Seeing Red [✓]

xxii. pride and joy

"He...can't," Reece answered, wearily.

I took a moment, pausing the pacing, one of my feet in the street, the other on the sidewalk. "Why...are you downtown?"

"There was a shooting," he said. I closed my eyes. "Dennis was shot." I reopened them and looked to the sky. A news chopper was headed towards the downtown area. "Ashley, Dennis is dead."

I hung up the phone. I threw it across the road and it smashed against a car, setting off its siren. "Do you really hate me that much!" I shouted to the sky, the black and gray sky, where God had been sitting just beyond the clouds, laughing at the comedy that he had written that he aptly titled Ashley King's Existence.

"You okay, Ashley?" Pete's voice was right behind me now. "The firefighters have a few more questions before they leave."

"No, I'm not okay, Pete," I answered, since lying solved literally nothing these days. "I am so far passed being okay."

"Erika is getting the insurance money," he said. "You can't act out of rage, Ashley."

I clenched my jaw. "So, she's getting a million dollars?"

"Try three," Pete said. "You want to hurt her for screwing you over, but she's counting on you doing that. She wants you to be emotional, while she does all of this with a clear mind. It's easier to confuse a man that lashes out with his eyes closed."

"This is fucked up, Pete," I sighed.

"Life is fucked up, Ash." Pete pulled his hands out of his jean's pockets and rested them to his side. "Life isn't a Nicolas Sparks novel. Nothing will ever go the way you want it to go. You can curse God all you want, but nothing is going to change. Nothing will change. The wind will not change its direction just because it messes up your hair. The sun will not rise because you want more sleep. Your heart will not break just so you won't have to deal with the pain that comes along with it. Life is fucked up. Even more fucked up since you're a black man living in a society that outright hates you for being darker than the rest of us. But fuck life. Stick up your middle finger at whatever force is making everything around you crumble and live just to spite it."

"I need to get downtown," I said. After all of that. Thank you didn't sound like something I felt like saying right now. But I said it anyway. "Thank you, Pete." I rested a hand on his shoulder, and he rested one of his on my opposite shoulder. "I need you to make sure Lola is safe, and get Nikko home."

He nodded. "What are you going to do?"

I tried to smile. I really did try. "Watch the news, and you'll see."

He smiled. "Go be a badass, Batman."

I tipped the cab driver with what I had in my pocket. It wasn't nearly enough to make him drive the mess that had devolved downtown in the wee hours of this morning.