“Goodbye, see you next week,” my manager calls after me as I exit the store. A major chill greets me as I walk outside. I untie my apron and take a second to stare at it. The small target logo stares at me, taunting me. I sigh, crumble the apron into a ball and begin my trek home.

The stars shine in the sky as my walk home continues. I close my eyes and act like it’s a spotlight as I dance on a stage that I might never be on. Microphone in hand, my mouth moves to the speed of my imaginated beat.

“Yo Genesis, stop that dancing and hit this blunt with us.” A voice tears me away from my daze.

I look at where the voice came from and I’m met with the gaze of Jay. Jay is the leader of a small wannabe gang in our neighborhood called Nitro Crush or NC for short. They don’t really do anything but smoke, but one of their members is a semi-accomplished rapper which is the only reason I even associate with them.

“Nah, I promised my mom I’d stop,” I say.

“Oh, what a mama's boy, sounds like your being a pussy to me,” Jay says.

“Well I am what I eat, but you wouldn’t know anything about that would you,” I reply. The group of four around Jay snickers.

“You’ve always just been talk Genesis, but how about you stop talking and run the ones.” Jay gets up and strolls towards me until he appears right in front of me.

“Just stop, I do-,” I try to say until I’m pushed to the ground. Jay stands over me, laughing. Knowing it was a bad idea I stagger up and tackle him to the floor. Without thinking I start to pummel him with my fist. Right. Left. Right. Left. Suddenly, I’m rammed to the floor. I push the body off me and jump up. My arms move into a boxing stance, as I get ready for the fight ahead of me.

Jay gets up as the whole group starts to surround me. Two of them stand in front of me while I can only guess the other three are behind me. I hear cars pass us, but due to the darkness of the night, I doubt any of them can see what's going on. I lunge out in front and land a fist on one of the guys and knock him down. I whip around and kick down the person behind me. I attempt to face the other way and see what the people behind me were up to, but before I could two sets of hands grab my arms and restrain them. I flail around to no avail. Jay raises my head up and punches me straight in the jaw.

“Now what nigga, now what,” Jays says as he punches me in the stomach. He continues with two more hits in the same area. Suddenly a beep of a car horn fills the air. Not even a second passes and you can see Jay and his gang run off into a random house’s backyard, jumping the fence. The driver’s door of the car swings open as a familiar face runs towards me.

“Get up bro, what are you doing trying to fight those losers.” The voice belongs to my brother, not my actual brother, but a friend so close to me that brother is the only thing I can think of calling him. His name was Kian.

“Come on bro, get up.” He continuously snaps in my face and all I could do was let out a laugh of relief.

“Bro I’m fine, they barely touched me,” I say as I let him pull me up.

“What happened bro.”

“Nothing much, I just talked a little to much.”

“Bullshit, you probably got mad and initiated an unnecessary fight like usual.”

I grin, he rolls his eyes and we both enter into his car. He takes a U-turn and exits my neighborhood.

“Where we going,” I ask.

“We going out to eat and chill a bit before I drop you off.”

“You don’t gotta bro, I’m fine.”

“Look at how you look right now, if Skye ssees you like that, she would flip. Probably call the police and go on a full manhunt for NC. We gonna get you cleaned up.”

“That’s true, I don’t want to stress her too, I feel like I do that so much.already” I let out a sigh.

We carry on on our adventure and I take a glance out the window. The same stars that earlier put me in the spotlight look even more far away. The buildings pass in a blur, bored, I take out my phone and check the time, it’s 10:30 p.m. Unsurprisingly a text from Skye pops up.

Baby are you ok, the latest you get out of work is 10.

I’m ok mom, I’m just going out with Kian for some dinner, be back soon.

Ok, be careful sweetie.

I rest my phone in the cupholder between Kian and I. I look around and due to certain events I didn’t notice Kian was in his mom’s car. This sudden realization leads to multiple questions flooding my head on why Kian was even in my neighborhood, he lives in a different street.

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“Yo Kian, why were you out over here anyway, I know I’m lucky, but you had no reason being here, especially in your moms car.”

“I was actual driving to pick you up. I got good news, that I had to tell you in person. My cars in the shop so my mom let me drive hers.”

“What news bro.”

“While we’re eating I’ll tell you.” Kians face stretches into one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. I can’t help but feel excited my self. This has to be near amazing if he wanted to tell me in person instead of a call like a normal person.

Kian pulls the car into our favorite place to eat and hangout, the Wendy’s on Euclid Avenue. We come here so often we know almost every worker and they know us. We’re on a first name basis, like a middle-aged mom at a Kroger.

Kian and I exit the car. Kian marches forward with a pep in his step towards the door. I follow him and we head to the counter to order. A girl named Olivia beams as she sees us and relaxes her straight-edge posture.

“Hey Kian,” she says.

“Hey Olivia, can we get the usual,” Kian says while handing her a 10 dollar bill. The “usual” for us is two junior bacon cheeseburger four for fours which comes with a bacon cheeseburger, drink, fries and a four piece chicken nugget.

