Seeing Red - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

It happened all so fast.
Dennis swung at Reece and hit him so hard, the floor felt like it vibrated.
Reece stumbled back onto the porch, holding his li, that for the second time, I saw shed blood.
He just smirked. "I see you're a tiny bit upset I'm gonna get to fuck Ashley and you won't," he said, wiping his mouth.
"I'm gonna kill yo," Dee shouted at him, charging onto the porch.
"Dee," Kenzie called, the only person moving. Everyone else looked like they were frozen with shock. "Calm it down."
Dennis looked back and although I couldn't see his face, the way Kenzie froze in his spot, it must've been fiery.
His fists were balled as he stepped out onto the porch. Reece was leaning against the post, texting and still with that shit eating grin on his face.
His sister was down the steps, hands on her hips, surveying the scene.
"You wanna fight?" Reece asked. "Go for it, big guy."
Dee audibly growled. "I bet that's what you want. To look like you deserve the sympathy."
Reece snorted. "I don't need anyone's sympathy." He looked at me. I came to speak with Ashley, who the public now recognizes as my fiancé."
Dee looked over and the fury melted from his eyes and sadness glittered in them instead. "What does the goon have on you?" he asked. "Or are you really in love with him?"
His words hang in there. Reece stood there eyeing me. Dennis's eyes were blinking between the floor and me. I felt the eyes of everyone behind me staring at my back.
I felt the grass, the flowers, the wind, all pausing for a moment to listen. The moon, the cement. Everything waited, with baited breath for why, I, Ashley King, a Bronx –bred black boy that attended a public school had somehow decided to get engaged to a Upper East Side, possibly blue eyed trust fund baby that no doubt hadn't stepped a single foot in a public school since he was born.
Why? How? When?
I couldn't say I did it to get inside Red. Reece and his sister were standing right there. Saying I love him would cause more problems than saying the former.
"You don't have to answer that," Reece's sister said, as she stepped up on the porch. "If all of this is overwhelming for you, don't answer it."
"Yes he does," Dennis said, voice hard. That voice brought back so many bad memories of when I was 17. Of him and I fighting because he couldn't keep it in his pants. "You owe it to me to not pull my heart strings and don't have intentions of trying anything with me. It's not fair to me."
"Don't..." I whispered, "go there with me."
He was about to speak, but he got what I meant and his mouth folded back into a neat little line. "I've said sorry a dozen times," he said. "I've been trying to make up for it, ever since. Ever since. And I will for forever." He put his hands on his chest and stepped closer. "I wanna..." he swallowed and looked up, his eyes were misty. I've only ever seen Dennis cry once. "You don't need my protection, but I'm in love you can't blame me for checking."
"We need to talk, Ashley," Reece said, breaking my trance. Breaking the hold Dennis had on me, for that split second.
I stopped looking into his eyes. I remembered to well how they looked.
I remember the night he said he loved me, on my 18th birthday. I remember the brown in his eyes. And I remember waking up to not seeing brown anymore.
"Ashley?" I heard Dennis say and it echoed and echoed. "Say something."
Liza whispered something to Reece. Her brother kicked off of the wooden post. "Ashley do you wanna just get outta here?" he asked. "I can just take you somewhere e to think."
"Or do you want to deal with all of this?" his sister asked, pointing to everyone behind us, who hadn't said a word.
I sighed and started walking toward the car. His sister touched my arm and walked with me. 'I'll calm the storm here. Just go and get out of here. Think and make the right decisions.."
Reece jogged ahead of us and opened my door. I wasn't in the mood to banter. I just got in. he closed the door and got into the driver's seat.
And we were off.
"You good?" he asked after about thirty minutes of driving.
Houses and buildings had dissolved and transformed into stalks of grass. We were heading out of the city, it seemed.
"How do you think I feel?" I asked him.
"Like shit?" he replied. "Most likely."
"I have a job to do. The only reason I chose you, is because I have a task to complete," I said.
Reece snorted. "It's important, I get it," he said. "You want a voice for your people. I get that."
That wasn't the job I meant, but I said , "Yeah."
We had come to a gas station after about an hour of driving. "I gotta piss," he said and jumped out of the car.
I sighed and jumped out to stretch my legs. And to think about how dumb of a decision it was to leave all of those people back there.
I didn't even bring my food. "Damn it," I whispered.
"Hard night?" someone asked from behind me.
I spun. There was a boy. Wispy hair, skinny, big eyes and tall.
"Very," I said. "very hard."
He smiled. "I remember traveling when I had a hard time back when I was around sixteen. " He looked around the station. "We came to a place like this to restock and then we were off again."
"We?" I asked.
"Me and my idiot," he said.
"SPENCER THEY DON'T HAVE ANY PEANUTS, OH THE HUMANITY!" someone shouted from inside the gas station's service center.
"That's my idiot," he said, laughing. "Where's yours?"
