Taj turns to shake my hand. Her whole face smiles. “Nice to meet you, Fabulous,” she says. “I heard a lot about you.”
They look good together and I can’t help but wonder why Donna has not had the same taste in picking out a good boyfriend. I shake the thought of Dray from my mind because I want to enjoy my friends and this basketball game, but I spot Kasim waving to us from the bottom of the bleachers. I smile big and bright and wave back. I can’t hide it. I really am happy to see him. Soon, he’s trying to make his way up past the crowded seats to get to where we are. I ask Imani to scoot over, and when I look back up, I see Dray coming up with Kasim.
I tap Donna and point in their direction. She doesn’t do or say anything.
Dray, with his eye patch and gold cross, holds his hands out and calls Donna’s name. “You gonna leave me hanging like this?” he says.
Other people shush him and tell him to get out of the way.
“Yo, mind y’all fucking business!” he yells to no one and everyone. “Ay yo, Donna?”
“I’m not talking to you, Dray,” Donna says by the time Kasim is seated between me and Imani.
“Donna, he just wants to talk to you,” he says. I nudge him. He shouldn’t get involved, and if he is, he should be on my side and on Donna’s side. But I don’t say this to him.
Two girls get up from next to Donna to make room for Dray. They end up standing by the bleacher steps. Dray doesn’t even sit down when he comes over to us, and he blocks me, Kasim, and the people in the rows behind us.
“If this don’t show you that I love you and that I’m sorry, then I don’t know what will.” He pulls something out of his coat pocket. It’s a little red box.
Donna doesn’t even look his way.
“If you don’t take it, I will!” someone nearby shouts. And everyone laughs.
Dray ignores them. And Donna ignores him. Until he gets down on one knee in that narrow space between the bleacher seats. Dray grabs Donna’s hand and kisses it. “I love you,” he says.
And maybe I buy into everything he’s selling because I can see how his one eye is almost welling up with tears.
“Don’t do it, Donna, don’t do it,” Pri says through clenched teeth. “Just remember what that nigga did to your face.” Her leg is shaking and she keeps her fists balled up as if she’s holding everything in. She tries to smile around Taj and is trying hard not to let Dray unravel her. Or else she would’ve been in his face already, I’m sure. Dray opens the box and it’s a pendant. And as if everyone in the gymnasium has set their eyes on the little, bright diamond, they all stand up to cheer. I soon realize that it isn’t the pendant that makes them cheer; someone on our team has scored a basket.
“Damn, I ain’t even see that shit ’cause of this nigga’s big-ass head!” someone behind us says.
“Yo, what the fuck did you just say?” Dray is standing up now, looking behind us.
No one answers him except for Donna, who is trying to get him to sit down.
But Dray is too busy looking for the person who said he has a big-ass head to notice that Donna is trying to take the box from him.
“Who the fuck said that?” he yells at everybody.
No one answers him.
“Kasim, find the bitch who said it and bring her over here.”
Kasim looks around and I tug at the sleeve of his coat. I can’t believe he is ready to do whatever Dray says, but before I can say so, Donna speaks. “Are you serious, Dray? You come all the way out here to give me this cheap-ass jewelry and say how much you’re sorry and how much you love me, and then you’re gonna turn around and start beefin’ with other people?” she says.
“I didn’t come out here to get disrespected,” Dray says.
“Well, you’re disrespecting me. You stay disrespecting me.”
Then Dray is back down on his knee and grabs Donna’s hand. I can tell by her face that she’s buying it. Donna is under Dray’s spell again. And Pri knows it, too, because she finally stands up and turns Donna around.
“I swear, I will cut you off if you let that nigga get to you,” she says.
Donna puts a hand in Pri’s face and says, “I got this, Pri.”
Dray eases closer to Donna and leans in toward her. He whispers something—sweet things, maybe. Donna is slowly surrendering. I can see it in her body, how her shoulders come down, how her hand moves toward Dray’s hand. He’s still saying things to her—putting her under his spell. So I call out her name to snap her out of his spell. “Donna!”
She turns to me. “What, Fabulous?” But Dray starts pulling her down the bleacher steps.