Stacia and Meka and probably a bunch of other people tried to make it look like Tonya was a hoe, but I knew even then that Tonya was just a kid, and what was happening to her was sexual abuse. I let her go and looked at her and said, “We gotta tell my mama.” She slid across the floor away from me and started talking real fast. “You can’t tell nobody. They say they gone kill my mama if anybody find out.”

“My mama said that adults only ask kids to keep secrets when they doing something wrong. Tell me who said they’d kill your mama.”

“No, Fe Fe!”

“But, Tonya, if we tell somebody, it’ll stop.”

“No, it won’t,” she said, and then she begged me not to tell. I told her that I wouldn’t, but I knew that it was a lie.

“If you need to hide or something, you can stay with us.”

She smiled big and said, “Okay.”

On the way out of her dark, empty apartment, I saw the Barbie doll that I’d given her. It was naked and lying in the corner on the floor.

Back on the porch, it seemed like the sun shone brighter than I’d ever noticed. I looked into the playground at the boys down there, and then I got scared, wondering if what was happening to Tonya could ever happen to me.

How many dudes from our neighborhood had abused her? It could’ve been any of them. I looked past the boys and took a long look at Tonya’s old building, still standing but broken in half. They had wrapped that yellow caution tape around it, trying to tell people that it was dangerous to play by the mess of bricks, and I thought about how silly that was. That was the most dangerous part of the block? The demolished building? There wasn’t enough caution tape in the world for our neighborhood.

Nineteen
The Wild

After Tonya told me her secret, I had more headaches. Some days, I didn’t even realize I was worrying until wiggling lights started creeping across the room or I got that funny feeling in my throat that nausea created. Most days, I’d catch it before the pain in my head started. Mama always helped me lie down and put something over my eyes. I could tell she was still sad that Meechie had left, but now that I was having migraines, she didn’t go in her room and shut the door like she did before. For the few weeks she was all short with me, answering questions quick, and not getting all in my business, I wondered if I’d ever see my sweet mama again. Then she did come back. Maybe she remembered that she still had a kid at home, and that I still needed her.