Chapter 3

Sasha took a deep breath as she placed her hand onto the door knob, next pushing it open slowly, only to grimace at the cracking sound that announced her arrival.

The large clock on the living room wall read 8pm, and accounting on the fact that school ended at 3, she knew she would have some explaining to do. The smell of spaghetti filled her nose, and while she wasn’t hungry she knew she would have to make an appearance in the dining room anyway. She could hear the familiar sounds of silverware tapping against the glass plates, as her family silently ate their meals. She decided to take a chance and make a beeline for her room, but the sound of her name being called from the other room told her that she wasn’t fast enough.

“Yeah?” She asked, slowly sauntering under the arch that created a entry way into the dining room.

Her mother and father were sat at the opposite sides of the table, while her four brothers sat around it. Quan, her fraternal twin gave her a knowing look that she read well, while Ty gave her a taunting smirk. Mikey was in his own world as always, drawing underneath the table even though his parents told him not to, and little joe who was too young to even know what was going on. Joseph looked up from his plate, his glasses on the bridge of his nose as always.

“What time does that clock say?” Joseph asked, pointing to the grandfather clock in their dining room.

“Eight, sir. But before you ~”

“And what time, does school end?” he cut her off.
Sasha didn’t respond, and Joseph looked over to his sons Quan and Ty.

“Do you two know?”

Quan looked up at his father, “2:50 sir”

“2:50, would you look at that” he laughed sarcastically, “So my clock must be wrong, because that one says 8:05 at night. Where the hell have you been?”

“I made friends” Sasha shrugged, not wanting to admit that she also went to tryouts, “And I lost track of time”

“You bet your sweet ass you did, don’t wait until your last year to get involved with these little boys” he said pointing his fork towards her and her brothers snickered.

“Sasha and boys?” Ty laughed, “Have you seen her dad?”

“Hush up” Myda scolded her son as she hated hearing the truth, “Now Sasha sit down and eat your dinner, it’s already getting cold”

“I’m not hungry, I had pizza” she shook her head, “Mind if I go out to the court?”

Her parents gave her the same uninterested look, and she knew she should probably stop while she was ahead. So far they hadn’t blown up at her for being five hours later coming home, so she decided to take what she could get. She sat down at her designated spot that was between Ty and Quan, and twisted her lip when she realized her plate was different than everybody’s else’s.

“What’s this?” She asked, although she knew it was her half eaten meal from the night before.

“You didn’t eat it last night, so you get another chance tonight. I told you, no food wasted” Joseph said proudly, actually amused with himself for coming up with the petty punishment.

Sasha rolled her eyes, but began to scarf it down in efforts to get the whole dinner in her stomach within minutes. She just wanted to get the rest of the night over with, so she could wake up the next day and have the news of if she made the team or not. She was sure that she did, however seeing it on paper meant more.

“How was your first day Sasha?” Her mom asked, trying to break up the tense silence in the room.

Myda was a middle aged woman, who was small in stature and in presence. She was the shadow of her husband, and most of her decisions in life came from the man she had been with for over twenty years. If it was one thing Sasha hated about her mom, it was that she failed to have a mind of her own. She wasn’t anything like the strong women that Sasha read about in the romance or drama novels, or even on TV. She was docile, and easily manipulated, something Sasha hoped she would never be like.

“Fine” she responded, giving her mom the shortest answer she could think of.

It wasn’t news that the two didn’t get along, especially due to the fact that Myda was a super religious woman who was ‘old fashioned’ and hated everything about her daughters ‘odd’ ways as she called it.

“Tell us about your friends that you met” Myda continued.

Sasha resisted the urge to roll her eyes, “Her name is Lux”

“Hold up, you ain’t talking about Lux Connelly are you?” Quan asked, suddenly giving his sister all his attention.

Sasha shrugged, “I guess thats her last name”

“Curly bun, big earrings and a pretty smile?” Quan beamed.

“Yup, that’s her” Sasha confirmed.

