“She ain’t here,” she said, and slammed the door in my face. I stood there, my eyes tearing up because she hurt my feelings. I felt stupid and disrespected, and then I started to get scared for Tonya. Was Tonya, a twelve-year-old, still out with those three older dudes since last night? I ran down the stairs and jumped over the last three, but my heart wasn’t in it. On the eighth floor, I walked over to the elevator and waited. I heard voices on the floor below me, familiar voices, so I squinted my eyes and leaned my head closer to the stairs. I couldn’t make out words, but one voice sounded like my brother’s.

Meechie had a broken nose and ribs, and an eye that was trying its best to open up. There was no way he was outside, and doing what? I tiptoed down to the seventh floor. It looked like my brother, but this boy was wearing a white tee, with jeans I didn’t recognize, Tommy boxers I hadn’t ever seen, and Timberland boots Meechie didn’t own. He stood with half his body in the garbage room, half out.

When I heard him say, “I’ll be back,” I felt the sensation of fingers running down the back of my neck. It was my brother. He reached his arm up and made a sound because he was still in pain. His fingers locked and twisted with this other dude’s, then froze in the air to make a gang sign.

“Aight, Folks,” the other guy said to him. Then he smirked and turned in my direction. He called my brother Folks.

As Meechie approached me, I opened my mouth a few times to say something, but nothing came out. Then he saw me, and before I could talk, he clamped his hand under my armpit and pulled me toward the stairs, wincing from the pain of his injuries.

“What you doing up here?” he asked.

“What you doing up here?” I tried to deliver the words with attitude, but I had to keep myself from falling as he dragged me down the stairs.

“Don’t worry about me. Get yo’ ass out of this stairway.”

I started crying. I don’t know if it was because of the way he was talking to me or because he was a gangbanger or because he was hurting me. I couldn’t even see the stairs after a while, because the tears rushed down my face so fast. My feet seemed to melt, and I fell. Meechie looked down at me. He tried to stay tough, screaming, “Get up!” I tried, but I didn’t have control over my body anymore. He looked down at me, weeping all over the ground, and then he said, “Fee, come on, man.” He squatted down and tried to pull me up. I sat up, real slow.