Quarantine Bae

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Saint's POV

I stare down at Saint Copper Jr. with a face full of concern. We call him Squeak for short because we had him he came out squeaking instead of crying. Back then me and his mother Diana were in a relationship. That, of course, was until Diana cheated on me and things went south. Now his mother was sick and Squeak knew something was wrong. He was just a kid but kids were smart these days. I could tell he had an inkling that it was bad.

"I know this must be a scary time for you. If there's anything I can do to make this easier..."

He won't say a word. Not a single sound. He's been like this for days since I went across the country to get him to bring him back to Sunnyside. I can tell he's having a hard time and the truth is I wanted to just lighten him up a little bit.

"Do you wanna watch tv?" I ask, "Maybe play a board game with me?"

He doesn't respond. He doesn't even lookup. Having a kid that you didn't raise was hard. His mother took off across the country before I was able to stop her after we broke up chasing some guy. It was the worst situation. And now I had my son struggling to realize that I'm his father.

That's when I remember the boy on the elevator. Jared. I quickly go into my bag and pull out the game that he bought. All the stores were closed so I had to go to some black market hole in the wall to get the game for three times its price.

Please God let this work.

"I heard from a friend you may like Paw Patrol..." I say.

That's when he lets out the slightest bit of a smile from one side of his face to the other. It's slight. Something that shouldn't mean anything at all but when he runs over and grabs the game I feel this relief.

He doesn't thank me. He immediately goes to his room and starts playing with it. But that's all I need. That's all that matters.

Just then a key starts turning in my door. There was only one person who had a key to my apartment and that person was Soul.

Soul rushes in the house, falling over the island out of breath and sweating looking like he's just gone through World War III yelling a loud heavy, "FUCK!"

"Yo watch your mouth. Your nephew is in the other room..."

Soul sighs heavily, "Sorry man. You don't know what the hell I just been through. Remember that rally I was telling you about?"

"The dumb one I told you not to go to?"

"All hell broke loose. They started shooting out there. Fights broke out. People were getting trampled."

Shit. I get silent all of a sudden feeling bad for having him respond this sort of way. I'd been watching the news. Civil unrest was everywhere. People were afraid. They thought they would get this disease. They thought they would lose their rates. Every day the death rates were spiking. Every day new records were being broken.

Things were getting so bad.

"Are you OK?" I ask him.

"I'm fine, you know I'm a tough mothafucka," he states with this heavy look on his face, "Ain't shit getting me down."

That was the thing about Saint. He always thought he was invincible. Ever since we were kids when he would do crazy dares. To this day I don't know anyone who has had more stitches then him. He always pushed it. Always. It didn't get better as we grew older. The risk just increased. Even now instead of getting a job, he'd decided to go into the business of selling weed, pills, and shit like that. He'd been to jail twice but that hasn't stopped him. And I was the responsible one always trying to make sure that my brother didn't get into too much trouble. I was always the one trying to make sure that he didn't end up in some deep shit.