Finding Redemption

by Emilia Finn

  I shrug again. “Kings Courtney.”

  “You crushing on an anime lookin’ chick?” Bobby smirks, his face really close to mine as he concentrates and wipes a line of blood from my chin. “You’re always reading that one.”

  “It’s fun to read.” I pick up the book he’s referring to and I toss it to the floor under the bed. “She kicks his ass in the end. She’s badass.”

  “I got you a new one, by the way.”

  I pull my face back from his so I can look in his eyes. “A new one what?”

  “A book. It’s over there.” Bobby nods toward his desk in the corner of his room, stuffed with school books and loose pieces of paper and pencils. His school bag is sitting haphazardly on top on the pile, sitting at an angle I’m certain a small breeze will topple the whole lot.

  In the corner of his desk, lined up perfectly as though Bobby nervously messed with it till it sat exactly right is a thick book with a purplish jacket.

  “It’s a new one I thought you might like. Garry Potter or some shit. It has dragons and stuff, so I dunno…” Bobby shrugs. “Figured you might like it.”

  Bobby doesn’t have a job. He doesn’t have money. He doesn’t even get an allowance like most the other kids we go to school with.

  “Did you steal it?”

  “Nah.” Bobby leans in to work on my jaw again. “I asked Mom to take me to the book store. She’s always reading.” Bobby rolls his eyes. “She was giddy when I asked to go. She would have bought the whole store if I asked for it.”

  Must be nice.

  “Anyway, I hope you like it. I’ll try and get you another one next month or somethin’.”

  I frown at his kindness. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s okay. Just read them and give me the cliff notes in case Mom asks,” he chuckles. “There’s a second one for that book too. If you like the first, I’ll get the second next time.”

  He’s my best friend. “Thanks, B.”

  “It’s cool, Jon Fart. That’s what brothers are for.”

  I love my brother. “You’re still an asshole.”

  He laughs softly as his breath fans my face and his fingers push my split lip back together. It hurts, but I don’t let on. He’s an asshole, but he’d feel bad for hurting me.

  Four

  Jon

  Lilies In The Dirt

  Thirteen years old.

  Just a regular sunny weekend.

  “Jon!”

  My head pops up and I glance out the tiny window we made in the wall of our fort and I spot Bobby as he sprints through the trees, jumping over the rocks and ducking under low lying branches, his awesome red Jordans flashing in the sunlight.

  He got those shoes this year because he was doing so much better at school. Last year he was kinda slack, getting crappy exam results because he was busy kissing girls instead, but this year he wanted to make his parents proud, so we sat down every day after school and we did our homework together. I do alright in algebra but he was struggling, so I helped him and now that he’s averaging B plus, he got the Jordans as a surprise.

  I get A’s every time, every year, but I have no Jordans.

  I don’t begrudge him though; he’s my best friend. I’m just happy he’s happy. And we wear the same size, so sometimes he lets me wear them.

  Not that I ask often. I don’t want to get used to something I can’t have, plus they’re his. He earned them. He worked hard for the new grades. Mine come to me easily. It’s not the same.

  Alerted by his tone, I throw down my copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban, a birthday gift from Bobby this year and I jump up to search for Iz. I saw her only a minute ago playing in the dirt, but Bobby’s screaming and running has me feeling sick to my stomach.

  Something is wrong. Something real bad.

  “Sissy!” I boom as I step out of the fort, and I find her exactly where I thought she was. She’s already paused in her play as she watches Bobby run. He’s got her spooked too.

  “Jon!” Bobby cries, actually cries, his tears streaming down his dirty face and I sprint toward him. Bobby is… well, he’s Bobby Kincaid. He’s almost fourteen, he’s already kissed a girl, he’s a peacock. He doesn’t cry!

  He crashes into me with a huge thud and knocks the breath out of me, but when his body is heavy against mine like he can’t stand properly, I take his weight for him the way he’s done for me a million times before and I walk his sobbing body toward a couple big rocks half sunk into the ground.

  “It’s my dad…”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Beebee?”

  I turn to Izzy as she cries out his name, standing from her spot and shrinking back as though she was scared. She never cries but seeing Bobby the peacock upset has me nearly crying too.

  “Tell me, B. What happened?”

  “My dad.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He had a car accident.” Bobby’s sobs make his chest jump and flop, his weight almost pushing me over every time he takes a breath. He’s a big guy, the biggest in our grade and he’s heavy. “Mom’s crying.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Bobby shakes his head, slamming the heels of his hands against his eyes like the sun is too bright and it’s hurting them. I don’t know why he does that; I love the sunlight. Bad shit doesn’t usually happen when the sun is out.

  “No.” Bobby hiccups, his painful words like clouds sailing past and blocking the sun. “No. My dad… my dad… he’s not okay.”

  I throw my arm over his shoulder and hug him tight against me. I can feel my own tears falling and I don’t even know why. When Izzy walks up behind our sitting bodies and lays her face against my back, her arms coming around my stomach and her cheek resting between my shoulder blades I almost break down and sob like him. This is bad. “Tell me, B. Please tell me.”

  “My dad.” Bobby chokes on the words. “He’s dead. He died.”

