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.