Chapter 10: Hidden wounds

The first time me and Tec talked to each other was on the first day, back when the building's asbestos was not disturbed, I thought he was like the others the way he looked. The only available seat was next to him, he looks like everyone else, he doesn't wanna be here, so he shouldn't have the energy to do dumb shit. We sit through the French teacher's speech and I hear "Everyone looks bored as fuck in this room." "Deadass," I replied. "Shit, I didn't even do French 1," Tec said. "Really?" I said, "they just put you here?" "Yeah," Tec said, "I skipped 11th grade." I thought that was cool, skipping a whole grade. The whole time afterwards, Tec and I were talking a lot. Eventually, I got his psn name and we played Grand Theft Auto 5 and Minecraft, and I got to meet his gaming friends, this one particular guy, "liv", he says he's a car enthusiast after his dad cop one Porsche, he was kinda annoying, but I didn't wanna say anything out of respect. Eventually, he started getting on Tec's nerves and crossed the line when he sent me some shit that I didn't need to know about Tec. After that, Tec completely cut him off, so did I, I met more of his friends, shadow and Kylo. Shadow sounds more mature than he is, but overall he can be pretty chill, Kylo is cool, even finding out that he's gay didn't bother me, but he's too much of a debater. Sometimes, there are some dickheads who join the party, so I bid on they bitch asses, they always get butt hurt and leave. I eventually earned Tec trust, one day, he told me his past. "I'm not a Philly native, I'm from New York, but one day, my mom came and got me and my sister and took us to North Carolina," he said. He continues to when he was homeless, " I used to ask people for their change to get something to eat, sometimes, I'd get in line for more. I had to get food out of the trash sometimes and we had to sleep in the cold." He continues to living with his aunt. "At least I had a roof over my head, cause my aunt treated me horribly, my cousins didn't treat me right either, I still had to fend for myself, when we went out to eat, she didn't bother to get me anything, she sometimes said 'That's your mother's problem,' thing is my mother is on the streets. I was close to suicide at that point, but there's was one life form that cared for me there, the dog, he was a husky, the dog knew how I was feeling and came to buy me some time." His speech almost brought me to tears and hearing that my brother was close to that dark path troubled me, hearing about the dog makes me more thoughtful about animals, they have feelings too, in fact, they're better than humans. He told me about his aunt, and the fact that I did more for him than his aunt, it's fucked up, but this is what made him the person he is today, and I'm just glad he's still here. Tyrone had told me his past too, "Born in North Carolina, I had to learn how to fight as people would bully me, when I moved to Philly, I had to fight some more, niggas would come up to you and try to test you, I had no time for that bullshit, so I fucked them up." I understand his whole point of view, in Philly, you get tested when hanging in the wrong place, shit, my guy Cooper told me about Olney, I told myself I'm never going down there, we were at west and he's never been down here, so I showed him around west, he saw the motorized bicycles, 52nd street, my block, then we walked him to 56 street station, he said "west philly the real trenches." I agreed. As much as I love West Philly, I hate some of the people in west.

July, 2019, 6 months ago...

Me and my cousin were walking down 58th street, towards Sayre high school, we were going there to chill and relax there. When we got there, there were a group of niggas with 2 dogs, I didn't wanna go over there, first of all, they're niggas, second of all, they're pit bulls, but my cousin goes over there anyway because, he "knows" them, I don't know most of them fuckers over there. My cousin almost got bit by that fucking dog and still decides that it's fine, I walk away after that because I don't trust them and I'm wearing my older cousin's white Air Force Ones. I shouldn't have thought that they'd leave me alone with their dumbasses, they CHASED ME WITH THE FUCKING DOGS! I didn't do shit to them to deserve this, it was like your the fucking prey, this isn't getting chased by the police, at least I'd know I'm going to jail, this is two random niggas who I don't know chasing me, that shit makes you think. Are you meant to die? To this day, I dream of bustin a cap in them retarded niggas and their unlucky ass bitches.