Paying for College - The Novel

  Chapter 3

  Brothers, I woke at seven thirty in the morning with a stomachache that felt so terrible, I felt shards of glass were sliding and sloshing through my innards. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom to regurgitate.

  I remembered I drank only two beers last night, but I felt like crap while a dark haze buried my thoughts and memories. After several more heaves, I felt better. I felt a breeze blow through my mind and lift that fog and the events of last night rushed into my mind. Damn, I broke into Mike’s garage last night. How crazy aktashite am I? My first serious felony. My other transgressions paled in comparison, like the time I stole my cousin’s remote-control car, or I snuck a twenty out of my mom’s purse, so I could meet my friends at the mall.

  I rubbed my tired face with my hands and mumbled, “Just this one time. Just this one little discretion.” I looked at myself in the mirror. I can’t return home and take that dead-end job, in a dead-end town with a dead-end future. I want to be somebody – somebody with a college degree.

  I opened the bathroom door slowly, tiptoed to the room, and grabbed my jeans lying on the floor. I returned to the bathroom and locked the door.

  I covered the sink with a bath towel and dumped the contents of my pockets into the sink. My black skeleton key landed on top of the money pile.