A short walk

As I walked to school the next morning I thought to myself 'How did Jake end up joining a gang'. The whole day I tried to answer that question, but I couldn't. Andrew was right. If I want to know someone's story I should ask them. I went on with my day and waited for school to end, so I can head over to Jake's house. My 6th-period class was next to Jake's class, but I was unsure if I should ask him then or wait till I got to his house.

As I walked to class I saw Jake standing outside his classroom door. I tried to hide from him, but he saw me and called me over.

"Aye John come over real quick"

I walked over to him and said

"What's up to Jake, how you been"

"I've been good...oh and wait for me after school. We need to talk"

"Oh...yeah man for sure"

He smiled and went into his class. As I sat in my class I wondered if he knew that I was going to his house, or that I was in the same gang as him. I didn't know what to do, I was stuck. I tried to think of a way to avoid walking with him. But it didn't matter cause I would see him at his house. There wasn't a way out, I have to walk with him. So I waited and waited, finally, the bell rang. I walked out of class and saw him waiting in front of the door.

"Hey Jake"

"Hey, you ready to head home"

"Yeah"

His house is about 2 miles from the school. For about a mile we said nothing to each other, we didn't even look at each other. Once we got to the seven eleven which was about halfway to his house he began to talk.

"Andrew told me that you found out about me...you probably have a lot of questions huh"

"When Andrew first told me about you I did have a lot of questions… I thought about it for the entire day, I tried to think about why you joined a gang, but now… I only wanna know one thing. Why didn't you tell me, why did I have to find out."

"It's not that I didn't want to, I didn't tell you because I couldn't. We've been friends for years, we know many things about each other' we promised things to each other. I couldn't just walk up to you and tell you that I joined a gang. I couldn't even look myself in the mirror for a month, I wanted to tell you but when I would talk to you I would tell myself "I'll tell him tomorrow". I hated the fact that you didn't know but in the end, I thought it was for the best. But now I see that it wasn't the best idea I've had."

"Huh… I get what you mean tho, I don't wanna tell people I'm in a gang cause I'm ashamed of myself. And if it was me who joined a gang first I would've done the same thing… I guess we can help each other now huh."

"Yeah, which reminds me here is a list of people's phone numbers that will buy from you, and um… when you get to the safe house there are people from other gangs and buyers, so you can sell a good amount of your stuff."

"Oh… okay"

By the time we finished our conversion, we were at the front door to the safe house.