"So," Marcus says, mouth full of chow mein. "How did you two meet sis?" He asks, and she turns to look at him.

"Who?" She says, sipping some of her half strawberry, half lemonade Arizona.

Marcus rolls his eyes, sipping some of his gatorade and swallowing. "You and this nigga." He says, pointing at Riley.

"Oh it's a funny story-"

"Aye, let me tell it th-"

"I tell it better Riley." Marisol says, crossing her arms. She looked at her boyfriend. She had taken care of their injuries, the swelling going down on Riley's lip from the ice she made him put on his lip. "Ok, so it was six years ago…"

Time for a flashback y'all. I know y'all probably been waiting on this. No? Whatever yo.

The eleven year old girl walks down the street, her brown hair in two pigtails and a newly bought edition of The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams in her hands. She was looking for a park to read because she didn't want to help her mother and father unpack. She looks around, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and looking both ways before crossing the street.

After a couple more steps, she saw a small park with a basketball court. She looked around, seeing someone, a black boy with an impressive afro sitting in the gazebo, a book in hand. Two others were on the basketball court, a small asian girl whose black hair was pulled into a ponytail and a black boy with cornrows. She walks to the gazebo, sitting on the table that was beside the table the afro boy was at and opens the book.

She had no intentions of making friends. She wasn't even that type of person. She was actually kinda shy, and didn't really want to talk to anyone. As long as she kept quiet and read, she was cool.

"Hi!" someone says, walking up to her. She looked up at the book. She hadn't even finished the first page. The skinny asian girl was giving her a small smile, the boy with the basketball standing behind her.

Marisol gave her a small, fake smile in response, her eyes flickering to the cornrowed boy who was staring at her. It was weird.

"I'm Ally, and this is Riley." She says, using her hand to introduce everyone. "Him over there, that's Huey." She says, her smile widening. Ally leaned forward, placing her hands on the table. "He's my boyfriend." She whispers and Marisol frowns.

Ally looked only eleven. Why was she even thinking about a boyfriend? "A-Aren't you a bit young for a boyfriend?" Marisol asks, closing the book. Huey sighed, causing them to look at him.

"You're telling everyone we're dating again?" He asks, not looking from the book. Ally blushes and her smile gets wider.

"But it's true." She says, and Huey rolls his eyes.

"Whatever." He says, and Ally giggles.

"You didn't deny it, so it's true!" Ally says, sitting down next to him and placing her head on his shoulder.

"And that's how it happened." Marisol says, nodding.

"Well, what happened after that?" James asks, shoving more fried rice in his mouth.

"Aiight, imma tell it this time. But imma tell y'all when we first hung out together, alone." He says, giving them a suggestive smirk. Marisol rolls her eyes and pushes Riley slightly.

Aiight, so me and Marisol were thirteen. Huey and Al were fifteen and actually were going out. Like foreal, I never thought it was gonna happen, but I guess Huey finally stepped up and decided that he wouldn't be trippin off Jazmine, who had moved foreve-

"Riley, get to the point!" Marisol says, and he crosses his arms.

"Aiight, aiight."

So the four of us were all chilling and Huey had stood up, taken Al's hand and totally dragged her away to make out with her or some shit. I never asked what the fuck they were doing and I never will. But Marisol had watched, her eyes all wide and shit, scared of little old me. It was cute really.

So we hung out. Nothing much. It was kinda hard to get her to open up, but it was pretty cool. We were freshmans and shit, so we talked about school and shit because I didn't really know what she liked all too well. So I asked.

Like, we were always cool, and I made her smile and shit, but she mostly hung around Ally, so I didn't know much, but we were pretty close. Especially since me, Ally and Huey were her only friends.

So we got to know each other, and I thought she was adorable. So I asked her to Homecoming, but she denied a nigga. But I wasn't tripping, I'd ask her every year if I had too. She was too cute to give to another nigga.

Especially when she had her glasses on, like y'all need to see her with her reading glasses on, she looks like a sexy librarian-

"Riley, totally off topic." Marisol says, crossing her arms.

"No, I'm hella serious. Like, I don't understand why you started wearing contacts. Like it was some new shit. Like in the summer, you were rocking your reading glasses all the time around the house and then junior years comes and you wearing contacts. Like what bruh? I loved them glasses." He says, and Marisol rolls her eyes.

"You're hella dumb."

"I remember when you said your first cuss word too. It was damn. You had almost ripped a page out of one of your old books. It was hella funny." Riley laughs, and Marisol looks away, embarrassed. "But there was one word you'd never say, no matter how I tried."

"What was it? Cuz she sure got a colorful vocabulary." James says, sipping his wild cherry pepsi.

"Niggas." He says, and Marcus looks at him frowning.

"But she…" Marucs says, and looks at Marisol, who looked down ashamed.

"I didn't mean to say the n word." She says, running a hand through her hair. "I have no excuse. It's such a hateful word, and I was full of hate. But that doesn't excuse my actions."

Riley rolls his eyes. "It's just a word. I say it all the time. When I say it, or Huey or James, Marcus of any other nigga, we strip it of it's oppressive meaning. We move past it. We don't think of it as nigger, a slave, someone lesser than someone else. We think of it as our friend, our companion. Our nigga." He says, and she shakes her head.

"I'm never saying it again." She crosses her arms. "No matter what the meaning, that word shouldn't be used."

"You're just fueling the fire." Marcus says, taking a bite of an eggroll. "I'm not saying say it, but with that mindset, you're just keeping the chains on us. We have freedom of speech. If we wanna say nigga, we can."