Snapped (Urban Renaissance) Read Free Page A

had toned his game down since I’d first met him fifteen years ago.
    In high school, I had the biggest crush on him. He didn’t go to my school, but he was there so much it would have been easy to believe that he was enrolled. He supplied drugs to all the kids, so it wasn’t uncommon to see him lounging around the parking lot or across the street from the school. He was smooth and all the girls loved him.
    I was in my junior year when he started flirting with me. That was the year my boobs and ass finally developed. Up until that year, I was as flat as a pancake. It seemed like overnight I outgrew my training bra and added a caboose to my jeans. All the boys were trying to get my attention, but I only had eyes for Ronald. He was a boy with man-sized dreams and I wanted to be a part of them. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I was the only one vying for Ronald’s attention, but I reveled in the attention he poured on me.
    In the beginning, he would be waiting outside my school right next to my bus. Every day he would ask me if I wanted a ride home. At first I’d always say no, but my girlfriends persuaded me to take a ride one rainy afternoon.
    My nerves threatened to get the better of me as I slid onto the leather seat of his car. I could see my girlfriends’ faces plastered against the window of the bus as we pulled away from the curb. Excitedly, I waved bye to my friends. This was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to me in my whole life.
    “Don’t worry, Gina, I won’t bite,” Ronald had said.
    “How did you know my name?”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “I asked around.”
    I felt like pinching myself knowing he went through the trouble of finding out who I was. We were driving for a few minutes before I noticed that we were going in the wrong direction.
    “Where we going?” The rain was coming down pretty hard. I had to get home before my mother realized I hadn’t caught the bus.
    “I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
    For a minute I felt stupid, but I quickly shrugged it off. “Well, I assumed if you knew my name, you knew where I lived as well.”
    “Damn, baby, I’m not a stalker. I just asked what your name was.” He laughed heartily and I joined in.
    “I live back the other way toward Grant Park on Boulevard. You can let me out at the corner by the zoo entrance.”
    “Why, you don’t want me to know where you live?” He acted like I offended him.
    “No, it’s not that, but I don’t want my mother to see me getting out of your car.” Truth be told, my mother would shit a duck if she saw me in a car with a man. She was very protective of me, especially since I developed boobs. She was always asking me if boys were trying to touch them.
    “Okay, I can understand that. When she gets to know me, she’ll love me like all the girls do,” he said with confidence, but what I heard in those words was that there would be a next time.
    My tiny heart beat faster as I imagined us as a couple. All too soon it was time for me to get out of the car. This was the first of many rides in his car.
     
     
    The sound of Ronald’s horn interrupted my musings. I got up and grabbed my coat. For a minute, it was just like old times. I patted my stomach and ran out to meet my man.
    “Where we going?” I asked as I closed the door behind me. I leaned across the seat to give Ronald a kiss, but he waved me away. I could smell the weed clinging to his clothes. He had told me he stopped smoking, but I wasn’t about to bring it up, for fear of ruining our night together.
    “Only your favorite place in the world,” he said, laughing.
    I held in my sigh of frustration. He was taking me to Copelands in Buckhead, the same restaurant he took me to every time even when we were dating. I didn’t want to burst his bubble and let him know that I’d outgrown the place.
    “Ah, aren’t you sweet.” I was so sick of their Cajun cuisine I wanted to puke. Not to mention the fact that my baby didn’t seem