Street Racer

13

Corbyn was just now waking up when his boy walked into the room. He smiled up at Jonah. Jonah smiled back and sat in the chair next to his bed.

"Uhm...Jack told me...about Dani," Jonah started as he looked at the blanket. Corbyn nodded and Jonah saw the movement from the corner of his eye.

"I see..." Corbyn trailed off as he looked out the window.

"I don't see you any differently." Jonah looked up at Corbyn and the older sheughed.

"The one you should be telling that too is Daniel himself." Corbyn turned back and their eyes locked. They held the other's gazes for a long minute.

"I love you," Corbyn said, breaking the long silence. Jonah smiled and grabbed his hand.

"I love you too."

~

Jonah opened the door to the house and walked inside. He saw Daniel sitting on the couch, staring at something.

"Jack told you, didn't he? Or was it Corbyn?" Daniel asked Jonah as he got closer to the couch.

"Yeah.."

"It was the worst day of my life." Daniel kept staring at the black screen of his phone. "Corbyn and I had just gotten on good terms then a dumbass sent me those photos. That dumbass was my friend, at least until then. I turned him in and his entire crew went down. They're all rotting in jail right now, but that didn't seem to be enough to Jack and Corbyn. I never knew that that was what he had been doing." Daniel sniffled then wiped his eyes.

Jonah stood next to the back of the couch. Daniel stood and threw his phone against the wall so it shattered and fell to the ground in a lump. Jonah jumped and looked at Daniel with wide eyes.

He looked back at Jonah.

"I love you, Jonah. I really do. You mean so much to me and you are my entire world," Daniel said, walking to the bedroom. Jonah followed close behind and stopped in his tracks when he spotted the bags.

"Daniel..." Jonah started up at his older brother with tears welling in his eyes.

"But I can't do it anymore. I have to go. I'm moving away and fixing myself. I'm making myself better for not only you, but myself too. And maybe even Corbyn and Jack. I love you, baby brother." Daniel pulled Jonah into a hug as tears ran down his face and he kissed his hair.

Daniel then pulled away and started towards the door.

"Dani! Please! I can't lose you too!" Jonah yelled and ran after him, tears streaking his pink cheeks. Daniel just shook his head and didn't look back because he knew if he did, he'd fall back into the rut - the one he needed to get out of.

"Goodbye, Jonah. I'll see you in the future." As soon as the door shut, Jonah's knees shook and faltered beneath his weight. His crutches fell next to him. He hit the floor with a hard thud and screamed into the hardwood.

Tears created a puddle around him, but Jonah couldn't care. He just laid with his tears and screams.

Nobody would hear them anyway.

~

Jonah woke the next morning with pain all over his body and he sniffled. He pulled himself into a sitting position.

He looked around the empty house as he relived the night before. He wanted Daniel to run through the door and said he made a mistake, but he sat there for an hour staring at the door.

Nothing.

And Jonah would get nothing from Daniel for the next five years.

~

Daniel sat in his car as he drove across the expanse of long dark asphalt.

He shouldn't have left the way he did, but there was not turning back now. This is what he needed, what everyone needed from him.

He was going to go to where he could really sit down and take a look at his life. There was no better place than in the mountains.

He would sit there and just...reshape himself. He needed a new release for his anger other than street racing. If he had to take a break from everyone to achieve that then that's what he is going to do.

Daniel gripped the steering wheel of his amped up car.

And the first place to start would be his car. He would sell it, save up money for a nice little house in the mountains somewhere.

He was going to change and the hard way was how it was going to be.