“Man, how’d you get in with her? She won’t talk to anybody, she think shes too good or something”

“Says the guy who was begging for her number” Ty chuckled, “Good job sis”

“Mhh, this Lux sounds popular” her mother smirked, happy to hear that her daughter was making female friends.

“Sounds like trouble” her father added, and they all rolled their eyes, even her mother.

“No, this is good for her. You should bring her to dinner” her mother insisted.

Quan began to cough dramatically, and Sasha just shook her head.

“Yeahhh, no thanks” Sasha declined, wanting to save herself the embarrassment.

“Did you have any homework?” Her dad asked, more concerned about school work than new friends.

Sasha began to say no, but then quickly retracted it.

“Actually, I do. I have to read a chapter of this english book by tomorrow, mind if I start?” She asked, her eyebrows raised with hope.

Joseph glanced at her nearly empty plate, and without saying a word he gestured his head towards the stairs. Relieved, she grabbed her book bag and headed upstairs. As always she made sure to lock it behind her. She was glad that her new room door did that, because it guaranteed more privacy which she craved in a house full of people. Sasha sat her bag down by the closet, and immediately went over to Star to feed her.

“Hey, so guess who made friends today?” She said, taking down the gate and taking the bunny out, “I know, I know. It’s no point right, we’ll probably be moving before prom”

She pretended that the small pet was talking back, and responded back with a chuckle. She placed her onto the floor so she could stretch her legs, next plopping back onto her floor mattress. While she sat back and reminisced on her day, she began to doze off, not realizing how tired she had been. She enjoyed only a few moments of sleep before the ding of her phone awoke her.

She responded, and without waiting for a response she hopped up to get in the shower before falling asleep once more. She grabbed her towel, next opening her door only to met by her father.

“Oh…hey” she said awkwardly, “yeah?”

“Where were you today after school?” He asked, revisiting their conversation from earlier.

“I told you, I met a friend. We went to get pizza, it’s not a big deal” she shook her head.

“It is a big deal when you disobey my orders, tomorrow I want you here at 3:30. No later, do you hear me?”

“Dad, I’m seventeen” Sasha rolled her eyes as she moved past him, “If you’re worried that you don’t have anyone to boss around anymore, Mikey and Joe Joe are still of age”

Before she could make it far her dad took a firm hold of her arm, causing her heart to stop. While her dad was strict, he was never violent with them, so the tight grip definitely caught her off guard. He wasn’t a scary man, quite the opposite actually, his height only consisting of 5’9 and his body growing weaker with age. Sasha guessed that was why he always felt the need to assert his dominance.

“Ummm Dad” she spoke lowly, her eyes still on his grip.

“3:30” he repeated, before finally releasing her.

He made his way past her and to the main bedroom, and she hurriedly shut herself in the bathroom. Sasha grimaced, and rubbed the part that actually began to hurt.

Letting it fall to the back of her mind, she turned the shower water on and let the hot water create a midst. She hopped in, and began to shampoo the edges of her hair to get the dry sweat out, next running water over it. She began to think back on her day once more, and laughed to herself every time she thought of a corny joke that Zay said, or even how Lux was sassy but sweet every time she denied him. It was weird really, because at any other high school the kids just seemed to ignore her. She didn’t know what about Fels was different, and figured maybe people from Philly were just friendly.

“Aye, I gotta take a shower too ya’know” Quan shouted from the other side of the door.

Sasha hoped out of her head and quickly turned the water off. She quickly changed into her sweats and cleaned up after herself.

“Sorry” she apologized, walking past her brother.

“I saw you” he blurted out, causing her to stop in her tracks.

“Huh?” She raised her brow.

“After school, at the try outs”

Sasha’s eyes widened and she gave her brother a knowing look, “Don’t say anything”

“I’m not” he smirked, and she smiled back.

“If…” he started, causing her smile to drop, “You get me Lux’s number”

Sasha shrugged, “I don’t even have it” she lied.

