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Aj POV

We been in and out of this hospital for a week now. I ain't been going to school, neither has Taleah. The most we been doing is going home with Uncle Tyler to recuperate but then we come right back to the hospital. Uncle Tyler been in and out more than the both of us because he say he got something important he needs to do. So he's usually here every night and then he leaves. Auntie Zaniyah been here a lot too. Ain't nobody tell her what happened before he had a stroke. Everyday I been hearing shit from Uncle Tyler and Taleah and I really don't need nobody else to be lecturing my ear off right now. So it needs to stay like that.

I been trying to stay away from that topic anyway. I don't want to talk about it. Matter fact, I don't want to talk about shit. I don't want to talk, I never do. I should've kept my feelings to myself if I'm being honest because now it turned into something it ain't have to be. I messed up when I decided to start getting emotional like a bitch and telling niggas how I been feeling. This why I stay to myself.

Now we gotta deal with all this now that papa is in the hospital. They say he's making a little bit of progress but it's nothing significant. We waiting on him to wake up, that's all we really concerned about right now. Taleah been losing her mind everyday that passes where he don't wake up. For her, it's feeling like its not gonna get no better, and wholeheartedly, I feel like that too.

"Guys," I turn around and uncle Tyler is walking in. He's holding the 15th batch of flowers he's been bringing since this past week. There's flowers all over the hospital room. Like, he can't even see these shits so what's the point. He places them on the windowsill and then holds his arms open. Taleah is the first to hug him. I wasn't planning on getting up to go to the other side of the room but uncle Tyler wouldn't put his hands down unless I did. When I'm near him I try and hug him briefly but soon as he got both of us he wraps his arm around us and kisses us nonstop.

"Y'all good?" He asks and both Leah and I shrug. Uncle Tyler manages to guide us to the mini couch, that wasn't there before but is only there because uncle Tyler been using his fame for special treatment for Leah and I, and sits in the middle of us and holds us close. He closes his eyes and leans his head back. He lets out a deep sigh.

"Relax Aj just let me hold y'all," he says when I start pulling away. I don't like being hugged for long periods of time, I ain't Taleah who wants to be held 24/7. I can deal with my own emotions without a hug. But with uncle Tyler, there is no way out of one.

"Y'all gon' be alright. Believe that. Imma make sure of it," he sighs.

"What is you on about?" Taleah asks now sounding worried.

"Nothing babygirl, I'm just letting y'all know y'all gonna be alright, don't worry. All this will be behind us soon. Everything is gonna fall into place," he squeezes us tighter.

"Are you leaving again tonight?" Taleah asks, "because it sounds like you tryna kiss ass." she jokes.

"Not tonight. But I'll probably be gone tomorrow morning," he says and Taleah rolls her eyes.

I slowly work myself out of his grip so that I could go use the bathroom.

"Where you headed?" Uncle asks and I motion to the bathroom.

"I probably go out for a while..." I add because I need to get out this hospital room.

"Where you going?"

I chuckle, "Once you could start telling us where you be going then I'll tell you where I'm going."

"Nigga," Uncle Tyler narrows his eyes "don't question me, I'm more than twice your age boy don't get shit twisted."

"I'm going to take a walk, that's it."

"That's it, huh?"

"Yeah."

I look at him and he stares at me like I'm lying or something. He shrugs, "Aight, be back in no more than two point five hours. Or else imma come find you and whoop that ass again. I promise you that."

"Aight, damn nigga, you feening," I complain. Now he don't trust my every move.

"Imma keep feening till you stop acting like you all big and bad. Now go take your walk and come back."

After I use the bathroom, I leave the hospital and walk to the nearest park. Like, all I really wanted to do was just get some fresh air or something. Maybe smoke a blunt. I sit down at a bench and stretch my legs out and lean back. I pull out my phone when I feel it start to vibrate in my pocket.

"What," I answer into the phone.

He sighs, "I'm here. Please come quick. I gotta go."

I hang the phone up. I find my way to the dead end of the park. There's an old abandoned bathroom there and I go behind it and see him.

