Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon Read Free Book Online Page B

in the bathroom setting towels on fire. Cause I wanted to burn myself. I really did. I wanted to commit suicide, if you can believe that about me. I never told you I did something like that, but it’s amazing what you can tell somebody in a letter that you can’t tell them face to face. But my mother wasn’t even mad at me because she said that was just my way of expressing myself, and that I would have to find a new way of dealing with things. She said that Daddy wasn’t coming back and we needed to think about the future now, what we were going to do with the hand God dealt us. That’s what I’m telling you and that’s what you need to believe.
    Antonio, I don’t love you any different than I did before you got locked up. And no, I don’t think you crazy and I would never think you crazy. You had to do what
you had to do, right? You didn’t mean to do it, and I know that if you could change the past you would. You would have done something different. I know you would have. I have no doubt in my mind that you would have made a better choice. So stop calling yourself a monster, okay? You starting to make me worry about you. If you think that’s what you are, then that’s how it’s gonna sound when you get up there to tell your side of the story. And that’s not how you want it to come out. So, you just gotta stay strong and believe in yourself, so you can get up there and do what you gotta do, so you can get out of this situation and we can be together. Just think about that and let that help you whenever you start thinking about what a bad person you are. Stay strong for me, so we can get past this and move on with our lives and go on to do all those things we talked about, okay?
    Head up,
    Natasha
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    May 1, 1990
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    Well baby, my lawyer said I did okay, but I know he just trying to make me feel good. I know I blew it today. I didn’t mean to get mad, but I just couldn’t help it. All that shit that bitch was saying to me, bringing up shit that didn’t have nothing to do with what happened that day. I
mean, what the fuck do the fact that I got suspended this year for fighting got to do with what happened on that day between me and my daddy? That ain’t got shit to do with nothing, but when my lawyer object she wanna say some shit about establishing my aggressive personality and propensity for rage and all that other shit. Using all them big words to get it twisted for everybody. Then she gonna have the nerve to ask me why I didn’t call the pigs or why I didn’t tell nobody at school or a counselor or my doctor or whoever about what was going on in my crib. What is that bitch thinking? Oh yeah, while doc sticking a big needle in my butt I’m just gonna be like, “Yeah, Daddy beat my mother ass and mine too last night.” Come on, what the fuck dream world she living in? If she think the police bout to come up in my crib and do something just cause my daddy beating up on us, she a lot stupider than she should be if she went to law school. Maybe they come in Westchester or Long Island or Queens, but they ain’t coming in Harlem. I would have to knock some white lady in the head and then drag her uptown to my crib and let her call the police from there if I wanted them to come and help me. I know I shouldn’t have done it Natasha, but I couldn’t help it. She made me so fucking mad I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to kill her. I really did. I wanted to jump over my seat and grab her by the back of the head and put her in my mother’s face and show her the scars that’s still there and say, Look at this bitch. How would you like this every day bitch? But I knew I couldn’t. I tried to be calm, but I couldn’t help getting mad. I felt my face getting hot
and sweat coming on my face and pouring down my face and I just couldn’t help it. I had to get mad. I had to. I tried not to, but I