A Series Of Firsts

One★ Crush shouldn't be in your vocabulary.

Annie knew that the glare her mother gave her meant she was in trouble. What for? She didn't know. She had done what she was asked of. She attended the choir practice. She was even sitting where the choristers were situated in the church during a Sunday service at the moment. She couldn't possibly fathom what it was that made her mother give her the stink eye in the church.

She didn't think much about it as she moved in rhythm to the praises being sung. She didn't much believe in God but there was nothing she could do when she was a fifteen-year-old minor under the roof of her parents when her mom was a die-hard fan of God.

Her phone pinged. She picked it up hesitantly and looked at her mother to make sure she was making the right decision by checking her phone. When she saw her mom wasn't giving so much as a glance toward her, she checked the message she'd received. She saw it was from her mother and her heart skipped a bit. Her mother was so mad that she texted her in church.

Mom: I expected you to lead the praise.

She wanted to type back to her mother, telling her to do it herself if she wanted to, but she didn't. Couldn't because her mother was a raging storm and she didn't want her to release said storm on her later on. She instead, went with, I'm sorry. I'll try next time.

Annie's mom felt satisfied with the text, hoping to see her daughter lead the praise the next Sunday when they came again.

During the praise session, Annie's eyes caught the movement of someone at the back of the church and looked just in time to see two men, rather, a man and a boy, who had an uncanny resemblance to each other, walk in through the door.

One thing was odd though. They were white and it was almost an only black church. She knew she hadn't seen them before because she could count on one hand the number of white people in Missionary Baptist Church. The hand would be full now though if both males were sticking permanently.

She found herself staring at the hottest boy she had ever seen in her fifteen years of life and that was saying something cause she had never found interest in boys. Was it the way his eyes seemed to be searching the crowd for someone? Or was it the way he bit his lip in concentration while doing so?

Either way, he found whoever it was they were searching for as the said person waved her hands in a motion for them to locate her.

Regina Harper. She was biracial. Half black and half white and Annie thought she had a thing for white folks. Her ex-fiance was white, her ex-boyfriend was white and now, she invited two white dudes to church. That could only mean she was dating one of them.

Annie didn't know if they were brothers cause it looked like the older one would be in his twenties and the younger one in his teens. Just as they sat down, her eyes locked with the latter's and she averted her gaze, only to be met with her mother's furious own.

I am dead, she thought. She knew her mother had no boys rule and she didn't have a problem with it because she never found one interesting enough to go against her mother. Even if she did find one, she wasn't sure she couldn't match her mother's tsunami. Her mother was the perfect definition of an Angry Black Woman when antagonized.

Annie managed to go through the song the choir presented even if her eyes kept going back to the white teenage boy with brown locks. She couldn't quite catch what his eyes looked like as she was far from him.

She fully planned on talking to him after the service was over but to her utter disappointment, he left before the service could even close. What a douche, she thought with a huff, crossing her arms and stalking towards her brothers. He attended late and left early. Like who the hell does that?