Little Lonely Hibiscus *HIATUS*

His Memory

"Why are you crying, Mick?" She asked sadly, wiping a fat tear drooping off the side of my face.
"I-I...He..T-Toka..." I tried to talk to her, but I was whimpering and hiccuping too much. The sadness was unbearable. I wrapped my arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder. She patted my back and hugged me.
"What's wrong, Mick? Why are you sad?" She let go of me and wiped more tears off. I took a couple more breaths before replying.
"J-Jackson...he k-killed T-T-Toka," I shuddered and wept. Her face grew into a sad frown, but then her lower lip started to quiver. "T-Toka? Your puppy?" She asked. I nodded and hugged her again. Now she was the one crying. We were both crying. We were only eight at the time, we didn't really know what else to do except cry. I tightened my grip on her and looked down at her face.
"I-I don't...want y-you to die too," I hiccuped. She nodded quickly and smeared a tear away from her eye. "I don't w-want you to go e-either, let's just s-stay away from him." We thought that was the only way to not die. Stay away from Jackson. He was the Grim Reaper to us and we were just small mortals. We thought if he was gone then we would live forever which meant we could stay with each other forever.

Of course we were wrong.
But not only about living forever.

"Mick?"

My breath hitched for a moment as I tried to blink away the memory. I faced Cybil who was sitting next to me in the truck, showing a perplexed expression.
"Yeah?" I asked. "You okay?" She said. I nodded and ignored the eye roll from bakery boy across the seat.
"Sorry, I just," I paused, "spaced out for a moment." I faced the passenger window and stared out while listening to her ask questions to the bakery boy.
"Who taught you how to drive?"
"I'm self taught, my dad just showed me the basics whenever the shop was empty," he smiled.
"That's cool, I've always wanted to learn how to drive ." She looked down for a moment before fiddling with the end of her sleeves. I was getting tired of their boring conversation so I decided to interrupt.
"If we're going to stick together then we're going to need some roles," I said. Bakery boy scoffed and muttered something under his breath that made Cybil punch him in the arm a little. "Ow, sorry," he apologized. "Well, if we're going to have roles then we should establish who should be the leader," she said. "Me," bakery boy and I said in unison. We both glanced at each other for a moment before snickering. "Who, you? What makes you think you have any right to compare yourself to a leader?" He chuckled. I gritted my teeth and reached over Cybil and pulled him by the collar of his shirt. "What makes you think you can judge others if you don't even know them?" I growled. He lifted his knees under the wheel and took his hands off to attempt to pry mine off his cruddy shirt. "Hey, hey! Watch the road!" Cybil leaned over him and took control of the wheel, trying to make him stop swerving the truck left and right. Bakery boy and I kept staring each other down while Cybil was frantically trying to pull us apart.
"Hey!" A sudden yelling was heard from the back of the truck, freezing us all. Bakery boy hit the brakes once I let go of him.

The truck started to shake but stopped, a painful silence following after Trevor's big eyes were seen in front of the truck.
"We're not going anywhere until you guys stop fighting and say sorry," he said. I swear to god the moment he stopped speaking I couldn't breathe. Apologize? To him? We looked at each other again and he burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" I frowned. "Me? Apologize? I did nothing wrong, for God's sake he's the criminal here in this truck, not counting Trevor. As a matter of fact, I should just call the cops right now," he snickered.
"If I'm going to jail then it'll be because I punched you to death," I growled again.
"Nobody is alerting the cops, nonetheless going to jail. You guys don't have to apologize now but we sure as hell need to get back on the road soon, so no more talking, alright?" Cybil said, glaring at each of us. I stuck out my bottom lip and went back to staring at my window as Trevor climbed back on the truck and we rode in silence.