I raise a brow. 'How do you know I even have any idiot?"
He gave me this 'honey, please' look and I caved. "He's not my idiot, per say. But he's an idiot nonetheless."
Spencer guy laughed. "Well, mine wasn't my idiot before he became my idiot either," he replied. "It's usually how these things work."
I nodded slightly. "I don't think that's the case with this one," I said. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to brutally murder him before we ever feel anything besides hatred for each other. Hell will literally freeze over."
"You. Sound. Exactly. Like. Me." he snorted. "Like we're written by the same person."
"Well, he must be not that creative then," I threw.
Reece had rejoined us, looking between us with curious eyes, before staring back at the station. "Um. So, if that's your boyfriend, he's currently going through the every stage of grieving while whimpering on the floor because there aren't any peanuts."
Both Spencer and I blinked.
"I think he's on bargaining right now."
Spencer rolled his eyes. "I better go get my man," he chuckled. "You two enjoy the rest of your drive." He winked at me, before he trotted inside the store.
"What was that about?" Reece asked, then he gasped. "Is he the gypsy woman?"
I blinked. "The what?"
He shook his head. "Forget it, just get in and let's roll."
Reece opened his door, but when he noticed I hadn't budge, he stopped, resting his hands on the hood. "What is it?"
"I'm not going any further," I said. "I need to go back."
"We will," he said. "I just want us to spend some time alone, you know?" he said. "To get to know each other."
"Why?" I asked, almost at a whisper.
Reece scratched his head. "To, you know, see what would happen."
What did tat even mean? Was this some experiment to him? To see what happens when you mix black with white? Love and hate? Or was I just some rat in his lab? "Fuck you," I shot at him.
His eyes widened. 'What?"
"Fuck you, Reece Red. And your fucking car and your money and your handsome face, your possibly big pen*s and whatever possible diseases have taken up residence in your various cavities. Fuck you!"
"Fuck you too, Ashley King!" he shouted back. "With your sexy ass skin tone, your incredible hair, beautiful eyes, your great sense of style...your freaking... um... what were we doing?"
"I might actually vomit from anger," I said, keeling over and using my knees to prop myself up, dry-heaving.
Did I just speak freaking Arabic or something just now!?" he screamed at me. "You're hissing at me for saying I wanna try it out?"
"hfhdiol2eefi!" I shouted at him and started to stalk away.
All I saw was swinging flowers and a tall bit if grass on the other side. I went through it.
It was a few minutes later of me eating grass from smacking into the large stalks, until I heard feet running behind me. "Lord Jesus let him a Bengal tiger," I whispered to myself.
"Ashley!" Reece shouted.
I had no idea how close he was to me until I stopped to turn around and shout in his face.
He hit into me like a brick and we both tumbled down to the ground and rolled, eating dirt and getting blinding my dust, until we came to a stop on the grass.
I was on top of him.
He shook his head of the dirt and blinked a few times. I was coughing a bit.
When we both realized what had happened, we just stared at each other for a while, wide-eyed. Until something poked me. "Any chance your phone is in that pocket?" I asked.
"These pants don't have pockets," he answered.
"Gross," I murmured, before rolling myself off of him.
I stood up and wiped the dust I could make out on my clothing off of me. I turned around. Reece was still lying on the ground. "Get up and let's go," I demanded.
"No," he responded. "I'm not going anywhere."
"You're literally the worst!" I shouted. "You don't know me! You don't know anything about me! Take me home!"
"Then tell me, Jesus," he shouted, jumping to his knees. "Tell me about you and your fucking dreams and your life, and what you have planned for your future." His eyes were so narrowed that almost looked like Brock's from Pokémon. "We don't have to be mortal enemies, you know. We can be civil."
"Maybe I don't want to be civil," I said. "Maybe I don't want to be friends."
"Then leave!" he shouted. "Leave and let's just tell the world we don't really love each other. Let's tell them we lied and move on with our lives; never contacting one another again."
"You know why we can't do that," I spat back.
"I'm afraid of Hannah Montana," he said.
I almost snorted, but swallowed it. "Hannah?"
"Yes, Montana," he finished, rolling his eyes. "My cousin dressed up as Hanna Montana one Halloween and chased me around with a bloody knife, screaming he had killed Raven and if she didn't see it coming, then I wouldn't either."
I blinked. Twice.
"So," he said, allowing it to fade and be lost in the messiness of the sounds that had engulfed us. "What superficial thing are you afraid of?"
I shrugged. I didn't have anything to be superficially afraid of. "I'm afraid of a lot of stuff," I answered, hands on my knees. "None of them are superficial."
Reece nodded. "I get that."
I eyed him, skeptical. "Do you?"
"I'm the young owner of a multi-billion dollar company. I employ hundreds of people. Of course I know what it feels like to be afraid." He paused for a moment, stared at his hands, then slowly, his gaze returned to me. "What's it like to be black?"