“Well get it” he chuckled, “But other than that, nice job. It’d be a shame, if you never got to showcase those skills at the first game”

He laughed deviously, and headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Sasha just locked herself in her bedroom once more, this time shutting the door firmly. It was safe to say, she hated everyone in her family.

“179 days” she said out loud.

She turned off her light, and let the countdown
continue.

Lux climbed the back steps of her house, trying her best to keep quiet as she pressed down lightly on the rickety stairs. She would usually just enter through the back, however she left her key on her dresser and now had to try and sneak in without being noticed.

She reached into her bag, next pulling out her favorite oil and running it over her outfit to get rid of the weed odor. After getting off the 24 at the terminal, she was able to score some bud from one of the many guys that hung around, and took the long way home to smoke it. Her grand mom would kill her it she caught her smoking, however it was a habit she hid from basically everyone in her life. She hid a lot of things, but that’s because she had to.

She slowly opened the screen door, and took a breath in relief as thankfully there was no one in the kitchen. She began to walk through, upping her pace as she attempted to climb the steps down to the basement which was her room, however she was too late.

“Lux!” Her grand mother shouted from the living room.

She kissed her teeth, “Damn, why isn’t your ass sleep” she whispered to herself.

“Yeah, GG?” She asked, leaning against the arch that opened into the living room.

“Don’t GG me, where the hell you been at girl? You know those men out there are dangerous, this neighborhood is not safe for you to be coming in this late” she ranted.

“Sorry, I stayed late at school” she smiled, actually feeling proud that she even completed a whole day like a normal kid.

“Mhh hmm, you, staying late at school? Just cause I was born at night, don’t mean I was born last night”

“Oh I know” Lux snickered, “Anyway did my mom come through?”

“No, does she ever come through?”

Lux shrugged, and let silence come over the two. Her grandmother sat back in the rocking chair, letting her cigarette ashes drop to the ashtray on the side table.

“Soo…if that’s it I gotta start my homework”

Her grandmother flagged her away, and she was relieved as she turned away to go to her room. She smiled at her sacred space, and that was her favorite place to be in the otherwise small and ancient house.

She had recently moved there in the summer due her mother’s inability to keep a roof over her and her siblings heads and they were lucky their grandmother was still alive and willing to take them in. After dropping her kids off, Leslie barely stopped by to see them, too busy running the streets as she tried her best to cling to her youth at only thirty three years old. She made sure to remind Lux every chance that she had her at sixteen, and how she gave up her life just to take care of her. Lux thought Leslie was giving herself a lot of credit by saying she ‘took care of her’ when Lux had been babysitting herself since seven.

She laid down onto her bed, afterwards knocking off her sneakers. She pulled out her phone and tapped into instagram. She realized she had a few friend requests, one being Zay’s from school. She scrolled down his feed, and had to admit he was good looking.

However she had her eyes on someone else, and that was Sasha.
One of her biggest secrets was that she didn’t like guys, or not as much as girls she would say. She learned young to use boys for the small things as they would do anything once she batted her big brown eyes. She wasn’t sure when she started to form romantic feelings towards the same sex, only being able to remember being in middle school and sneaking to watch dirty videos that only included girls, never boys. Or even the time she planned a wedding for her and her old best friend only for her to tell her that girls couldn’t get married, or they would go to hell.
Lux laughed at the thought as her mind drifted to Sasha, and she wondered what she was currently doing. 

Deciding to text her, she pulled up the thread she had created, and sent her the cutest photo she could find in her gallery. She pressed send, only to twist her mouth at the simple reply.

She honestly wasn’t sure if Sasha was into girls or not, however it wasn’t exactly a thing you just up and ask. She figured she would just play it cool. Sasha was the first friend that she had made at Fels, and while the two were exact opposites, Lux was happy for that fact. Her and other girls didn’t get along, but there was something about Sasha.

Lux closed out the message, and decided to get some sleep. She was exhausted, and was out for the night the moment she climbed out of her school clothes. For once she was actually excited to go to school, and was anxious about what this new school held for her.