Grown: Part One

I lick blood off my bottom lip, relish the metal taste and take in the room.

It’s not the beet juice or my position on the floor that unnerves me; it’s the silence.

The cutest shirt I own looks plain in the dingy locker-room light.

I press my lips together to compose myself before feigning ignorance.

Everyone, including other contestants, is dressed in an array of party clothes and heels.

“Hi!” she chirps, lush golden curls bouncing around her heart-shaped face.

A cloud of burly linemen dressed in black piles in, surrounding something...or someone.

Korey sits behind Richie, surrounded by his entourage, at least a dozen people, while the audience elbows over each other to grab pictures.

Dark eyes, sharp chin, perfect nose, a chest chiseled out of amber stone, muscles forming a V right above his jeans waistband...

Like most lunch periods, we find ourselves chilling in the dark gym alcove near the school’s trophy display, skin drenched in fluorescent lighting.

Her face contorts.

After the show ends, we make our way to the backstage entrance, nearly swallowed by a crowd trying to finagle their way in.

“Hey,” he says, his voice sultry, extending his hand.

But our home was a tiny aquarium, and we, a school of fish, bumped into each other at every turn, muddling the water with tension, Mom and Grandma biting hunks out of each other like starving piranhas.

We needed room, to flourish, to grow, to go to college, to dive deep and go where they never could.

Three years, they saved for this house that smells like wet moss, its dampness leaving our skin chilled, the billowy high trees blocking all traces of the sun.

Between his video recaps, Insta-stories, and thirst-trap photos of his bare chest, I spent every evening in bed scrolling, ogling, and analyzing each post like a private eye.

I once again spent most of the night scouring Korey Fields’s social media.

It’s a grueling forty-five minutes before the bell.

Standing bone straight, I make my voice like steel as something unfurls inside me.

He yokes me into a hug. Not just any hug, the type of hug that feels like metal and magnets slamming together, desperate for each other.

Korey listens, pensive but calm.

An offer impossible to turn down, but my parents insisted upon being within the vicinity.

“I built this after my third album went triple platinum,” Korey says, hinting at the plaques on the wall.

The blushing hurts my cheeks as the room spins and he cracks a bashful smile.

No one has ever called me beautiful. Pretty, sure. But beautiful...that word transcends.

He muses to himself for a moment.

But Jay didn’t care what people had to say, and continues to be the doting, patient, supportive boyfriend of her dreams.

“Aight, your heart is nothing but a muscle. It contracts and expands, working just as hard as any other muscle. The difference is, the blood pumping through it pumps through your entire body. That blood holds memories. Things you try to forget but it won’t let you. You have to use those memories, use that blood to fuel you. But that blood can’t move through you unless you relax. Release your hand, Bright Eyes.”

I want to pry, but Gab is a wall when it comes to her dad.

The entire school is enamored by his charm, even the teachers.

“I am talking to Mr. Fields, young lady,” she seethes.

I’m embarrassed by the homely look of our...home.

We’re broke compared to his lavish lifestyle.

“I have been working with Korey for quite some time, and what we see in Enchanted, we’ve...never seen in any of his other protégés. The label is really invested in grooming her, and then we can work on setting her up with her own record deal.”