"Huh?" I quickly shot out, not even given it much thought. "What does that mean?"
It was his turn to shrug. His hair had been caught by his eye lashes. Still, he trained his eye son me, never allowing them to roam. Not for a second. "What's it like to be a black person. How does it feel?"
"I," I began, but no words found me.
You ever had what you wanted to say swirling in your head, but the words were not in order? You knew what you had to say, but saying it wasn't going to come easy. A toddler first learning to speak.
"Do you know want to know what it feels like to be white?" he asked. I didn't answer, and I guess he took that as the go ahead to tell me. "It's knowing that almost everything belongs to you. Your face is on tv, you hear yourself on the radio; you know these products are specifically catered to you, and you know a political party cares about your interests above other races. It's feeling secure. It's knowing that I won't be killed when I walk down my neighborhood. No one locks their car doors when I pass. No one looks at me like I'm different. Does it feel good? Most of the time."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. It was stuff I already knew.
"Like, it's not something I'm ashamed of," he said. "I don't feel guilty for being a white person. I shouldn't feel guilty about being a white person. For every Donald Trump we've got, we have an Abraham Lincoln."
He sat up, straighter than I've ever seen him sit up, more trained on me than I've ever cared to realize before. His eyes look like they would be a brown color. I just thought about that. "Just because I'm white shouldn't mean I have to suffer for the idiotic things my ancestors did."
"I don't want you to say sorry," I cut in. My voice was sharp, but not as loud as I predicted it would be. "And ten years ago aren't your ancestors," I told him. "You took off of the physical chains, but you sure kept the mental ones shackled."
"You keep saying 'you' and 'your' as if I had a personal hand in it," he said. "I didn't. That is not me as a person. I'm a horny, sexually driven twenty-something year old male with a penitent for cheating n boyfriends and a love of opera, surprisingly." He paused a second, to shake his head. ". But I'm not racist. I never have been. I never will be." He sighed, inhaling sharply. "For someone as smart as you are, you're biggest flaw is that you only see in black and white."
"You don't know me well enough to pinpoint my flaws," I answered. "I don't just see in black and white...figuratively anyway. It's just....when my people are dying, and your people are the ones doing it, it's hard to not group you together."
"So, if a black kids breaks into my house, I'm supposed to group all black people the same way?"
"Of course not, you ass," I said. I stopped and thought about that exchange. "I see your point."
"That's all I want you see," Reece said. "I want you to see me for what I am, not because of any color."
"Color is a beautiful thing," I said. "I like it when people see me as a black young man. It's a source of pride. I like being associated with Malcom X and Martin Luther. With Rosa Parks and Beyoncé. I love the fact that soul music runs through my veins and r&b is a treasured hallmark; I loved The Fresh Prince of Belair, Martin, Living Single. I love my history, brutal as it may be; it teaches us that how far we've come and how far we have yet to go. I am a black man. I am not colorless. It is a beautiful thing. "
He smiled. "So...do you think I can see myself as a white person and see that as a source of pride?" he asked. "I mean we did invent the toaster. And one-half of Mariah Carey."
I laughed. And when I realized I laughed, I quickly chomped my mouth closed. I cleared my throat, but he was already smirking. And shit on a cracker my cheeks were starting to burn. "That was the one time I will ever find anything you say funny."
"I shall cherish it," he said, laughing his own hard laugh. "You want to go home yet?" There was a slight wanting in his voice. Stay Stay Stay it said.
But go go go I knew I had to. "I have to go back," I said. "I left a lot of people hanging."
He nodded. "Do you think I'm going to get punched again?"
I glared for a second. "If you ever say the words you fuck*d me again, then yeah, I think you will be."
"Sorry," I replied. "I'm just a natural antagonist to good guys like your friend, Mike Tyson."
I rolled my eyes. "Apologize to him, when you get the chance," I said. "I don't need any more complication in my life. There are seriously enough of those at the moment."
He sighed for a really long time. "Fine."
Reece
"You're starting to like him," Liza said. She stopped chewing on her apple, and set it down on the counter. "You're going to fall in love, aren't you?"
"Don't be freaking ridiculous," I blurted. "He's...cute. And we had one conversation in which we connected. That's all."
"You were stroking his hair, when you dropped him off at his house while he slept" Liza snorted. "Either you're a serial killer, or you're starting to like him."
"Anyone ever tell you that you're a know-it-all?"
Liza smiled. "A natural Hermoine," she said, as if that was some sort of source of pride. "What happens when you do?" she asked. "How will you tell mother?"
"You don't think she'd be thrilled?" I asked her, sitting on the kitchen's counter in our house. "I mean me being a whore is her entire insult rhetoric against me."
"We'll see," Liza responded. "I. for one, am thrilled, to have a brother who, at least is as smart as I am."
I rolled my eyes at her. "Ashley and I won't take it all the way to marriage."
Liza just smiled.