One Wish Left

CHAPTER 4: DREAMS

That group of idiotic fifth-graders was at it again: they had Brodie cornered in the schoolyard. Jesse was only in fourth grade, but he wasn't about to stand by and let his cousin get kicked in the ribs one more time.

"Where's your daddy, little Brodie? Not around to help you is he? You know what you are? A bastard!" taunted Jeffrey Harrison, not the biggest but the meanest of the pack. The whole group snickered, chanting "bastard" as they closed in on Brodie.

"Back off, Harrison!" Jesse intervened.

"Well well well. If it isn't Brodie, Sr. Wait, don't tell me. You're his real daddy, aren't you? You screwed your own aunt!" Jeffrey cackled.

This kid had a death wish.

"I said, back OFF, asshole!"

Jesse's mother would've washed his mouth out with soap if she'd heard that.

"Or what? You going to fight me yourself? This is going to be good. We'll just beat the shit out of you and then take your cousin next, Taylor."

"Jesse, don't do it," Brodie pleaded.

"How about this," Jesse countered, ignoring his cousin. "If you can beat me up all by yourself, I'll let the rest of you have Brodie."

Some of the gang whooped with delight, but a few of them looked unsure. Jeffrey hesitated. Brodie looked horrified.

"And if you win?" Jeffrey asked.

"If I win, none of you will ever touch him again," Jesse proclaimed. He knew that Jeffrey was overly confident, and he'd learned early on that cocky sons-of-bitches always had a weakness.

"You're on, jackass," Jeffrey agreed.

Jesse raised an eyebrow, waiting for Jeffrey to step away from the group. All eyes were glued on Jesse. While Jeffrey made his way over, Jesse motioned to Brodie with his eyes to make for the gate. He smirked when he saw Brodie slip through unnoticed.

As soon as Jeffrey put his fists up, Jesse cocked back his right leg and swung with all of his strength at the side of Jeffrey's left knee. Jeffrey buckled immediately, but Jesse didn't leave it there. He shoved Jeffrey's shoulders back to the ground and straddled his chest.

Jeffrey's eyes widened with shock, right before Jesse laid fist after fist right into his nose.

+++               

Jesse woke with a start. His breathing was heavy and his chest was gleaming with sweat like he'd been kickboxing in his sleep. He'd been dreaming of Brodie again.

He grabbed his glass of water off the nightstand and swished some around in his mouth as he made his way to the bathroom. After he spit the contents into the sink, he made eye contact with himself in the mirror.

He reached up to his hairline and touched the small scar. After Jesse had humiliated him in the schoolyard, Jeffrey Harrison had started bringing his father's brass knuckles to school to teach Jesse a lesson.

It didn't matter. That lesson never quite sank in. Jesse chuckled to himself as he remembered all the fights he'd been in over the years. At first, they were for Brodie, but after his cousin had moved, fighting became an outlet for his angry loneliness.

That didn't keep his mother from trying to teach him a thing or two, however. Judy Taylor had immediately signed her son up for boxing lessons as punishment, which obviously backfired. She thought it would do him some good to learn what it really felt like to take a punch, but it only made Jesse more reckless when it came to picking fights.

When Jesse was seventeen, his mother started dating a man named Gordon, and that was when Jesse really learned what it felt like to get the shit beat out of him. He took it for two weeks before he decided to leave home. After that, he was a bit of a nomad, sleeping on various friends' couches but mostly living out of his truck. Six months later, Gordon had taken off, leaving Jesse's mother bruised in more ways than one. She slipped into a deep depression, and Jesse returned home to care for her.

Jesse gripped the edge of his countertop and his nostrils flared as he remembered finding out that Gordon had been beating his mother. Leaving her alone with that asshole had been one of his life's biggest regrets. Jesse had been in his fair share of fights, but he couldn't fathom the insanity that led a person to lay a hand on someone more vulnerable than oneself.

His mother's depression was a phantom that had lived with them off and on ever since his father died when Jesse was six years old. It was a sudden heart attack, and Jesse could still remember the initial shock and subsequent numbness that he'd felt at the unintentional abandonment. He'd been pretty attached to Brodie after that. Jesse felt utterly compelled to protect his cousin from then on because he couldn't afford to lose anyone else. His mother always felt guilty for Jesse's lack of a father figure, and her desperation to provide such a person for her son led her to take on far too many subpar relationships, though Gordon was by far the worst.

Jesse's sweat had cooled, and he shivered, shaking off the Ghost of Losers Past. He turned the shower nozzle all the way to 'H,' filling the room with steam. When his thoughts turned to his own lackluster relationship history, however, he flipped the handle in the opposite direction. There wasn't a lonely moment that a cold shower couldn't fix.

At least, that's what he'd told himself a thousand times.

+++               

She'd just woken up, and her vision was blurry. She could hear hushed voices accompanied by the beeps of a heart monitor. Suddenly, the vision of Brodie sprawled on the top of the SUV that had just struck the back of his truck erupted in her mind. His mouth had been agape with blood trailing down his left cheek, but his eyes had been staring straight at her in a way that defied his state of being. In her heart of hearts, she knew he was dead, and her mind went dark once more.

When she finally woke again, her mother was speaking to her and stroking her hand.

"Laura dear, it's Ma. We're here. Daddy and I are here with you, sweetheart."

Hot tears instantly streamed down Laura's cheeks. "He's gone!" she sobbed.

"We know, princess," her father replied, his own eyes brimming. "We know, and we're so sorry."

"He's really gone," she repeated, willing the reality around her to crush her, to send her back to the comfort of black nothingness.

It would not come.

"Dear, you were badly injured. Your femur was shattered, so you've just been through a complicated surgery. It went well, sweetheart, but you won't be able to walk for quite some time," her mother explained.

Laura looked down at the cast covering her left leg. It was hard for her to distinguish between the pain of losing Brodie and the physical pain.

"There's more, sweetheart. When they drew your blood to prepare for the surgery, they.... Well, they found out that you're pregnant. They checked for a fetal heartbeat and found it going strong. You're six weeks pregnant, honey. Did you know about this?" her mother asked gently.

Laura started laughing. Her parents looked at one another in alarm.

She was crying and laughing so hard, and her heart was not cooperating. Suddenly she couldn't breathe. Nurses rushed into the room, and soon after, she felt the blessed release of dreamland.

I'd love to hear how you all feel about the flashback scenes so far!

I appreciate you :)