Second Chance

Second Chance [Nine]

“Ready to order?” the young girl that had seated us asked.

“Yeah, I would like to have blueberry pancakes and she will like to have chocolate chip pancakes.” Henry answered for me. The waitress looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Anything to drink?” she asked shifting her eyes from Henry to me.

“Two hot chocolates,” Henry smiled up at her.

“Would that be all?” The waitress asked amused.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Okay, I will be back soon with your order.”

“Alright, cool” she smiled at us before walking away.

“So I like chocolate chip pancakes?” I asked curiously as I stared off at the waitress.

“Nope” my brother grinned.

“Then why did you order that for me?” I asked turning to look at him confused.

“Because you don’t just like them, you LOVE them,” Henry smirked at me.

“Idiot, you should have just said that.” I glared at him.

“But that wouldn’t be fun”

“Ass,” I whispered as the waitress came back with our drinks. She placed them in front of us, gave us a smile then left. 

“Shit” cursed Henry as he leaned over and grad my drink. I looked at him confused.

“What is it?” I asked

“Your lactose” he said as he took off the top layer which had a white puffy cream.

“What does that mean?” I was starting to get worried. I don’t remember the doctor mentioning anything about being lactose. 

“It means you can’t have any dairy products, nothing that comes from a cow.” he answered as he placed the drink back with the top layer gone.

“And that has dairy in it?” I asked pointing at the cream while he was eating it. 

“Yep.” 

“What would happen if I did eat something that contained dairy?”

“Well from what you have told me and the times I have seen you when you did eat something that had dairy in it, it looked painful. Your always in the fetal position. There seemed like strong stomach pains and you would get gassy too. You would complain cause it would hurt when you try to pass gas,” Henry chuckled as I stared at him mortified.

“That sounds bad..” I whispered.

“Yeah it does.”

“Anyways, tell me more about our family…” I asked him as our meal was served.

Henry told me about our father and how he passed away when we were young. He didn’t go into any detail about him, which made me even more curious. He mentioned our mother, while talking about her he had a sad expression. He then explained how she passed away two years ago from breast cancer. He brought up our younger brother Lanny. His voice cracked when was talking about Lanny’s death, for reason he looked guilty though as his story goes it seem to be Michaels fault. Henry then mentioned our youngest brother, Adriane. He mentioned our step-father , Michael. He seemed disgusted when talking about him. He said that Michael use to beat us when ever he wished when we were small, he still hit me from time to time.

“When Michael would hit me, why didn’t you stopped him?” I asked as a desperate feeling began to run through me. 

“Because I wasn’t around when he would beat you most of the time.” he said as he just played with his food.

“And the rest of the time?” I whispered looking down at my plate of food.

“Look Dawn, I was a dumb-ass, heartless jerk. When you disappeared and I thought I had lost the last of my family, I changed. I regret everything I did to you and what I didn’t do for you, for not being there for you when you needed me. I’m sorry.” I saw his eyes get watery and a tear sliding down his cheek. “When I heard you were alive and somewhat well, I stopped drinking and smoking. I even stopped hanging out with the group of friends I had. I want things to be different from now on, I want to be your big brother again. I wish you could believe me.”  There was so much hurt and pain in his eyes as he looked at me. 

“I believe you.” I said as I reached for his hand and squeezed it. I smiled at him.“Was that the reason why you don’t want me to remember?” He looked at me shocked and confused.

“Ho-How do you know that?”

“In the car, when you said that I was going to remember things soon you sounded sad..” I said as I got a hold of my fork.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that if you remember maybe you would hate me for the things that went on. For all the bad things I did to you.” I nodded . We finished the rest of our meal in silence. 

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“I promise you, Dawn that I would do my best in being a real brother to you,” Henry said trying to reassure me.

“That is the tenth time you say that. I believe you, okay. But I think your trying to reassure yourself more than me” I looked at up at him as he kept driving us home.

“Maybe I am.” he whispered. “I just don’t want to lose you. Dawn, you’re the only family I have left and losing you is something I won’t be able to handle, I was ready to take away my own life. I felt lonely during the time you were gone,” he said as a lump in the throat began to form. When Henry turned to me I saw a tear roll down his cheek. I leaned over and hugged him. “Okay Dawn we are going to have to let go, the light just turned green.” I laughed and sat back on my seat.

“Is Michael going to be home?” I asked nervously.

“No he isn’t. He is working right now.” he paused as he turned into a drive way. “What do you say of getting out of this place and moving in with me?”

“What?!” 

“Yeah, the people that found you offered me money and asked me to get you out of this house. They offered us to move into an apartment that isn’t too far from school.”

“They did that?” I whispered shocked.

“I was surprised, too. They seem to really care about you.” he smiled at me. “Or the kid likes you,” he smirked. 

“Shut up,” I said as I got out of the car. 

“So what do you say?”

“Yes, I do want to move in with you. What about Adriane?”

“It is just like you to care about everyone else, but yourself,” he whispered. “He will be okay. Michael has never laid a hand on him.”

“And what if when we are gone he starts hitting him?” I was worried about our youngest brother. I didn’t want him to grow up the way we did, though I had a feeling like there was something else that Michael did to me while living with him. 

Don’t think too hard, you don’t want to know some of the things that went out, the voice spoke as I tried to think about Michael.

Why wouldn’t I want to know? I asked, but didn’t get any kind of response.

“When you were gone Mike hired a nanny to take care of Adriane. I will be in contact with her so she can tell me if anything goes on.” Henry said as he pulled out his keys.

“That makes me feel a little better.” I sighed as we stepped into the house.