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Do you know Keysha Kendall?
Enter the world of the Keysha and Friends series—for the first time, the two original stories in this compelling series are collected into one special volume.
KEYSHA’S DRAMA
Sixteen-year-old Keysha Kendall is a judge’s signature away from foster care when she’s sent to live with the father she never knew. Suddenly she has her own room in his big fancy house, a high-powered stepmother and a popular half brother who can introduce her to all the right people at her new school. But Keysha can’t forget where she came from and she won’t let anyone else, either. Why should her father and his perfect family have it so easy when she and her mother had it so hard? So Keysha hooks up with a rough crowd and does whatever she wants…until what she wants changes really fast….
IF I WERE YOUR BOYFRIEND
How has Keysha gone from popular to social outcast? A girl she thought was her friend planted drugs on her, and Keysha got caught. Now all of the negative attention has turned everyone against her. At school, Keysha is stared at and whispered about, no one will talk to her, and the girl who ruined Keysha’s reputation just laughs in her face. So when a guy with his own bad rep offers to help, Keysha has doubts. However, she soon realizes that Wesley Morris is more than just a hot guy—he is someone who has turned his own life around. Still, her family doesn’t want him anywhere near Keysha. But Wesley isn’t willing to walk away. He’ll even risk everything to prove Keysha’s innocence…and save their relationship.
The Keysha Diaries
Volume One
A Keysha and Friends Collection
Earl Sewell
www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
Keysha’s Drama
If I Were Your Boyfriend
Feel free to send me an email at earl@earlsewell.com. Please be sure to put the title of the novel in the subject line. You may also follow me at www.facebook.com/authorearlsewell or at www.twitter.com/earlsewell.
Dear person who currently has my diary and is invading my privacy,
Were you so curious that you had to pick up my diary to snoop around? Is this something you do often? Since you’re holding this book, I bet you can’t wait to find out what fascinating secrets and scandals are in these pages. Come on! Admit it! I would think the same thing.
Because you obviously want to know more about me and I feel like sharing today, I guess I’ll start by telling you a little bit about myself. You may want to find someplace quiet where you can focus and pay attention. A lot has happened in my mere sixteen years on this earth.
My name is Keysha, but you can call me Ke Ke. And as it seems, I have way too much drama in my life. Drama hovers around my head, as if it’s my own personal storm cloud. Have you ever felt that way? Like one day, everyone wakes up and decides it is national hate on you day? The craziness I live with makes me want to scream.
My life isn’t pretty:
My grandmother is incarcerated.
My mother is about to go to jail.
I don’t know who my biological father is.
And I’m about to be shipped off to a state-run group home for at-risk teens.
And as if that isn’t enough, I meet a girl in a situation similar to mine. I think she is my friend, but unbeknownst to me, she turns out to be a backstabber. Have you ever met a person who smiles in your face, but talks about you when your back is turned? I get angry every time I think about her. I’m serious. There should be a law against people like her.
On top of having to deal with that frenemy, there’s a guy (with some serious
issues of his own) who likes me. He steps to me with a line of poetry that he supposedly wrote for me, as if I would fall for that one. Well, maybe I do believe him, just a little.
Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Are you ready? I am. Now turn the page, enter my world, and learn more about me in The Keysha Diaries, Volume One….
Keysha’s Drama
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Reading Guide Questions
Text Me List
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
—James A. Baldwin
one
No matter how hard I tried to get Ronnie’s attention he wouldn’t look at me. He avoided eye contact by toying with the ring tones on his cellular phone. His unwillingness to look me in the eye and speak directly to me annoyed me. Ronnie was seventeen and stood about five foot nine inches tall. He had brown skin just like mine and wore his hair French braided. That day he was wearing an oversize white T-shirt, baggy Sean John jeans and what appeared to be a new pair of Nike Air Force One gym shoes. We were standing on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building that he lived in with his mother. In the distance I heard the thud of music from a trunk amp bouncing against the air. Ronnie is my boyfriend, or should I say was my boyfriend until I caught him snuggled up with some girl inside of a movie theater. When I saw him and the other girl I decided to play it cool at first, you know, just to make sure that I wasn’t overreacting. I discreetly positioned myself in a seat directly behind them so that I could keep a close eye on them. No sooner than the lights went down, Ronnie took off his jacket, hooked it around her shoulders and began kissing her. That’s when I lost it. Before I could even think rationally, I began attacking them both. I slapped him on the head and pulled her hair. It wasn’t long before two movie theater ushers rushed in to stop my assault as well as ask me to leave. At the time I didn’t give Ronnie a chance to explain what was going on and who the girl was. To be honest, I really didn’t care who she was. All I knew was that my boyfriend, who had told me at least twenty times he loved me the night before, wasn’t acting like it.
