Page 1 of Ride or Die
Prologue
Buster
Eventsof the past year have me reconsidering some of my past choices. I thought if I left and started over somewhere new, she’d be easier to forget. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’ve thought about her every day. Ever since I’ve been back in Texas, I’ve wanted nothing more than to call her, to see her. The only problem is, I have no idea if she’s still here. Like always, my mind drifts off to one of the many memories I have with her. I was too young to understand it then, but she’s had me hooked since that day. I was a dumbass and fucked it all up.
10 yearsold
I’m sitting in Ms. Cordell’s fourth grade class, trying to pay attention as she talks to us about multiplication. This week, we’re working on multiples of eight. She’s about to hand out our timed times table worksheets when Principal Martin walks into our class with a new girl. She’s pretty. She has light brown hair and light blue eyes.
Principal Martin and Ms. Cordell are talking in soft tones. I glance over and find her staring back at me. I lift my hand, giving her a quick wave and a small smile. Her cheeks turn pink before her eyes move to her feet, avoiding my gaze.
With a smile on her face, Ms. Cordell moves to the front of the room with the girl by her side, smiling. “Class, I’d like you to meet our new friend, Calina. Her family recently moved here. Please, make her feel welcome.”
She turns to Calina and speaks to her in a softer voice. “Calina, sweetie, why don’t you take the empty seat next to Ryan.” She points in my direction and I pretend to be busy. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her walk over and sit. I catch her eyes and smile.
“Hi,” I whisper. “I’m Ryan.”
This time, I get a small smile from her.
“Nice to meet you,” she whispers back. She has some kind of accent. It sounds cool. I want to ask her where she moved here from, but Ms. Cordell is talking about our math lesson again. I’m paying attention even less this time. All I want to do is talk to Calina and make her smile some more.
Ms. Cordell hands out our times table worksheets. She places them on our desks upside down so we can’t see the problems yet. Once everyone has a worksheet, she walks back to her desk and grabs a timer.
“You will have one minute to do as many problems as you can,” she explains. “Ready . . . Go!”
I flip my paper over, trying to solve as many problems as I can. These worksheets always make me so nervous. The problems I struggle with, I skip. Once I finish, I go back to ones I skipped, trying to solve them fast. I still have a few left unanswered when the timer goes off, signaling for us to stop. I set my pencil down and turn to Calina. She’s wearing a bright smile, proud of herself.
“Please bring your worksheets to my desk. Then you may go to lunch,” Ms. Cordell tells us.
“Do you want to sit with me at lunch?” I ask Calina before either of us get up from our desks.
“Sure,” she responds, giving me a shy smile.
We walk to lunch, side by side, without saying a word to each other. I’m not usually so shy around new people, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make her not like me. We go through the lunch line. Today’s choices are chicken nuggets or pizza boat. I choose chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, and applesauce. Calina chooses pizza with the same sides.
We take our trays and find a spot to sit. We find a table close to the windows, sitting across from each other.
“You have a neat accent,” I tell her, causing her to blush again. “Where did you move from?”
“We moved here from New York, but my family is from Russia,” she explains.
“That’s awesome! I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. My family has never even been on vacation outside of Texas.” I laugh and she giggles.
“My family visits Russia every Christmas. We don’t do any other traveling unless we absolutely need to. Papa says it isn’t very safe for us.”
I wonder for a second why it wouldn’t be safe for them, but I don’t ask her about it. We fall into an easy conversation while we eat. We talk about what our favorite activities during recess are— we both like four square. Our favorite specials class— mine is PE and hers is art. Our favorite things to do outside of school— she likes reading books and I like anything to do with cars. We both like reading comics.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask her.
She lets out a breathy sigh. “It might sound silly, but I want to open my own bakery.” She must see the question on my face. Before I get a chance to ask why, she’s already telling me. “It’s something I’ve always done with mybabushka, uh I mean, my grandma and my mama. They tell me I’m pretty talented for being so young, and I love it.”
Her face lights up as she talks about her plans. I smile at her. “You should have it be half a bookstore too since you love to read.”
She laughs. “That would be wonderful! What do you want to be?”
“I want to be a race car driver. To be honest, as long as I’m doing something with cars, I’ll be happy.” I’ve never told anyone, but all my friends and family understand my obsession with cars.
We’re so into our conversation we don’t even recognize lunch is about over until we see other kids leave to go back to class. We drop our lunch trays off and make our way back to our class.
