hell am I going to do with a kid at fifteen? Bump thatâwhat the hell are my parents going to do when they find out? I have no problem picturing my father straight losing his mind. Phoenix may think our parents will help, but I think they'll kill us.
“You're not the only one who's scared here,” she tells me. “I'm going to get fat!”
She says this shit with a straight face, and I'm left just staring at her. Phoenix and I have dated off and on since sixth grade. In a lot of ways it was sort of expected. We were the It couple of our class. The pretty cheerleader and the school jockâwe played right into the stereotype. But things haven't been right between us for a whileâa long while, if we were honest with one another. The main reason is because Phoenix likes to play too many head games. We broke up just before school started. She didn't take the break-up seriously and clearly thought that I'd boomerang back like I've done countless times before.
“I need a drink,” I finally tell her and then rush out of the back room and try to shove my way through a thicket of laughing and dancing kids from school.
“Romeo, wait!” Phoenix shouts from behind me, but I don't slow up until I reach one of the high chairs in front of the breakfast bar where all the bottles of hard liquor are lined up. I pick up the bottle of Grey Goose, unscrew the top and take that sucker to the head like it is a bottle of water.
“Damn, man,” some miscellaneous dude says beside me. “Is it like that?”
“You just don't know.” I turn up the bottle again. I can't get drunk fast enough.
Phoenix reaches over my shoulder, grabs a shot glass and shoves it toward me. “Don't be an ass.”
“Fine.” I pour myself a shot instead. “Happy?”
“Romeo?”
I close my eyes and pretend that her sweet voice isn't like a switchblade stabbing me in between my ribs. “Yeah?” I don't bother to even turn around.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Phoenix turns around. “What does it look like? He's enjoying the party with his real girlfriend.”
That catches everyone's attention.
“Romeo, what the hell is she talking about?” There's pain in her voice, and yet I still can't turn around. I just sit ramrod straight while my Adam's apple bobs up and down.
“Look,” Phoenix says. “It's over. Romeo loves me. You had your fun. Now run along back to the hood and play with your pet rats or whatever the hell it is you poor people do.”
I slam my eyes closed and imagine wrapping my hands around Phoenix's neck.
“Romeo.” Anjenai flips the script, and the tough girl from Oak Hill starts seeping into her voice. “What is this bitch talking about?” I can hear her shifting from one foot to the other behind me. “What? You're going to let this bitch speak
for
you? You ain't going to man up and tell me the deal?”
It's stone cold silent in here now. Everybody is waiting to see what I'm going to do.
A baby. I'm about to be a father.
Slowly, I turn my head and lift my gaze to her angry face. The face I was just beginning to fall in love with. “I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry? Damn right you're sorry. A sorry piece of shit, if you ask me,” says Anjenai.
She shoves my arm hard and I nearly topple off the stool.
Phoenix jumps her skinny ass in front of me. “Leave him alone, bitch. And clean the wax out of your ears. It's
OVER!
”
“Bitch, I oughta⦔ Anjenai says, before she lunges straight at Phoenix and grabs two handfuls of her blond extensions.
Phoenix screams.
I jump out of my seat. “Anjenai, stop. Let her go. She's pregnant!”
There's a collective gasp inside the cottage. I pull Anjenai off Phoenix, but I must've done it with more strength than I thought because the next thing I know she's falling backwards and hitting her head on the edge of a table.
“Oh, hell, naw!” To my surprise, Tyler jumps into the
mix, swinging at my head. I go down, and Phoenix jumps on top of her.
Then Anjenai's other best friend, Kierra, springs from nowhere.
Then Phoenix's girlfriends jump into the mix and then, at last, Anjenai. No doubt about it, come Monday morning we're going to be the talk of the entire school. I'm ashamed to say that I'm getting my clock cleaned by Anjenai's fiercest friend, Tyler Jamison. In the short time since school has started, the young freshman has developed quite the reputation of being willing to fight anyone at any time, boys included. I'm trying my best not to hit a girl, but damn, she's making it hard.
It takes my boys Chris and Shadiq to step in and help a brother out. By the time I stand up from the bottom of the pile, other brothers from the football team have stepped in and are helping Shadiq drag Anjenai and her BFFs off his property.
“Anjenai.” I start forward, only to have Phoenix place a restraining hand on my arm.
“Let her go,” she whispers.
I shrug her hand off of me and hiss, “I, at least, owe her an explanation.”
Phoenix's eyes narrow as she folds her arms. “Yeah. I'm sure you knocking me up is going to make her feel a whole lot better.”
I don't think I can hate this girl any more than I do right now. “Excuse me,” I say and storm away. I ignore all snickering and finger pointing as I jog to catch up with Anjenai. “Wait! Hold up!”
“Yo, man. Let 'em go!” Chris says, marching back toward the party while the girls continue their steady march off the property. Without looking back, Anjenai jets her middle finger high in the air. Her BFFs follow suit. “Sounds like we got a lot to talk aboutâdaddy!”
I groan and watch the best thing that has ever happened to me march away from me.