The movie theater incident happened weeks ago. I hadn’t seen or heard from Ronnie since that time because I had to move away due to a load of family drama that was going on in my life. During the time I was away, I cried a lot partly because of the situation my family was in and partly because I really missed Ronnie. Now that I’d returned to my old neighborhood, I thought for sure Ronnie had missed me at least a little. I also wanted to give him a chance to explain himself as well as see if we could forget about what happened in the past and start over. Besides, I’d heard that he was no longer with the girl he’d been caught cheating with.
I tried once again to get Ronnie to acknowledge me. When our eyes finally met, I could tell he wanted me to disappear and forget that we ever had anything meaningful.
“Why did you even come around here looking for me?” he snapped at me as if the very sight of me irritated him like a bad skin rash.
“Don’t you bark at me like that,” I shouted back at him. “I thought you’d missed me and I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself. So, what happened between us, Ronnie?” I asked straight out.
“I’ve already told you. It’s over between us. You’re playing too many games, girl. I’m just not into you anymore.”
“But why? What did I do?”
“You’re crazy for starters,” Ronnie said and then was silent for a long moment as I waited for him to elaborate. “Look, you just need to forget you even know me. In fact, just erase my name and face out of your memory.”
“How can you say that to me? After all we’ve been through? You told me you loved me and no matter what we’d be together. You promised me, Ronnie, you promised me that you’d never hurt my heart.” I raised my voice at him. I couldn’t help it because my heart was hurting. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t seen each other in two months, my heart was still broken and I wanted an explanation.
“Look, girl!” he said, pointing his index finger at me as if it was a weapon.
“Oh, now I’m just some girl?” Whenever I got upset about something, no matter how calm I tried to be my voice would always express how I truly felt. “Get your finger out of my face.” I quickly grabbed his index finger and tried to twist it off his hand. I wanted to hurt him at that moment. I wanted him to feel the heartache and pain I felt. We tussled for a moment before he broke free of my grip.
“You need to leave, Keysha. I’m not playing with you. Go on back home to your mama.”
“So what are you saying, Ronnie?”
“Keysha, I’m through with you. What part of that isn’t getting through your thick skull?”
“How can you just turn your feelings for me off like that? I mean, I thought about how I felt about you every day. I even called you after the incident and left messages for you asking you to call me back so we could talk but you didn’t. I even called you when I found out that I had to move away for a while. I thought for sure you’d at least want to know where I was being shipped off to but you never contacted me.” I was pleading my case. I reminded him of my good-faith efforts to stick by his side. I was hoping that he’d feel some sense of guilt.
“Keysha, I’m just not feeling you like that anymore. You were cool for a minute but then you started smothering me. You called me too much, you didn’t like it when I wanted to hang out with my friends instead of you. On top of that you’re too bossy. I just can’t get down with a girl that acts crazy and bossy all of the time. You need to roll out and leave me alone.”
“Okay, I’ll change. Will that help?” I asked, hoping to find the words he wanted to hear.
“No, just leave me alone, all right.” Ronnie finally put away his cellular phone. “I’ve just erased your name, number and special ring tone from my phone. It’s been real,” he said and then turned his back and walked toward his building.
“I hate you, Ronnie!” I shouted out as loudly as I could. I wanted everyone within the sound of my voice to know how upset I was. I suddenly didn’t care about making a public scene.
“Yeah, whatever. Don’t come around here looking for me anymore,”he said as he entered his building. At that moment rage pumped through my blood and I rushed into the building behind him. I grabbed a fistful of his pretty braided hair and tried to snatch it out of his head. He reached back and put his hand over my fist and tried to pry it away.
“Let go of my hair, Keysha!” he shouted out as we scuffled. At that moment I heard the door to his apartment open. Ronnie’s mother came into the hallway above us on the next landing.
“Let him go before I call the police on you!” she screamed at me. Part of me didn’t care if I went to jail but another part of me did. I held on to his hair for a moment longer and then yanked really hard, ripping his hair from his skull.
“Get out!” his mother commanded me. She was much larger than I was and for all my spunk I knew I was no match for her. “And don’t let me catch you back around here anymore. Do you understand me?”