“We have some leftovers, you guys want any before we split it all out between us,” Olivia says while giving the two dollar change back to Kian.

“No, we’re fine,” I say.

Kian winks at her as we head to our favorite booth near the window. I can’t tell if Kian likes her or not as he’s often mistaken of having feelings for a girl when in reality, he’s just flirty kind of guy. We sit across from each other and I trace his eyes back to Olivia.

“Do you actually like her or just looking to fuck and leave,” I say.

“Why do you act like I do that.” He rolls his eyes.

“A lot of girls can testify against the claim.”

“Oh whatever, you ready for the news.”

“Yeah hit me.”

“You know Helios, the guy that has that studio in Ohio that made multiple famous rappers have the fame they have today. I sent him some of your stuff and he said he wants you to make a song in his Studio for free.”

“No way!” I shout these words as I jump from my seat..

“Chill out you two,” a manager by the name of Zoey calls out.

I apologize and sit back down. I really could not find any other way to express my mix of emotions, thankfully each emotion is positive. A song in Helio’s pad has made multiple rappers take the step from the unknown to nationwide fame.

“How did you make this happen,” I say to him trying my best to control my voice.

“I just reached out to him and sent him some of your best songs. He digged it and thinks you have potential. He says your unique. Anyway, he wants you in his studio, free of charge. I told you that your good.”

Not to sound overconfident, but I knew I was good. However, I never dreamed I was good enough for an exclusive studio session with Helios. This was the best news I received in a very long time.

“When, when,” I say.

“He said he’s open next week. I replied with we’d be there and he sent me the address.”

In my possession was the address of the famous Helios pad, I couldn’t imagine this in a million years. I could be the next big star. I could have my stage sold out and perform for millions of fans with the same passion as mine.

During my excitement our order was called and we went and got our food, due to it being late we decided to go outside and enjoy it in the car. Usually I would be downing the food, but I was already filled up with joy from the news earlier. I look over and Kian has already finished his chicken nuggets and now has a handful of fries in his mouth.

“I honestly didn’t think you would of been that excited, never seen you jump up like that,” Kian muffled as he swallows his fires.

“This is Helios we’re talking about, I’m one step closer to a goal I’ve had since forever. Bro, I forgot to say thank you.”

“No problem, I told you I would always support you and social networking is one of my best traits.”

“It just feels so surreal. I even got the perfect song I’ve been working on to showcase to him.”

“Good, but I hope your not on NC’s bad list for the stunt you pulled today.”

“They ain’t gonna do nothing, honestly I’ll avoid them after I tell Mo the news.”

“Good choice, good choice, even though Mo’s not even well known enough for that to be the reason your hanging with that group anyway.”

“I was desperate, you hear all these rappers being famous at 16. I’ve been doing it for almost two years with some success, but nothing major.”

“Your 16 yourself, you shouldn’t be in that big of a rush.”

I nod my head to agree just because I know he wouldn’t understand. Being so passionate about something you dream about it almost every night and having minimal success on it can be soul-crushing. Now it’s finally different though. I knew I was improving and honestly I think I’m better than all these famous rappers right now, but I didn’t expect anyone to recognize that.

Kian takes the car and rides it back to my house. I tell him thank you again and he drives off after we do our handshake, which is so complicated that I’m surprised we always remember how to do it. I use my phone to look at myself, I don’t look like I’ve just been jumped by anyone, but I mess with my hair a little to make it appear more tamed. I go up to my front door and ring the doorbell.

Levi opens the door and stares at me for a few seconds too long. I smile, but with Levi I knew there was no avoiding the truth. I still make the sad attempt to do so.

“Welcome, mom is asleep and dads doing paperwork, you going to tell me what happened,” Levi says.

“What do you mean what happened.” I try to conform my face to be as surprised as possible. Levi rolls his eyes and lifts my shirt exposing the faint bruises of the punches I was delivered.

“I thought you got out of your fighting phase.”

“NC was just being reckless today.”

“I have a feeling you were the one being reckless today. But do we need to do something about them.”

“No, everything's good I can deal with it.”

“Dante and I can talk to them and if it escalates to something else we can take them. You don’t have to do everything alone G.” Levi’s the only person who calls me G, but I always liked that he was the only one with that right.

“It’s really fine, I’m bouta head to bed though. Goodnight.”

I sneak pass him and go up the stairs. If Levi and Dante got involved it would be way too much trouble. Levi might not look like much, but he can be very violent towards any invoncevenice that happened to fall onto the people he cares about. I shudder as I remember how disgusting the guy who robbed Ally looked after Levi figured out who he was.

I enter my room and lay down with a flop. All the events that transpired has made me more tired than I realized, adrenaline was hiding it before, but now it all sunk in. I reach under my bed and take out a ragged purple notebook that has all my lyrics in it. I look over it and the image of me rapping in front of a stage of people reappears in my mind as I slowly fall into slumber.