"That was quick." Zyier says and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bag of weed enough for like four blunts. Since I ain't really been going out much he been bringing me sum' every now and again. It ain't nothing he's not used to because he used to be doing this shit all the time for me. It's how I met him.

"What do I get in return?" He asks and holds out his hand jokingly. He bugging. I stare at his hand for a minute, grab it and pull him towards me. He already knows what it is. He closes his eyes and leans in closer to my face and when he's close enough I press my lips against his mouth and wrap my arms around his whole body. I use my hands to feel on his slim body and he start changing the rhythm of our kiss because I guess he getting turned on.

I pull our lips apart and look at him only to start kissing him again because he was looking too good staring me in my eyes like that. I don't let it get no further than that. I eventually break the kiss and roll one up for now.

"You look nice." I tell him as I examine him with my eyes. He purses his lips.

"You say that shit every time I'm dressed down."

"Yeah cus you don't need all that extra stuff, I wish you'd cut that shit out." I respond. I like when he wears regular nigga shit and not all those tight ass female stuff. I deal with it because he cool or whatever, and I guess he looks nice either way, but I really prefer when he dresses regular.

Zyier rolls his eyes, "good thing I don't care about what you rather see me in. Nigga you met me when I was wearing pink Jordan's and a Juicy Couture sweatsuit."

Forget what I said about him being cool.

"How's ya dad?" He asks with concern while I'm in the middle of lighting up my blunt.

I shrug and inhale the smoke, "not good."

He makes a sad face, "You know, you really fucked up. Like I don't care if you get mad at me or nothing. You just need to know. If I had known that's why you showed up to my house I wouldn't let you in."

"You don't think I know that shit already? I ain't come here for you to lecture me. Don't get me tight, I'm really not in the mood."

"And I ain't come here to tend to your feelings. You need to hear it until you let up this 'I don't give a fuck' attitude."

I scrunch up my face, "How I got a I don't give a fuck attitude if I'm basically telling you I know I fucked up."

"Because you being all passive about it like it's not a big deal, and like you don't know why everyone is making a big deal."

I kiss my teeth and turn my head away from him. But he keeps going.

"I been tryna tell you, 'Aj you gonna regret how you treat him one day' 'Aj that's still the man that birthed you' 'Aj it's not that serious for you to be so mad at him' like you really been beefing with yourself this whole time and I been trying to tell you this but you don't listen and look now."

"What you tryna say this my karma?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying nigga. And it's sad that it gotta be him that's going through it because if the whole world knew what was going on right now, they'd know he doesn't deserve to be in this position. Even his worst enemy would know that. But this is God tryna tell you to get your act right."

"Who's side are you on? Nobody thinking about how I'm feeling right now. Nobody."

"I sure ain't on yours. Shit. You don't want mothafuckas to care about you, because the minute they do you get to screaming and cussing and catching an attitude. You do that shit to me all the time. So deal with that shit by yourself if you not open to help. Because soon enough everyone is gonna stop trying, period. And that's you digging yourself into a deeper hole. Don't blame that shit on people not giving a fuck about you because you don't give a fuck about yourself."

"Nah nobody gives a fuck about me, it's always my fault. I can even own up to the fact that I know something is my fault and niggas still tryna find a way to make me feel bad about it. Like I know already. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Zyier sighs, "Stop victimizing yourself. You had all that energy to put into the mess you made now keep the same energy to sweep it up. Don't be moping around now to try to make people feel bad for you." He lowers down to the floor and sits next to me, our backs leaned up against the brick wall.

"I don't want nobody to feel bad for me. But it's like, nobody really cares about me. I feel like I be screaming for help and everyone is just ignoring me or brushing it off as Aj being Aj."

"And you just now getting this epiphany? While ya dad is in the hospital fighting for his life? Now you worried about people not caring about you, why cause you see everybody caring about him? That's narcissistic as fuck. I'm sorry."