I rushed out of the building before Ronnie or his mother could come within arm’s length of me. Once I got outside, I ran as fast as I could. I wanted to get away from them. In many ways, I wanted to run away from myself, but I knew that was impossible. When I finally stopped running, I was a good four blocks away. I decided to rest on a bus bench so I could catch my breath. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs as I waited for my breathing to regulate. For a moment, I thought about crying but I couldn’t summon up any tears because I was too angry. My life was so messed up. I swear, sometimes I wondered if some mythical witch or wizard placed a curse on me. I swept my fingers through my hair as I mulled over my situation. My mother, Justine, was crazy as well as pregnant. I had to admit that it tripped me out when she admitted she was going to have a baby. Justine is a real piece of work. In fact, her brain should probably be donated to science because her thought process is completely twisted. My mom became pregnant with me when she was very young. She acts more like my girlfriend than my mom. She cares more about partying than she does about keeping a roof over our heads, a decent job or food on the table. Sometimes, well most times, we fought and argued with one another. I didn’t like her because she didn’t act her age and in some ways resented the day I was born. At least that’s the way I felt.
A bus stopped in front of me, and the driver opened the door thinking that I wanted to get on. I looked at him for a moment and then waved him on. I sat upright on the bench and glanced at the green and white street sign. I was at the corner of Chicago and Laramie Avenues, which meant that I was in the heart of the hood. My mom and I were staying in a basement apartment a few blocks up. I hated the place. It was run-down, dirty and infested with roaches and rats. It was nothing like my Aunt Estelle’s home. She had a beautiful high-rise apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. I used to live there with her husband, Dr. Richard Vincent, my Grandmother Rubylee and my cousin Nathan. It was nice living in such a grand place, but that all changed because my Grandmother Rubylee, who was crazier than my mom, was stealing money out of Richard’s bank account. She got caught by the police and is serving time for her crime. Shortly after my Grandmother Rubylee was arrested, my Aunt Estelle passed away, and that pretty much ended the welcome of Justine and me in Dr. Vincent’s home. All of that happened about two months ago, right around the time I caught Ronnie at the movie theater with some girl.
* * *
I decided it was time to get up off the bus bench before I started to look like a female version of Forrest Gump. As I continued on my way home, I thought about school, which would be starting soon, but I wasn’t looking forward to it, especially since my mother didn’t have money for back-to-school gear. I knew kids were going to talk about me walking around in last year’s fashions. I was real self-conscious when it came to fashion and my appearance. My face was filled with pimples and my hair was overprocessed from doing one too many home perms. I thought my nose was too big, my butt was too big, my breasts were too small and my legs were too skinny. I was thinking about my situation and self-image so hard that I actually walked past my apartment building and had to turn around and go back. The building was a large red brick structure with three separate entrances. I had to walk down the block a little ways to the very last entrance, which was near an alley and vacant lot where alley mechanics liked to park their hoopty-mobiles and work on them while they drank alcohol. If they couldn’t get their cars running they’d just leave them there until they could. From time to time, if the cars sat too long, eventually parts would come up missing. The entrance to my building wasn’t secure at all. The landlord got tired of putting locks on the doors because tenants or their guests continually kicked in the door to gain entrance. I think people did that sort of thing because they didn’t have much else to do. I was about to enter the vestibule of the building when I heard someone call my name.
“Keysha, hold on a minute.” I stepped back out into the sunlight and saw Toya Taylor, a friend that I’d known for years. She lived in the apartment across the hall from me. Toya had a baby she was continually trying to get neighbors to watch for her while she roamed the streets trying to keep up with her baby’s daddy. Toya is sixteen but the father of her baby is a few years older than her. Toya was also rather conceited when it came to her hair. She was one of those girls who had a finer grade of hair as opposed to a coarser grade. She loved to show it off and brag about its length. Today for some reason, she wasn’t in the mood to show off her hair because she had it tied up in a black head scarf.
“Hey, what’s up? Why do you have on that head scarf? It’s hot as hell out here.” I was being nosy. I wanted to know what was going on with her hair.
“Girl, my baby’s daddy is tripping. He doesn’t like for me to be outside by myself with my hair down so he makes me tie it up when I’m not around him.”
“Well, if it makes him happy then I guess it is okay,” I said, even though I didn’t believe her for one minute. I think she did something to her hair and now it’s messed up and she doesn’t want to get ridiculed for having damaged it.
“Where have you been? I came over looking for you this morning but you weren’t home.”
“Girl, I got into a fight with Ronnie,” I said as I sat down on the step. Toya sat beside me.
“What about? You told him that you wanted to give him a chance to explain himself, right?”
“Yeah, I told him, but it didn’t matter. He still treated me like I was a fly at a picnic. I got so mad at him that I pulled out a patch of his hair.”
“For real?” Toya’s voice was now filled with excitement. “What happened next?” she asked, wanting to know every detail.
“His mother came out into the hallway where we were,” I said as I scratched my arm.
“You fought his mother, too?” Toya asked, jumping ahead of my story.
“No. I didn’t fight his mother. When I saw her I turned and ran out of the building.”
