“I really don’t know?—”
“Farrah.”
She sighed. “Fine. If I had to describe you, I’d say you’re mean and hood!”
I laughed at that. I wasn’t surprised at all, since that was how I treated her. She looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“You’re also quiet and smart and careful,” she said grudgingly.
“I’m not quiet. I just try not to talk unless I have shit that needs to be said. Anything else is a waste of time,” I countered.
“I guess that’s true. But the way you look at people…”
Her voice trailed off. I frowned, waiting for her to finish. She just stood there with a peeler in one hand and a potato in the other, like she was thinking hard.
“How do I look at people?”
“Like they’re something stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”
I shrugged. “’Cause most people full of shit, and I ain’t got the time or the patience for it.”
“You look at me like that, and I’m not full of shit.”
Stirring my wing sauce, I thought about how to respond to her.
“I just give back what you put out, shorty. You walk around with your nose in the air?—”
“No, I don’t! Your image of me is so wrong! If you just… never mind!”
She went back to her potatoes, her pretty face frowned up. I watched her for a minute before speaking again.
“Why you get so mad over what I say? You shouldn’t give a damn about my opinion. I don’t mean shit to you.”
Her eyes flew to my face.
“Because it’s wrong and it’s not fair. You’re judging me based on some meeting years ago, and I don’t even know what I did!”
“Change my mind, then.”
“What?”
“Show me the real you.”
“If you’d pay attention instead of walking around with pre-conceived notions, you’d see the real me,” she mumbled.
“So, you not a bougie north end chick?”
I was fucking with her, but I couldn’t help it. She glared at me, her full lips damned near pouting.
“I might be those things, but I’m a lot more,” she argued.
“Like spoiled?”
She scoffed. “What?”
“Every time I tell you no or don’t do something, you got a million questions and an attitude. I can tell no one ever used those words with you.”
“My parents told me no a lot of times.”