I lower my head. Right about now I really want to be left alone. Didn't I say imma stop sharing my feelings? Because I'm clearly being misunderstood, like I always am. How I'm feeling right now don't have shit to do with seeing people care about my papa. I been feeling like this since I could even think. Nobody really cares about me. I know that for a fact. So I started feeling like, why should I try to analyze everybody's emotions while nobody caring about mine.

"But Aj," he clear his throat and places his hand on top of mine, but I move my hand away.

"I know exactly how you're feeling right now—"

"Nah, you don't. You don't." I mumble. I don't need people to act like they can relate because nobody knows what goes on inside of my head. Nobody sees shit the way I see shit. Nobody knows why I act the way I act. Nobody ever saw the way my papa was making my life hard as shit. I know it wasn't intentional, but that's what makes it worse because he couldn't even see what he was doing wrong. And granted, he couldn't change that shit either. Everybody seems to always remember 'Cameron is raising two kids without his husband' and they think about how that could correlate with the way he's acting. Niggas think about Taleah and when ever she's sad they take into consideration that she grew up without her father.

But why when it comes to me, nobody cares? Nobody ever cares that I grew up without mines in the picture. Ever since I was young I always felt like I was taking steps through life alone. I felt detached from papa when I really started being aware of myself and my role. There I was, and here I still am, a black male in America trying to keep my identity and role as a man, my masculinity as a man, and I'm being raised by the most feminine white male anyone could find. That shit was and is still frustrating growing up. Yeah, I had my Uncle Tyler. But he was always out of the country. Nobody ever cares about how that could've affected me. If my daddy was around, this shit wouldn't feel as difficult as it does. And that's why I said what I said when I said I wish it was papa not here instead of daddy. Literally? Probably not. But if I had to choose I would want my daddy around instead. At least I wouldn't feel alone all the time. I be feeling detached from everybody.

And yeah, there was a point in time where people was "bullying" me, I guess you could say. From pre-k to sixth grade all the niggas and even the females would bother me, more than they would Taleah, and they would hit me, steal my shit, nobody would sit with me or play with me when I was a child. And when you young that shit can really mess you up. Like I said, nobody cares about me and they didn't back then either. Taleah had her own group a girl friends. But it was not one boy who made any effort to befriend me, and as a kid, I used to try. But that didn't work and just added another person to make fun of me.

It got to a point where I'd let them tease me and say shit, calling papa a faggot, calling me a faggot because he's a faggot, saying they don't want to touch me because they might become gay, they said that I was weird because I did cry a lot and I did have some anger problems, niggas even fucking said that I be getting raped when I was in fifth grade. They said all kinds of shit. And I let it happen. I ain't know what to do. Papa always tried to raise me to be nonviolent. So I just kept it to myself. When I was around eight years old I made it my business to try completely isolate myself from him. I ain't want nothing to do with papa. I hated that nigga, and I'm still holding a grudge, because he was the reason why my school life so difficult.

Then I remember one day I was talking to my daddy on the phone. I was like eleven at the time. I ain't tell him what was going on in school with me but I told him a hypothetical situation along the lines of "what should someone do if they are being bothered in school". But yeah, he figured out quickly that I was talking about myself. He got tight and started asking mad questions about what happened and shit, so I basically told him what people had been saying. But I didn't tell him people was being physical with me. But he gave me some advice on that anyways.

"Don't let no lil ass kids disrespect you. You your own person and you ain't gotta stand for nobody walking all over you. Ain't no son of mine gon' let nobody bully him, the fuck. If anybody lay they fucking hands on you, you got my permission to fuck them up two times more than they hurt you. I don't want nobody messing with my baby, man. If you ain't gotta fight, don't fight. If people bothering you, you got every right to."

Daddy told papa that I had said I was being bothered in school, and you know what this nigga did? He sat there and hugged me for like twenty minutes straight and fucking cried and then told me if people are bothering me try to be the bigger person because their opinions don't matter and won't matter in the future. And said if they hit me, then yeah I could hit them back but try not to. That was some pussy ass advice. So, I took my daddy's instead. I ain't let a soul get the chance to disrespect me and get away with it ever again. And that's when I started getting into more altercations and it haven't ended since then because niggas always got some shit to say. And what he told me helped me way more than papas advice could. If my daddy was around instead, I probably wouldn't have even had to deal with that.