  It’s as bad as it could ever be.

  ~*~

  School was back in, the term was rolling ahead without us, the other kid’s lives carried on as normal, but I stood beside Bobby as we watched Bryan Kincaid, the only man I ever considered a dad, being lowered into the ground. I throw on my strongest armor, my thickest skin, my bravest face and I try not to break down and roll into a ball as the music plays and Mom sobs. As the click-click-click of the ropes move over the pulley and lowers his casket, I swallow down the choking lump that threatens to close my throat completely.

  Someone bought beautiful white lilies to sit on top of his coffin, and even though I know he would laugh at them, he’d think them girly and silly, I also know he’d do anything, accept anything, be anything to make this easier on his family. Especially on Mom. He cherished every hair on her head, every step she took, every smile she gave.

  Bryan and Chantelle Kincaid made me believe true love existed.

  I swallow again and I say my silent goodbyes as the box disappears below ground. Dad was the best man I ever knew. He was the strongest and the bravest, the kindest, the fairest. He bought me my first ever ice cream cone and he made his firstborn son watch me eat it because he was fair and wanted Bobby to grow into a good man. He refused to raise a bully or a jerk, and Bobby learned his lesson that day. Bobby is everything good that his dad was and I hope to be even half that good one day.

  I also remember being relieved when Dad gave Bobby the rest of his own cone, because Bobby learned his lesson, and just like he doesn’t raise assholes, Dad also doesn’t act like an asshole. He’s fair to a fault. And he gave me my best friend.

  Bobby stands beside me with his mom to his right and his hand clasped tightly in her left. Aiden stands on her other side, his arm wrapped around her stomach, his head almost higher than hers even at eleven years old.

  Izzy stands to my left, clutching my hand as tight as her tiny six-year-old body shakes. She’s still so young, and though she might not understand it all, not as much as me and the older guys, not even as m
uch as eight year old Jimmy, but she knows this is bad. This is a bad day.

  This is probably the worst day of my whole life.

  Taking a deep breath as I listen to my best friend cry, I slip my spare hand down to his and I clasp it tight in mine. He looks up to me for a quick second, searching my face and my heart aches at his chocolate eyes soaked in tears, but he looks away again and squeezes my hand in his. He doesn’t take it away right away. He just holds on, hopefully taking back some of the love and strength he’s spoiled me with since we met.

  Bad stuff does happen in the sunlight. My dad died in the sunlight and now I don’t even have that hope anymore. The shadows chase me even in the day now.

  Dad took my sunshine to the grave with him.

  Five

  Jon

  HP’s Finale

  “It’s finally here!” Bobby’s big smiling face and excited voice greets me as I walk into his bedroom with my new Jordans on my feet and my wallet fat with cash.

  “Hey B.”

  Bobby hugs me to his chest, slapping me on the back as he squeezes me tight. “Happy birthday, Jon Fart.”

  “You’re still an asshole.” I laugh at this dumbass, but I hug him back and I take an extra second to hold on.

  “You’re finally twenty-one. I’ve had to wait months for this. I waited for your stupid ass so I could finally go out too.”

  “I didn’t make you wait for me,” I laugh at his words, but inside I knew he would. We do everything together. We started our ink together. We got our licenses together. We bought our first cars at the same time. He’s my brother and waiting six months for me to join him at the legal drinking age would be cake for him. It wouldn’t be fun for him to party without me anyway. And I wouldn’t have gone out either if our birthdays were reversed.

  “You ready to find some pretty girls?” Bobby’s stupid grin makes me smile even when I try to stop it. He spends all his time either fighting at the gym or chasing tail. He might be the only guy in this world I think won’t ever settle down. Well, and me. I’m never marrying anyone either.

  There’s not a single girl on this planet horrible enough to be saddled with my brand of messed up. No one deserves to be tied to an asshole with a chip on his shoulder, an asshole with my past.

  I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy.

  But Bobby is different; he just has far too much fun chasing the girls around, flirting like a big dummy and then moving onto the next. And the girls don’t even seem to mind because he does it so nicely with a big pretty smile as he pats their ass and sends them home.

  No. Just like everything else we’ve done together, Bobby and I might be eternal bachelors side by side.

  I just can’t see any one chick keeping the peacock’s attention for more than five minutes.

  “I got you something,” Bobby says as he steps away from me and walks to his old school desk, still littered with papers and shit, probably the same algebra homework that we dumped there almost a decade ago. He grabs a small rectangle parcel wrapped in navy blue paper with silver stars and I smile as I take it in my hands.

  I already know what it is. He gets me the same gift every year, and on the years there are no new releases, like last year, and two years before that, he buys me something from a different series.

  I rip open the packaging, smiling larger as I spy the seventh and final Harry Potter book.

  Bobby punches my arm, verging on shy even as he tries to hide it. “I waited in line for that fucker last month.”

  I flip the book over and feel a stupid giddiness fill my chest as I scan the blurb. My adult best friend, gave his adult best friend a kids book for a twenty first birthday; and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been waiting two years for this and although I’d been tempted to buy it myself since it was released weeks ago, I knew my best friend would continue tradition and he would buy it for me.

