Wally B walked up and sat down next to me. I didn't look at him. I was too embarrassed. I had been sitting behind Ray's off and on for a few days straight, hiding from anyone who may have heard what a whore I turned out to be. I hadn't gone to any meetings, no training classes. I definitely hadn't been to school in more than a few days. I just...didn't want to face it. Not after Marguerite.

Wally B didn't say anything when he sat down next to me. He just watched me silently. Then he lit up a joint. After puffing on it thoughtfully for a few minutes, he handed it to me. I sucked in deeply and then looked up into the cloudless sky.

I wanted out.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"Remmey told me something...happened between you two."

I looked back down at the ground and let the joint dangle guiltily between my knees. My head hung so low Wally B probably couldn't even see my face.

"Jazz...what happened?" I wouldn't look at him. He took the joint away from me and thoughtfully started puffing again. "Jazz..." he put the joint out and rested a hand on my arm. "What happened?" I looked over at him and shrugged. To be honest, I wasn't sure what I did wrong or why Remmey got so angry so fast.

"Jazz...you told Remmey you been wit' a man before?"

I shook my head at Wally B and watched him get blurry as tears filled my eyes.

"I never told him that."

"Well...he thought you were ready." My head hung even lower. Wally B leaned in even closer to me, like we were whispering secrets. "Why he think you were ready, Jazz?"

I shook my head and continued to stare at the ground.

"Little sister...that's a grown man. He twenty years old." I finally looked over at him. Wally B's face was creased, and I couldn't tell if it was with anger or concern. "He ain't no young boy, Jazz. You can't play with him like that." I looked away again and wished that joint was still lit. I hated dealing with reality. I wasn't like everyone else. I was a dreamer. If I never stepped foot in the real world again, I wouldn't even care or notice. Wally B moved even closer to me. "Lil sis...he could have really hurt you." I nodded. He could have. But he didn't. "And it would have been because of you."

I nodded again, but I still didn't understand why.

"Remmey don't like no liars, Jazz. And he sho don't like being tricked." Wally B's eyes bore into mine. "I told you what he do, right?" I nodded. "He don't like that shit, Jazz."

Tears started to fall.

I wasn't high enough to deal with this.

"Jazz...little sister...reading people is what keep him alive. He don't like nobody makin' him think he ain't good at it." Wally B put one hand on my back and used the other one to take my hand in his. He knew I didn't cry. The only time he had ever seen me cry was when Papa made Marguerite lose her baby. "Why you do that to him, Jazz?"

I just shook my head and cried harder.

"What's happenin' with you, sis? Why you actin' like this?"

Wally B sat back and re-lit the joint. Then he handed it to me and waited for me to get myself together. When I finally did, I looked over at him.

"Nobody talks to me, Wally B."

He looked at me like he didn't believe me. "What?"

I shook my head and dropped my eyes. "They don't."

"Jazz...that's a lie. We all talk to you. All of us."

I looked into his eyes and knew that he believed what he was saying. But it had taken him this long to even notice that I hadn't been around. He didn't get it. He just...didn't get it. Finally, I just shook my head and sat back with the joint, staring up into the sky. There was no point in saying anything else.

"Jazz...talk to me." He put his hand on my arm again. "Don't shut me out. What's happenin', lil sis?"

I looked over at him and then back up into the clouds. Briefly, I wondered where they had come from, when there hadn't been a cloud in the sky just a few minutes before. I wished that I could be up there, too, and just bounce in and out whenever I wanted to.

Down here was just...too much.

I started crying again and leaned forward to bury my face in my hands.

Wally B took the joint from me and went back to rubbing my back.

"I didn't lie to him, Wally B. I didn't mean for any of that to happen. I thought I was ready." I looked at him. "I didn't know it would hurt that bad."

Wally B took his hands away from me and shook his head. He looked annoyed, too. Just like Remmey had. I decided to stop talking and waited for him to say something, anything. But he didn't say anything else after that. He just sat back, sucked in some smoke and blew a smoke ring thoughtfully into the air.

"Wally B...I want him. Everyone think I'm his already and I want to be his. He the only one that sees me. I don't want him to back away from me, too." I started sobbing into my hands again. "I don't want him to hate me."

Wally B finished the joint and then threw it to the side.

"Jazz. Sis. You ain't ready. Obviously. Remmey a stone-cold killer. He don't have time for this shit. He like women, Jazz. Grown women. You...just a girl." Wally B shook his head. "Jazz...I told you before. You don't want that. I told you that."

I nodded, but I did want that. And I wanted to be that for him. I wanted Remmey more than anything that I had ever wanted in my life. And Remmey did want me, too. Wally B knew that. That's why he was fighting so hard to change my mind.

"Jazz...I told Remmey you wit' who you want to be wit'. If you want him, then..." He looked at me like he wasn't sure if I could swim, but he was about to leave me in the water anyway. "Be careful, little sister. I told him to be careful with you. You...different."

I dropped my eyes again.

Wally B read me and put his hand on my arm.

"Not in a bad way, sis. You just...soft. The rest of us...ain't. You love too much. Your heart too big. You too...open. That's why I be keepin' the boys away from you. You and your sister Claire the same way." He gently squeezed my arm for me to look at him. "She love too hard and too deep, just like you. You too open for a man like Remmey. Wide open. Like a young girl. You want Remmey the same way your sister Claire love Christian. But Christian...ain't dangerous." He gave me a steady gaze. "And you too old to still be that way, Jazz. You ain't fourteen no more. You can't be that way around here."

I watched Wally B's eyes. Me and him were the same age, but he was talking to me like I was a dumb kid. He was making me angry.

Wally B knew as well as I did that I could and would always do whatever the hell I wanted to do.

Wally B read the defiance on my face and shook his head again like he was wasting his breath. "Little sister...you Remmey's now. Because I know you want him and because I know he won't...force you. He won't take you away from who you are and he won't make you be somebody you ain't. That's why he try so hard to read you. He don't understand who you are. But he want to. And it bothers him that he can't. You have to tell him the truth. You can't lie to him. You can't make him think you ready when you ain't. You don't want to try to fool a man like that, Jazz. Trust me. He read people for a living. That's what he do. I mean it. That's how he stay alive."

I looked down and nodded. I wasn't trying to fool Remmey. I just...never told him the truth.

"Remmey a good man to have on your side. He kin. He protect what I protect. But you don't want to cross him, Jazz. I can't do anything about it if you do." I stared at him and didn't respond. "You...should chose somebody else." He let the silence settle around that, and then shook his head again. He knew he couldn't make me not want what I wanted. "I know I can't stop you, Jazz. You just...want him too much. You act like you ain't got nuthin' else..."

Wally B watched me closely as I nodded again. He was looking at me like he was trying to understand why I was the way that I was. I didn't even understand it, so I knew he wouldn't. Finally he just shook his head one last time, tired of trying to change my heart, and looked up at the sky.

"He not gone hurt you. He won't get you in trouble. But only because I asked him not to. He still a killer, Jazz. A good one. The best..." Wally B looked straight into my eyes. His expression told me that he knew me and Remmey was a bad idea, but he also knew that there was nothing he could do about it. "Don't forget that."

I nodded, then we both sat back to watch the sun finish setting over the buildings in the west. I wanted to follow that sun.

Wherever it would take me.

I wanted to go, too.