When my family sees me all they see is a delinquent, someone who got anger problems, someone who is disrespectful and ungrateful. I mean I guess, if that's how they wanna look at me. But only I know why I be doing the shit that I do. Nobody ever cared how anything could affect me. Nobody ever cared how something could hurt my feelings or make my life harder. But the minute, the minute I hurt somebody else's feelings, everyone is quick to point fingers. I'm expected to just sit there and take it and suppress how I'm feeling, why because I'm not as sensitive? I'm not delicate like Taleah and papa? So, how I feel doesn't matter.

So, no. Nobody knows exactly how I'm feeling right now. It's nothing nobody could say or do at this point.

"What you thinking about?" Zyier asks me. I shake my head, nothing.

"Aj I know you're hurting. But God willing your dad wakes up, you need to start communicating with him. He ain't no mind reader. And neither are you. You can't lash out on people because you think nobody cares about how you feel when you aren't speaking up."

"How come everyone else doesn't have to say when something is wrong, people just automatically know? Why I gotta beg people to pay attention to me," I wish I would just shut the fuck up. I keep adding onto this conversation that I already said I don't want to talk about anymore.

"If you didn't hide your feelings behind so much anger, if you didn't push your family away whenever they ask you what's wrong, then you would be getting the help you need. You really can't put all the blame on others and not yourself."

I throw the end of the blunt on the floor and stand up. I dust my pants off. Zyier gets up from the floor too.

"I don't know Aj, just make some major life changes. Appreciate the people in your life and you'll feel appreciated. I've never met him but I know that he loves you more than anything in this world and he would do anything for you. Ya whole family would. Stop convincing yourself that they conspiring against you."

I rub my hand over my face. I don't know. I still don't feel like anybody really cares about me how I wish they did. Let me not say wish, because I don't wish for nothing. It is what it is.

"You good?" Zyier asks. I nod slightly. I'm as good as I can get right now. He lifts my head up and pecks my lips.

"Aight now lets go so we can get some food. I haven't ate nothing since yesterday."

"Why?"

"Because I ain't have nothing to eat. Something wrong with my momma food stamps so we been eating this nasty ass rice all day," he shrugs.

"You need something till' then?" I start to pull out my wallet but Zyier stops my hand.

"No, no, no. My momma not gonna want it because she won't know where it came from. She'll think it's drug or sex money. And I can't tell her one of my friends gave it to me because she's prideful. She don't want nobody to know she's on food stamps, so if she knows that you know, she'd be mad."

"I don't care about how your mother feels, honestly. I'm asking you if you need something, not her."

He doesn't answer me and that's my answer right there. In my wallet I pull out two hundred dollars out of the money I save and give it to Zyier. He thanks me. We start to leave the abandoned area together now going towards Crown Fried Chicken. Once inside, I order the each of us a three piece with fries and a water bottle. We sit across from each other in the front of the place.

We sit and eat for a minute, and I'm thinking bout getting Zyier something else because he dogging the hell out this food.

"So," He wipes his mouth and takes a sip from his water, "your uncle say anything about me?"

I shake my head. I been tryna avoid that topic as much as possible and I'm hoping he forgot about what he said. I don't even know how he found out where I was.

"Why you still ain't come out to your family? Like you have it so easy." He whispers even though the store is empty.

"There's nothing to "come out" about. I'm not bout to stand in the middle of the room and announce my preference on who I'm attracted to. Why does that matter." I've known I liked niggas for a while now, maybe since I was in fifth grade. But I never said nothing because I was embarrassed and I didn't want to prove people right with their mindset being that since I grew up in a gay environment, I'm gonna be gay too. But that mattered more to me as a kid than it does now. I'm still not gonna say anything now as long as people don't start asking questions. I'm really not