What's His Is Mine Read Free Page B

anything else she could find at her boyfriend, Mikey.
    â€œYou want to stay out, so just stay out. Don’t do me any favors coming in at three in the damn morning. Just stay out all night,” she screamed at him. Mikey just stood against the stone-colored countertop, trying to explain himself and duck the objects Lisa threw at him. This was a common scene in our household. Fight. Love. Fight. Love. I hate you! Get out! No, never mind . . . come back home. My sister and her boyfriend had been together for as long as I could remember. You see one, you see the other.
    Growing up it was always Lisa and Mikey. They were the cute couple that dressed alike and had the perfect prom picture. Back then, you would have thought they were going to grow up and have the big wedding and live happily ever after. I don’t know what happened to the happily ever after. I guess they both grew up, had the twins, and reality set in. Everyone was so over the Lisa and Mikey drama. Especially me, because I was always in the middle, breaking it up. I hated Mikey, and Mikey’s parents hated Lisa, and I wished they would just break up for good. But anytime you suggested breaking up with Mikey, Lisa would use the excuse that she had the boys, she was stuck, and she had already put too many years in with him to leave.
    I coughed and stood in the doorway, letting my presence be known, in case Mikey got the dumb idea to throw something back at her, and then we would have to jump him. They both looked over at me. Instead of ending the argument, Lisa continued to cuss Mikey’s ass out.
    â€œListen, go back out into the streets. I don’t care. I know you were out there cheating on me, probably at the bar with some bitch.”
    â€œI wasn’t cheating on you. I don’t want to go back out there. I just want to go to sleep, Lisa. I’m tired,” he said, sighing and rubbing his forehead.
    â€œYou are a damn liar,” Lisa said as she threw the toaster directly at his knee. He bent down to grab his knee.
    Miles ran over to his father to make sure he was okay and said, “Mommy, please don’t hurt Daddy.”
    Before Lisa could pick up anything else, Mikey looked over at Lisa and shook his head. He picked up his son and walked past Lisa. She stood in place—he knew she couldn’t throw anything else. After he walked out of the kitchen, Lisa looked at me like why was I up? I began picking everything up off the floor.
    â€œI don’t think it is good for Miles to hear or see y’all fight,” I said.
    Lisa flagged me and said, “It is not good for his father to come home in the middle of the night. I am so tired of this shit, I wish he would leave.”
    My sister knew she really didn’t want Mikey to leave. Because the moment Mikey left for a few days she was going crazy. She would go out and track him down. She would beg him to come home, he would apologize, and then they would be blissfully in love for about a week.
    Lisa was very pretty—she could get another man easily. She was twenty-six, and people always asked if we were twins, but I’m seven years younger. We had the same build, but I was slightly taller, same brown skin, high cheekbones, slanted eyes, past-our-shoulders long permed hair, and big spearlike noses. I hated our noses. My nose was a little larger than hers. I thought it took up the majority of my face, but people said it fit me and I was cute. One day when I got money I was going to get a nose job. Not like Michael Jackson’s or anything crazy. I just would like to make it a little smaller.
    Lisa worked as an administrative assistant and Mikey did what he could. Which was not much. He was smart, but only wanted things the easy way. The easy way had landed him in jail a few times. No long stretches, but he had a record. Which made it harder each time for him to come home and get a real job. Somewhere along the line, Mikey decided if he couldn’t be a