CHAPTER 5

DANE

 

I’m looking at her wide eyes, and the excitement etched all over her face. She wants this for me so badly, but I wonder what is her real reason. What’s her motive? Sometimes I think Asia just does shit to keep and eye on me.

“How did you do this?” I look down at my scholarship acceptance letter, which I didn’t apply for. “I mean…I don’t understand. You ain’t tell me nothing ‘bout this.”

“I clean your room every weekend, Dane. I throw out your trash, cook your food when I’m not at work, and spend so much time over here, I should be paying rent. You know I hate to be in my house alone, ever since my mother died. I feel more at home here.”

Asia’s mother died in a freak accident last summer. She was coming out of her job, at the phone company, and slipped on the icy stairs outside. She broke her neck and back and died instantly.

“Well what about my information?”

“Like what,” she giggles. “Your social? Boy, I know your social security number from front to back. You are my everything and I am yours.” She rubs her hand over my cheek. “We are interconnected, so why wouldn’t I be able to fill out an application for a scholarship for you? And answer every question without your help? That’s light weight, Dane.”

“So how did you know it would be here?”

“I check your mailbox everyday. Your mother, God bless her heart, ain’t right in the head, and the only thing Tex cares about is getting high. Wasn’t nobody but me worried about that mailbox outside. Trust me. It’s right on the curb in front of your house, and it doesn’t have a lock. It was easy.”

“Wow…”

“Dane”— she rubs my leg— “aren’t you happy? This is a dream come true for the both of us. We can be in college together, learn together, and more than anything, still have our relationship. I don’t want to go to the next step of my life without you, baby. So please don’t make me.”

“Asia, how I know you not doing this shit to keep an eye on me? It ain’t like you don’t be sweating me about—”

Asia slaps me so hard in the face I lose focus.

I look directly into her eyes. “What I tell you about that shit?” I frown. “Didn’t I tell you if you ever did that shit again, I would leave you?”

“I’m…I’m sorry…I just—”

“Didn’t I tell you it would be over, Asia?” I yell.

“Yes.”

“Then why you keep doing that fucking shit?” I stand up and move away from her, because I feel violent. “I’ll never hit you, Asia, but it don’t mean that you can put your hands on me without consequences.”

“Well I’m fucking mad,” she yells. She stands up and slides into her pink panties. The color next to her brown skin is picture perfect. “I did all of this work, and the only reason you think I’m doing it, is so you won’t fuck some bucket head bitches around the way? Is that what you saying to me? Dane, that’s fucked up, you don’t care about me.” She slides into her jeans, and bra.

“Asia, I’m a nigga. I don’t give a fuck what you like, you didn’t run anything past me. You just went out an applied for a scholarship you didn’t even know that I wanted.” I lit back up the bar. “That’s sneaky and underhanded.”

“I did it behind your back because I knew you wouldn’t want to leave, home. I knew you would think about your brother, and your mother, instead of yourself. This is about your future, Dane. Don’t you see?”

“You’re right about one thing, this is my future, which is why you should’ve discussed it with me first. Asia, if we ever gonna make it, you can’t be making moves like I’m some fucking kid. I keep telling you that shit, but you not listening.” I inhale my weed, and it rushes through my lungs. “I’m seriously reconsidering this relationship.”

She zips up her jeans and rushes over toward me. “Don’t talk like that, Dane. I’m sorry. I just…I mean…don’t you want a chance out of life? Don’t you want to get away from DC too? You said it yourself that I would be a fool not to take this opportunity and the same thing should apply to you now.”

“I’ll leave when I get ready, Asia, but it’s gonna be on my time.”

“Dane, if you go to college you can make a life for yourself and your brother. I’m talking about life changes that will set you up forever. Don’t you want it? Don’t you deserve it?”

“I can’t leave my family until—”

Loud banging at the door interrupts my statement.

“Dane, come out here, ma stabbing herself in the leg again,” Tex yells. “I need you to help me hold her down!”