Excerpt of In Love with Losers by LaToya S. Watkins

Chelle was overwhelmed with emotion by the time she dropped
Mia off in the
same projects that Donisha lived in. Whatever feelings she
had for Ty had
dissolved during her conversation with the young girl. Mia
told her how Ty
had taken her virginity one day when her mother and his
brother were gone.
He had been having sex with the child on a regular basis
every since then.
She had felt hot tears burn her eyes when the girl told
her, "He said if I
let him stick his thing in me, he would be my boyfriend and
buy me stuff. He
said if I didn't he would do it anyway, and I wouldn't get
nothing."
Mia's mother and Ty's brother were addicted to crack, and
Ty knew that most
of the time the child was home alone, so he went there and
had her whenever
he wanted. Chelle was shocked to find out that Ty was so
perverted and sick.

Mia had found out that she was pregnant a month ago, and Ty
had promised her
that he would pay for an abortion with Chelle's money. Mia
was young and
afraid. Chelle gave Mia her phone number and address and
told the child that
she shouldn't be so hard on herself. She assured the girl
that it was not
her fault that a grown man took advantage of her naiveté;
she told Mia that
Ty was the adult in the situation and he should be held
responsible, but Mia
made her promise not to tell anyone. She said that Ty
supplied her mother
with most of her drugs, and she would be in the doghouse
more than she
already was if he got into any type of trouble. Mia's
mother already
neglected her for drugs. She did everything short of
selling the child's
body to feed her habit, and Mia found that it was better to
blend in with
the filthy walls at home than to make her presence known by
telling her
mother about Ty's abuse from the very beginning.
It was after five when she pulled her car into her parking
spot in front of
her apartment. She didn't notice Ty's Regal parked in the
visitor's space
until she had closed her car door. She silently prepared
herself to throw Ty
out of her house and out of her life.