“So, are you sad about the breakup?” Toya asked. “Because if my baby’s daddy broke up with me, it would be on. I’d have to hurt him.” I wanted to point out the fact that I’d heard that her so-called man had another girl he was dealing with, but I didn’t want to go there with her. I just wasn’t in the mood to fight with anyone else right then.
“So, what’s next? What are you going to do? You’ve got to find a new man.”
“Girl, I’m not thinking about boys right now. I’m thinking about school and trying to get through another year.” I glanced up at a few billowy clouds and then down at my feet. My gym shoes had seen better days.
“I think I’m going to drop out of school,” said Toya.
“Why do you want to drop out of school?” I asked, looking at her strangely.
“I can’t find anyone to watch my baby. Do you know they want, like, eight hundred dollars a month to take care of my baby? I don’t have that type of money. That’s why I was really hoping that you were pregnant because we could’ve helped each other out. Maybe we could have gone to school part-time or something. While I was in class you could have babysat for me and vice versa. Our kids would’ve grown up together and been very close.”
“You know, at first I wanted to be the mother of Ronnie’s child because I thought it would bring Ronnie and me closer but now I don’t. Especially after what happened today.”
“Even if Ronnie wasn’t around, you would’ve had me and we would’ve been close,” Toya said but that didn’t make me feel any better. Besides, I’m not sure if I would’ve ever left my baby with Toya. I mean, she did okay with her little boy, but I think caring for him was much more than she bargained for.
“So what are you going to do if you drop out?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Probably sit around, play cards and collect a government check. I wouldn’t have to worry about teachers or homework or anything. All I’d have to do is chill out.” Toya began to bite her fingernails.
“Don’t you think you’ll get bored? Don’t you want to make money and live in a big house, drive a nice car and have enough money to buy yourself some serious bling?” I asked.
“Girl, that’s what a man is for. My boo is going to take care of me,” she stated as if her life plan was rock solid. In her mind Toya had it all figured out. At times talking with Toya annoyed me because she didn’t have any ambition. At least I had that, I thought to myself.
“I’m going to go inside. I’m starving,” I said as I stood up.
“You want some company? Me and the baby could come over,” Toya said.
“No, I’m cool,” I answered her then walked inside of the apartment building. The last thing I wanted to do was hang out with Toya and her baby.
two
The apartment my mom and I lived in felt more like a big square box than a studio apartment. Once inside there really wasn’t much to see. On the right wall was an old white stove that looked as if it’d come from the Stone Age. I was continually amazed that it actually worked. The refrigerator, which was next to the stove, was just as ancient. It was white with a chrome handle that had to be pulled toward your body before the door would open. There was one window at the back of the room. It looked out over the abandoned lot where the alley mechanics work and loiter. The window didn’t have a curtain, just a dingy white shade. On the left side was the bathroom, which was long overdue for a makeover. Sometimes I was completely grossed out by the murky brown water that came out of the faucet. You had to let it run for a while before it changed color. Next to the bathroom was an oversize door, which was where the Murphy bed was located. That was about the only cool thing about the place. A bed that actually folded up into the wall was kind of neat. My mom slept on the Murphy bed and I slept on the sofa-sleeper, which was near the window. We didn’t have any closets, only two large dressers that were positioned outside of the bathroom. We had one small television that sat atop one of the dressers, but it didn’t have cable, so as far as I was concerned, it had limited value.
I went over and laid down on the sofa. I threaded my fingers behind my head and closed my eyes. I blocked out all of the sounds of the city—the wailing fire engine, the loud trunk amps and the sound of multiple conversations. My mind was flashing images of the events that had occurred over the past few months. Directly after the death of my Aunt Estelle and the conviction of my Grandmother Rubylee, my mother was arrested for driving around as a passenger with a friend of hers in a stolen car. While her case was being ironed out, Grandmother Rubylee got in touch with her father’s relatives and convinced them to take me in for a little while. I hated living with them because they were mean-spirited people. They treated me like their maid, and if something malfunctioned or got damaged, it was my fault. Even if the utility bill went up, it was my fault. When the charges against my mother were dropped, I was relieved and excited to be back with her. It was clear that things were going to be hard for us, but I figured my mom would step up and make sure we were safe. At least, that was what I was hoping for.
Sometimes I fantasized about who my father was and what it would have been like living with him. I’d never met my father, but in a way, I’d always hoped that he’d magically appear and come and rescue me from my situation. But that was just a dream from the fairy tales of my imagination. I knew someone out in the world was my father, but I didn’t know who, and Mother wasn’t actually sure, either, or that was what she’d told me over the years. A loud knock at the door startled me back into reality.