I just took it upon myself to assume I was already his girl. He didn’t correct me, so my assumption became fact at that very moment, as the snow fell harder. We shivered inside our down jackets and our old sneaks, all of them already in need of a washing and the season wasn’t near over.

“Guess I just ain’t thought that far yet,” he said. “Shit, when you done moved around much as I have, you just take shit day by day.”

“Well, a baby ain’t day by day, that’s every day for the next eighteen years no doubt.”

“You actin’ like you want to keep it. I mean, you missed the first appointment. You running out of money and ain’t been back down there to the clinic yet.”

“I ain’t running out of money,” I snapped, feeling no need to tell him about the fifty bucks Jewel had sent me every week since Thanksgiving. One thing I had heard from too many women was to never let the right hand know what the left is doing. “I just been thinking, maybe I could do better somewhere else. Sometimes all you need is a change.” At least that’s what I used to tell myself all those years I was stupid enough to think my daddy had just left to make some money, and would be coming back to us.

“I hate this country stuff too,” Rasul said. “Ain’t no jobs here. Just factory work and driving people around. And I’m sick of getting stopped by the police all the time. Plus, my uncle’s wife starting to get on my nerves.” His breath smelled like Wild Passion Alizé. We had been drinking that all afternoon. I had to be sure not to speak to any of the sisters with alcohol on my breath.

“Wish I could go stay with Aunt Jewel,” I suddenly said.

“In New York?” Rasul lit up and held me tighter. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Shit, New York? That’s where all the MCs are—the good ones at least.”

“You could be the next,” I said, not realizing where my mind was going. “We should go.”

“To New York?”

“Why not?” I had never been far out of Chicago, and all I knew of New York was what I had seen in movies like Juice and TV shows like 21 Jump Street. It just looked like Chicago with more people, traffic, and buildings. I was sure I could adapt to it like I had adapted to most everything in my life—quickly.

“And stay with Jewel and that big gorilla mothafucker? No way …”

“He ain’t so bad. He was just mad.”

I had his interest.

“You think they’ll let us stay with them?”

“Jewel wouldn’t turn me away. Not me.”

“Yeah, but what about me?”