Choose Wisely Read Free

sat down. I could see him talking to his boys on the back porch. He had a lot of friends but I knew I held the number one spot.
                 
                  I couldn’t believe I knew him over twenty years now. He was one of the first kids I met when my family moved to Harrisburg from Jersey. We moved right after my mother was killed. My father wanted a fresh start and thought Pennsylvania would give us that. We moved to the Hall Manor Projects, which was on the Southside of Harrisburg. Darius and his family lived next door. He had three older brothers. I think they were the only kids in the projects that had both their parents living under one roof.
    When Darius’s mother found out Sandy and I had lost our mother she treated us like one of her own children.  I think we were like the daughters she never had. I loved Mrs. Jackson she was really the only mother Sandy and I knew. I stood and walked over to the fridge. I smiled when I saw a picture of Sandy, Darius, Dontae, and myself. I was ten and we were all standing in front of the ice cream truck. Sandy was crying because Dontae had knocked her cone out of her hand. We were like the three musketeers plus one; funny how things can change.
                  Darius touched the back of my shoulder. I jumped because I was deep in thought.
                  “Boy you scared me!”
                  “My bad I was just checking to see if you were ready yet?”
    I nodded my head yes. It had been a long day and he looked just as exhausted as I was. Darius handed me his keys.
                  “You can wait in the car if you want. I want to holler at Dontae before we go,”
                  “That’s fine I want to check to see if Sandy left,”
    I watched him head towards the stairs. I searched downstairs and there were no signs of her. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. I just said a little prayer for my sister and decided to wait in the car until Darius was ready.

Darius
     
                  I knocked on Dontae’s door, “Yo brah you dressed?
                  “Yeah come in,” I looked around.
                  “Where girly at?”
                  “She’s in the shower,”
                  “Oh ok me and Melissa are about to be out. You need anything before we roll?”
                  “Nah man I’m good. I got my girl Lexi looking out if I need anything,”
                  “Where you meet her anyway?”
                  “I met her at the Heights, one night when me and my boy Troy was playing pool. I asked her if she wanted a drink and well you know the rest,” he smiled.
    “ She just moved here from Philly. She got a spot down Ivy Lane with her little man,”
    I wanted to find out more about this broad. But it had been a long day and I had another situation to deal with.
                  “Alright man I’m going to hit you up tomorrow. Be careful with girly. You know some of these women out here can’t be trusted. He looked at a picture of Sandy on his nightstand.
                  “Yeah I know. But don’t worry about me. Lexi is defiantly feeling ya boy,” he stated as I closed his door. 
                  I walked to my car still thinking about Dontae. I knew him better than he knew his self. He always thought with the wrong head when it came to the opposite sex. I also knew with Aunt Karen gone things were only going to get worse.  She was his everything. On the bright side I knew he was going to come into a lot of money. Aunt Karen co-owned three local bars, and four apartment buildings she rented out. He always had the best of everything since I could remember. Aunt Karen was my father’s little sister. Since Donate and I were so close in age. We grew up more like a brother’s then cousins.
                  Once I got