4 The First Summer Morning

Jon woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs. A nostalgic smell, for months he didn't even get a whiff of it. Not even when Robert was still alive, "Mom? Is that you cooking," Jon says rubbing his eyes and rising from the couch. A blanket slides off of him, he looks at it smiling. He sits up, takes his phone out and checks the time. 8:02 AM. "I slept for 12 hours?"

^It is the first time you summoned me, it took a lot of energy.

Gangsta's Paradise echoes through Jon's head. Jon shrugs it off and gets up, placing his phone back in his pocket, pushing the blanket to the edge of the couch. He walks to his kitchen, which was only separated from the living room by a counter. He takes a seat at the table and begins watching his mother cook. A rare sight to Jon, who usually saw his mom crying or drinking. After watching for a few minutes, he takes out his phone and begins scrolling on Instagram.

He saw the usual, memes, trending topics such as the president doing something dumb again, teens with posing with guns, girls posing sexually. He chuckled at some memes, liked some girls posing, but each one he quickly scrolled past them. Only taking a longer pause at looking at a post when he came across his crush, Samantha Wilson. A mixed black and latino girl, with black hair and highlights, and curves that were eye catching. He had messaged her a couple of times over Instagram, they are considered among most students to be just friends. Though in reality they are a lot closer than what most think.

"Hey JoJo, did you say good morning to me yet?"

"Sorry mom. Good morning."

"Thank you. What time you come home last night? You slept on the couch."

Jon sweated, "Around 7:30"

"Mmhm," his mom said in a sassy tone indicating that she wasn't sold on his claim.

"What you get on your report card JoJo?"

Jon's mother stops cooking, looking back at Jon, who was reaching in his pocket for his report card. He takes it out and unfolds it, showing it off. "UOOOO That's my baby! Straight A's" Jon's mother rushes to Jon grabbing his report card and looking at it with a huge smile on her face, bringing a smile to Jon's face.

^Wow, your teacher was right about making mom proud.

"My baby smart huh," Jon's mom says.

"Stop it mom."

"I can finally brag to all my girlfriends that my boy smarter than the rest. Let me finish cooking so we can have us a nice morning breakfast."

Once breakfast is done cooking, Jon's mom places a plate in front of Jon and another plate across from him. Then she grabs the pan that she cooked the breakfast on and spatula. She walks over to Jon, pushing the bacon and eggs from the pan onto his plate. She does this to the other plate, having an equal amount of egg and bacon on both plates. She then walks to the sink and places the pan into it, she then cleans up her cooking area, as Jon munched on his bacon. Once his mother is done cleaning up, she opens a drawer with silverware. She grabs two knives and two forks, putting down one of each next to both plates.

"Thank you for the meal mom."

"Your welcome, baby."

A silence is then followed, as they both ate their breakfast. A sense of absence is felt through the whole morning as they ate cleaned up after themselves and drank orange juice to wash it down. They both go on with their lives, barely saying anything to each other. "Jon, I'm going to have a barbecue in like a few weeks from now. Invite some friends over."

"Alright mom, if you don't mind, I'm going over to Nate's house. I left my bag there."

"Yeah baby you can go, but make sure you don't stay out too long. In fact come home early today, I have a few things to tell you if they go smooth enough."

"Okay," Jon yells running up the stairs that were a few feet from the front entrance. He rushes into his room, grabbing his Bluetooth speaker and taking out his phone. He connects the speaker to his phone and turns on spotify. He rushes into his bathroom, setting down his speaker and phone, and undresses, leaving his clothes on the toilet. He takes a shower, rapping along to the song that was playing and free-styling on parts of the song where only the beat was playing.

Once he is done his shower he grabs his belongings and rushed into his room, changing into new clothes. He grabs his phone and speaker, putting it in his pocket. He also grabs his wallet that he happened to forget yesterday. He opens it to see a new fresh 20 dollar bill, that wasn't in there last time he checked. He grabs his keys and then beams it down the stairs.

He puts on his sneakers at the welcome mat, as he does his mom watches TV while sitting on the couch. Her soap opera was playing, and Jon did not want any of that. "Bye mom," Jon says rushing out of the door, closing it behind him. From his lawn he makes a run for Nathan's house. It was only a few houses down the street. Took him only a minute or two to get there.

By the time he reached Nate's driveway, Nate was already playing basketball. "Yo, what's up Nate."

Nate makes a shot and looks at Jon, "Aye, what's up Jon. I heard that you were a hero last night."

"Where did you hear that from," Jon asks while stealing the ball from Nate.

"Oh, word goes around quick out here, like really fast. Not even the news knows that you did it."

"Well if the news did say my name, I would be targeted."

"Targeted for what?"

"That guy was a gang member."

"Oh yeah, I did hear that in the news."

"BRICK," Jon yells out after Nate takes a shot. "Nah man, that shits in," an unfamiliar voice says to them. They both turn around to see a man in gold chains and baggy clothing. Nate takes a glance at the chains, while Jon inspects the man from head to toe. His clothing was a mix of gold and white articles of clothing.

^GANG MEMBER?!?!

"Shut up," Jon accidentally says out loud. Then suddenly a swish can be heard from the basket. "See? He made it just as I said." They turn around, Nate grabbing the basketball.

The stranger lifts up his hand, asking for the ball. Nate passes to him with worry. The stranger dribbles the ball up the driveway, as Jon backed up the closer the stranger got. Jon also notices a slight silver gleam from the back of the stranger's pants. The stranger dribbles some more once he stops. Then gets in a horrid shooting position. "Hey, boys do you think this will make it in or not?"

"I say miss," Nate says.

"Miss," agreed Jon.

The stranger shoots, missing his shot. "Ah shit. Lemme get it one more time." Nate catches the rebound and passes it to the stranger. "Hey boys. Hit or miss?"

"What," they both say.

The stranger than gets in his horrid shooting form once again, and shoots. The ball arcs for second, then curves toward Nate, hitting him right in his face at full force.