Fight - Nicole Dykes Page 0,1
her head and zips up the black puffy coat Dane swiped for her Christmas gift, flipping the hood up over her head.
She’s tiny, but still a force.
She gives off a don’t fuck with me vibe I like to think I taught her, but she had it that first day on the playground. Her jeans are ripped, and her black sneakers are looking rough, but she looks good. The jeans hug her small hips, and she is wearing some makeup today.
Her pouty lips are stained red and her eyes are lined in black. Shaw is effortlessly gorgeous. She yanks open the door and hops in, “Do you have to honk? You know I’m coming.”
I pull away from the shitty, rundown house she lives in with her mom and start toward the shitty, rundown high school we all attend. This is our life.
“If you would hurry your ass up, I wouldn’t honk.”
“Such an asshole,” she singsongs as she tucks her small hands under her ass.
“So what are we doing for your birthday, Shaw?” Dane asks from the backseat.
She’s the last of us to turn eighteen. Legal adult. I’m sure in other high schools in this country that’s a big deal, but here? Fuck, we’ve been adults for so goddamn long it doesn’t feel like anything other than another day working and worrying about how to make it.
Her small shoulders shrug as she looks out the frosted window. “I’m working that night.”
“Fuck that,” Dane says, his cellphone ringing in his pocket. He pulls it out, but doesn’t answer it yet. “It’s your eighteenth. We are doing something.” He answers the phone and Shaw shoots me a worried look when we hear him say, “Yeah, I’ll handle it.”
He’s quietly listening to whoever is on the other side of the phone and Shaw shifts in her seat, the worry never leaving her pretty face.
“I’m on it.” Dane tucks his phone away and then goes right back to harassing Shaw. “We are going out for your birthday. Dinner’s on me.”
Shaw twists to look back at him, “With whose money?”
He chuckles at that, cracking the window and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He grabs one, lighting it, and I see him take a long drag from the rearview mirror. “Mine.”
“Yours that you made doing what?” Shaw’s voice has a sharp edge. She hates the shit he’s in. So do I, but she gives him a hell of a lot more shit about it than I do. I know, like Dane does, there isn’t much of a choice.
It’s either starve or survive.
Shaw knows that to an extent, but she has a loving mother that tries her damnedest to take care of her. Dane and me, we don’t have that. Not even close.
His mom left when he was just a baby. Mine is unfortunately still around when she needs to eat or dry out. My father is a real piece of shit, who also comes around when he feels like it. The house we rent may be in their names, but I’m the one who pays the landlord. Same with the gas, electric and water.
Dane lives with his dad, who tries I guess, but alcohol got ahold of him a long time ago. He can barely keep a job and even when he does, it all goes to his habit. So, it’s up to Dane to take care of his two little brothers.
At least I don’t have any siblings that I know about.
Dane does though. He has a five-year-old and seven-year-old to take care of. To make sure they have food and heat. And maybe the way he chooses to do that isn’t acceptable by society’s rules, but again, fuck the rules.
“Shaw…” He warns and sucks on the cigarette again, blowing the smoke out the window. “You won’t give a fuck when your belly is full of steak.”
She rolls her eyes and looks out the window. “I don’t want your blood money.”
“No blood had to be shed.” My eyes meet his in the mirror and he shrugs, “yet.”
I shake my head and pull into a spot in the parking lot of the school. I look up at the brick building, one that’s been there since the sixties and could use several upgrades that it will never get. We all climb out, swinging our backpacks over our shoulders.
Dane flicks the cigarette to the pavement, stomping it out with his foot and tugging Shaw to his side. “You gotta stop worrying about me. You’re going to get wrinkles.”
Her cute little