  Ever since that first time with the very first book in the series, every year since for my birthday Bobby has added the next installment to my collection.

  I never had to steal a book again after that first year because just like promised, he asked his mom to take him back to the store the next month and he bought me The Chamber of Secrets, then the next month after that he came back with the first Lord of the Rings book. Then the month after that he asked her again and he came back with yet another book, yet another series.

  When I asked him after the sixth consecutive month of this why he kept bringing me books, he said it was because his folks bought him Jordans as a reward for good grades. So he got me books because he knew I liked them. And also because in all his twelve year old wisdom, he was afraid my thieving ass would get caught and I’d go to prison. He didn’t want to lose his best friend.

  I never argued even though I knew I wouldn’t get caught, because it made me so happy that there was someone in this world who knew my birthday and cared enough to get me something.

  I have walls full of novels now, but my Harry Potter collection sits front and center on the shelf where I see them every single day. They make me smile, especially on the bleak days when life gets me down and there’s nothing else to smile about.

  “Thank you, B.”

  “You don’t have it yet, do you?”

  “Nah, I’m still finishing up the last one.” Lie. I finished The Half Blood Prince the same day he gave it to me two years ago. Swallowing away my girly emotion, I use my book holding hand and bring it down softly on Bobby’s shoulder in a quick tap-tap. “I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s cool. You ready to go out?”

  I smile and nod. “Yeah, let’s go dance with some pretty girls.”

  We both turn as Aiden and Jimmy let themselves into Bobby’s room, and I throw down the half wrapped book onto the desk again, camouflaged in the crap littered all over it, then I smile when Jimmy grabs me tight and slaps me on the back.

  “Happy Birthday, Jon.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy. Only another…” I count the years in my head. “Five years before you can come out with us too.” I’m gloating, smug that I’m finally old enough and his sixteen year old ass has a long way to go.

  “Yeah,” he nods, stepping away from me as Aiden steps in for a hug too. “Too bad, really wish I could go,” he mumbles noncommittally. “Izzy at your place?”

  I shake my head. “Nah, she told me she was hanging at the fort for a bit, but she’ll be home later.”

  “That’s cool.” He shrugs casually.

  “Anyway,” Bobby nods at his brothers then at the door at their backs. “You two can get lost. We’re on our way out.”

  “Where’re you goin’?” Aiden asks as he crosses his thick forearms across his chest and leans on the closed door.

  “Rhino’s,” Bobby answers him. “I heard it’s a shitty place, but we don’t have a lot of choices around here, and we aren’t driving into the city. I intend to get drunk and I wanna be within stumbling distance to my bed.”

  “They should start a new club around town. Something better, newer.”

  “Maybe we should start our own club,” Jim suggests excitedly and I roll my eyes.

  “Are you not busy enough already?” I ask him, referring to school plus our gym that is starting to explode in popularity. It was once just us smashing each other in the Kincaid garage. Then someone told someone who told someone else and now everyone and their dog wants to be the next GSP.

  At first we just let anyone come along and do their thing, but when you’ve got guys smashing the same bags all day every day, shit starts breaking. So then we decided to charge a door entry fee. Now we have money… and I have brand new shoes on my feet for the first time in my life.

  Our next step is earning enough money that we can get our own physical gym. Mom’s garage isn’t gonna work forever. But we have a plan. We always have a plan.

  “Rhino’s will do for now,” Bobby shrugs as he grabs his wallet and keys. “And when I become world champion, we’ll get the rest.”

  “Wo
rld champion,” Jim scoffs arrogantly. “You’re just a whiny bitch, you’ll never be champion. I’ll be offered a shot before you.”

  Bobby jumps forward and digs his fist into Jim’s ribs as me and Aiden jump back and laugh at their stupid asses. If it weren’t for weight divisions, both these idiots would probably be offered the same title fight, and I’d happily pay just so we can watch them beat on each other.

  Maybe Jimmy will grow into his clown feet one day, then we really will get to see these brothers pound on each other for money.

  “Don’t mess with the big dog,” Bobby warns Jim, laughing as Jim wheezes through his own laughter.

  “Yeah.” I nod, stepping forward and pulling Jim away from the door so we can leave. “Don’t upset the peacock, Jim. He’ll start crying and flashing his pretty feathers everywhere.”

  Six

  Jon

  Bobby, Meet Your Match

  June 2014

  I nurse my beer, glad to be out for the night with my brothers, even if they’ve all ditched me for girls. It’s kinda what we do anyway.

  Today was a shitty day; Wayne and Shirley turned up on my doorstep looking to make trouble for me. They tend to turn up every second month or so. I suspect they’d try more often if they weren’t so afraid of me.

  They wanted more cash, they said they’d leave us alone for a while if I gave them a few dollars to get them through. Code: To buy their booze. When I told them to get the fuck off my front step and to never come back, again, they threatened to make trouble for Iz, again. She’s an adult now, nineteen and fairly independent, but I’ll always protect her. Even from her own parents. Especially from them.

  I didn’t give them any cash, I stood by my word and I watched them walk their asses off my property, but they’ll be back. Like cockroaches, they always come back. Especially in the dark.