Cricket: Ember's Story

Risks

That night I dream about Cricket and Jesse. Cricket is older in this dream, about three-years-old. He doesn't look much like the baby I know, but in the dream I have a certain knowing that this little boy is Cricket. And then Jesse. Jesse looks like he's at death's door, shockingly skinny and sick looking, like a stereotypical junkie.

Cricket is trying to hand something to Jesse, but I can't see what it is. No, not hand him something after all. I can see now he's actually trying to hold Jesse's hand. And Jesse ignores it, again and again.

"Can't you even look at him?" I ask Jesse in the dream.

Jesse turns his eyes to me. They are so dope glazed he barely looks conscious. He's never looked so bad or so sick in all the time I've known him.

"It's too late," he tells me.

"It's not too late. He wants you to acknowledge him," I reply.

"I'm already dead."

As he says this blood begins to trickle out of the veins in his arms and run down onto his hands and in between his fingers. I scream and wake myself up, gasping.

West isn't in the bed. He's standing right outside the room. I know that because I hear his voice, but the door is closed. I listen as closely as I can. There's a female voice talking too. I hear her say,

"When can I see you?"

And West says, "I don't know. Not this weekend, okay?"

"You said I could come any time."

"Somethin' came up with one of my friends. I need to be there for them."

I'm the "friend." That's why he slept so far away last night. I didn't think it was possible for me to feel worse, but it is. My wounds had just started to scab over, and now they're bleeding again.

When West comes back in, he sees that I've already put my shoes back on and now I'm searching for my coat in the closet.

"Whoa, where are you going?" he asks.

I glare at him. "Does she know you kissed me?"

West's face changes colors as he realizes what I heard.

"The truth?" he asks.

"Yeah. The truth. That would be real fuckin' nice, West," I say. "Better late than never."

"We went on one date. I tutored her. I tutor to make money on the side. That and smashing metal at a junk yard. It's not easy getting hired with a felony so I've had to get creative with some side jobs."

"You tutor? What?" I ask, realizing how little I know about him.

It's weird. West and I know each other's darkest secrets, but I don't even know the guy's middle name.

"Calculus. Anyway, I didn't think the date went well, but she does. I can't shake her. She has this final coming up, and I said I could help anytime, but that was before-"

"Forget it. I understand," I say softly.

"But you're still putting on your coat."

"I can't stay here with your girlfriend. The bed isn't big enough," I say.

"She is not my girlfriend," West says with a sigh, pressing his fist against the wall next to the closet.

"Stay," he says as I walk past him.

I pause. "Why?"

"Because... 'cause I have a present for you!"