Page 41 of Phoenix
Jessie (Niamh), 17
“You need to go in,” Jake eventually disrupts the still air with his tired voice. “People are waiting for you.”
“What about you?” I ask, even though the utter despair in his eyes is enough to make my whole body hurt for him.
“There’s no one for me anymore,” he whispers, almost to himself.
“There must be someone,” I whimper, “please, Jake, I can’t leave you!”
“You have to,” he says as he begins to cry with me. “You have a mom and a dad who have been looking for you for six years, Niamh. I’ll be ok, trust me.”
“But you’re my brother, and I love you,” I cry as I fall into his arms. We stay like that for such a long time, my tears dry against my cheeks and I half wonder if he has fallen asleep.
“It’s time, Niamh,” he says sadly, “it’s time to go home.”
Home feels like such an alien concept right now but, at the end of the day, I know he’s right. We cannot stay in this car forever and I need to face the life that was stolen from me.
“You won’t forget me?” I ask him softly.
“If there’s one thing for sure, Niamh, it’s that we’ll never forget one another,” he says as both a warning and a reassurance. “When the time is right, I’ll be in contact, trust me.”
Eventually, we separate, and I get out of the car. I have imagined this moment from the very day I was taken. The image changed over the years as I grew and lost hope, but I never thought I’d feel like I was missing a limb, a vital piece of my heart. The feeling grows so strong, I have to turn back one last time to see the face I have been living with every day since I was eleven years old. And as I stare at him, he looks back at me as if to say he knows.
“Jake,” I call to him, “thank you.”
“What for?”
“For saving my life,” I tell him honestly, and with one last smile.
“It’s what brothers do,” he says before switching on the ignition and driving away, once and for all.
Will I ever see him again? I hope so.
______
Phoenix, Present
Jess was pretty much wiped out after she had shared her escape with me, so I left her to sleep while I went through to the bar to help out. As you can imagine, the bar is at its busiest on a Saturday, and tonight is no different. It’s all hands on deck, including my cousin’s. I’m grateful for the crowds of people; people are keeping me from looking at him after what Jess told me. Though I am awful at baring any kind of feelings, other than wrath or irritation, I feel something for him that goes beyond our usual back and forth. I always thought he was akin to a puppy dog who meandered through life with a perpetual grin on his face. I thought he managed to skip having responsibilities, given that he never had a sibling and never seemed to have a steady girlfriend. However, I can admit, I was totally wrong about the guy.
“Hey, ese,” Javier says, snapping his fingers in front of my eyes that have managed to ignore the comings and goings.
“Huh?” I reply gormlessly, trying to shake my thoughts away before he manages to realize that I am more than just puddle-deep when it comes to emotions.
“You keep staring at Jake,” he says with a curl of his lips, “how’s he pissed you off this time?”
“He hasn’t,” I huff, collecting up the empties from his table. He’s alone tonight and I wonder if he’s finally let his girlfriend go. She deserves more than he’s willing to give to a woman.
“Then…?” he asks, gesturing his hand around in the air for further explanation.
“I’m going to need to take him on a run with me,” I inform him, “you too, if you wanna?”
“Depends; how interesting is it?”
“It’s worth nothing,” I explain with a shrug, then watch as he screws his face up at me. “Well, not monetary, anyway. To Jess, it could be worth her sleeping better at night. I need to go back to where that asshole kept her and Jake. I need to find out if he ever got up again. If we’re lucky, he’s long dead.”
“How long?” he asks, talking about the length of time we’ll be away from home.
“Couple days, maybe,” I reply. “I’ll have to ask my uncle to look after Jess while I’m gone.”