Saving The Bad Boy

Helping A Non-Friend

"What do you mean you can't come out, it's my birthday? Karaoke remember?"

Shit. I had forgot about that.

I laugh nervously flinging off my unprepared lie. "Oh, I was only kidding Gerdie." I look back at Ren who stared back at me, a blank expression on his face. "I'll meet you all there in an hour okay?"

"Yes! Alright, we'll see you then."

I hang up and stand to my feet, grabbing Gerdie's present from the bottom of my closet. "Look, I'll be back." I turn back to him. "You aren't telling me what's going on, maybe you can think while I'm gone." I head for the door and he rushes for it, cringing when the pain in his side explodes.

"I can't let you walk out of that door."

"Why not, Ren?" I exclaim. "What is going on with you? I would be a lot more sympathetic if you would just try and explain things to me." He's silent, leaning against the door. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't walk out that door and I wont."

Ren looks up at me, eyes blazing with intensity. "It's my mom, alright. She's sick." I swallow. "I'm not into all that mumbo-jumbo medical shit, but I know she has it, okay. She's hooked up to all these machines and she hasn't said anything to us in such a long while." His voice cracks. My heart sinks and I'm stepping to him. "The doctors... The doctors say she doesn't have much time and all I can manage to do is damn near get myself killed."

I stay silent and listen intently.

"I have a little brother, he's four and... Aurora, I have no idea what I'm gonna to do without my mother. I really just-..."

I couldn't take anymore. I wrap him in my arms and hold him. He holds me incredibly tight, so tight I know bruises will be there tomorrow. His shoulder shake as he silently cries against me.

"Where's your brother?" I ask him.

"He's at my uncle's. But that son of a bitch knows nothing about my little brother and he won't let me see him. Nicholas is alergic to oranges and peanut butter, he hates frogs but he loves dinosours. He's lactose intolerant but he can't stop eating ice cream." I pull back to look at him and smile softly. "I need him back."

I nod fiercely. "Of course, of course. Let's go and get him."

Ren's uncle lived in a trailer park. The kind of place where old hairy men sit outside in front of their houses wearing nothing but bottoms while the women and children run amuck. Ren's uncles trailer was the furthest down, and to me looked the most shittiest. A beautiful little boy sat on the front porch and I instantly knew it was Nicholas. A cloud of dark curly hair hung in front of adorable sea blue eyes. His skin was youthful with a rosy tint to his cheeks. He was a mini creation of Ren.

When he saw Ren, his eyes brightened in excited and he ran from his spot, jumping into Ren's arms.

"I knew you'd come back for me." The little boy said, burying his face into Ren's in shoulder when he picks him up.

"Always buddy." Ren reassures him. "You ready to go?"

Nicholas nods.

This was just too easy, I thought. But even as I thought it, I knew I had just jinxed the whole thing. The trailer door swings open and a balding round man wearing a stained white-beater and old blue jeans ducks under the frame and smiles a slimy grin at me. He takes
a sip of his cheap beer.

"Well, I didn't know we were having company, Nick-a-lo."

I shiver as the imbecile steps out of his trailer and onto the dirt driveway infront of my car. "Who's this pretty little thing?" He asks, referring to me.