Page 21 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“That argument could be valid, although I’d digress…but Jay came back with Supa Ugly and that was just trash. So, he lost.”

Paige twisted her lips and nodded in what Tahli took as silent defeat.

Tahli’s mind was a bit clearer when the knob rattled, and the bedroom door swung open.

Tahli expected Paige’s cousin Karl to show his face, but instead, another man – older man – stepped inside.

The Ecko Unlimited sweatshirt caught Tahli’s attention.

Baggy jeans. A thin gold chain. He dressed like he was twenty, but there was grey hair in his neatly trimmed goatee.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Tahli’s head turned in slow motion toward Paige on the bed beside her, as she searched for any evidence of wrongdoing. Were they being busted for smoking? Fuck. Would he call her parents? She’d have to call Abby’s mom. Have Meg pretend to be her guardian. Meg didn’t care about shit like that.

“What the fuck does it look like?”

Tahli’s bugged eyes shot from Paige’s bold reply to the man standing before them. A revolted version of a snort was his reaction.

“Looks like you couldn’t wait to leave my crib to come to your grandmother’s so you could dyke in peace.”

Tahli’s spine straightened. High vanished.

“Whatever.”

“Nah, ain’t no whatever. You wanna be cute in front of your friend. Talk fresh ‘cause you think you ain’t in my house, you ain’t gotta respect me? Break fucking fly.”

“Nobody says that shit anymore,” Paige cut him off in a mumble, but Tahli could see the confidence dwindle.

“I don’t give a fuck!” He boomed down into her face, frowning Tahli’s lips. “You wanna be grown? Just like you wanna be a fucking boy. Newsflash, you ain’t got the fucking equipment, little girl! That’s right, little. Fucking. Girl.”

Tahli grimaced, anger and empathy watering eyes that she crept to Paige.

And it was there—the same anger and shame—layered on the glare Paige aimed up at the man with a face like hers.

The man Tahli was certain was Paige’s father, although Tahli would use the word loosely.

Robert Hall would never humiliate her to this degree with hateful words.

In front of someone else? It was irreversible damage to a child.

“Let me ask you something, sweetheart. What’s a pretty girl like you doing hanging with a bulldagger?

Let me tell you this, if you got a father, leave her alone before he ends up ashamed of his daughter, too.

‘Cause let me tell you something…you may be too young to know it now, but she ain’t got the stuff to keep you.

She ain’t never gonna be enough for no woman–”

“We’re doing a project!” Tahli didn’t mean to yell so loud. “I’m here…to do a project with her, so just…just lay off.”

Tahli could feel it—the shift of his attack.

“So, where’s the books? Where’s the goddamn construction paper? The glue? The fucking markers!”

“Get out of her face!”

“Motherfuck-!” Paige’s father snatched her by her Polo shirt collar as soon as she leapt up in Tahli’s defense. Tahli shot to her feet, heart thrashing. What would she do? Defend her new friend? Hit a grown man?

Paige writhed, and he slammed her against the wall. Tahli’s young body locked up at the joints.

“What? You wanna fight? You wanna fight me like a man?”

“Hey!”

Tahli’s head snapped to the doorway. Through the tears stinging her lenses, she watched the heavy-set older woman aim a cane with her words.

“Getcho gatdamn hands off that child! I said, get!” The cane swung so wildly that Tahli jumped back from it.

Grandma didn’t quit. She advanced, waving the cane.

“Get out!” She poked that cane into that Ecko sweatshirt with enough force for the man to yelp.

“Ma! Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Don’t you take that gatdamn tone with me and use the Lord’s name in vain in my house. Get out! Turn her loose!”

Tahli’s head whipped around the room. This was more action than she was accustomed to for a Tuesday afternoon. But eventually, that cane sent Paige’s father scurrying from the room.

“Now what did I just walk in on, Paige-Ann?”

If the situation weren’t tense, Tahli would have giggled. Paige-Ann. She’d get her for that later.

“Nothing. This is Tahli. She’s here for a French project and as usual, he comes in here trippin’.

I don’t get it. He wanted me gone, so why he keep coming here and bothering me?

!” Paige yelled loud enough for whoever might still be in the house to hear.

Raw emotion cracked her voice and broke Tahli’s heart.

From her grandmother’s expression, Tahli could tell she felt the same.

“Well…I’ll leave y’all to it. Maybe you wanna walk over to Pathmark and grab you girls a couple packs of those noodles you like. I got a few dollars.”

“Yeah, alright–”

“I’m actually not hung–”

The subtle punch to her leg shut Tahli up. She understood right away. Paige wanted those noodles. If Tahli didn’t want the noodles, Paige would take double noodles. Apparently, food was an opportunity.

“Sounds good. Thank you, ma’am,” Tahli revised.

Paige’s grandmother looked between the two of them skeptically.

“Keep the door open,” she advised. After she was gone, they both sat on the bed.

“My bad,” Paige apologized to the carpet while Tahli chewed her cheek.

“That was your dad?”

A sarcastic scoff. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. You call a nigga that’ll walk away from his own seed a dad? You said you got a dad. Your dad do shit like that?”

Tahli prayed on words.

“Sometimes the people we think we need so much and that we think we can’t live without, they end up leaving us. And guess what? We live anyway.”

Tahli’s birth mother; full-time singer, part-time parent.

She popped in and out of Tahli’s life with good times and brief joy like a carnival.

For those days, life would be thrilling—a merry-go-round of kisses and hugs, a Ferris wheel of laughter.

Then one morning, Tahli would wake up, drive by the carnival, and there’d be no evidence of it ever being there.

Barren grounds. Maybe an old ride ticket or an empty popcorn bag.

She’d stopped herself from feeling those lows.

Tahli had recently learned to appreciate the carnival when it came to her city and be okay when it was gone.

Tahli laid her head on Paige’s shoulder because it felt like the empathetic thing to do. This girl could be her friend. She’d fit in well with Abby and Alexis.

“Ayo. You got about a 60-second window before you either pick your head up or pull your pants down. Only my bitches get cuddles.”

Tahli punched her thigh, chuckling.

“You always use sex or jokes when you feel like people getting too close?”

Laughter shook the shoulder Tahli still rested her head on.

“Hi. I’m Paige Wallace. Have we met?”