No More

Chapter 78: Clockwork Part 3

"Then what do I do now?" Asked Jesse, his eyes full of sadness despite closing his right eye to hide the runes inside. He laced his fingers together. Thinking.

"We do the right thing." Petra said confidently. "We stick together and help each other."

"...My moms would have the answers," Jesse mentioned, silently rejecting Petra's advice. "They always did."

"Why so talkative of you parents?" Questioned Petra. "You rarely talk about them."

Jesse didn't say anything for a few moments, still not looking at Petra, until he finally whispered, "...Back at that village a month ago, when I was fighting the cloaked man, and lost, I passed out. I was dreaming of a time when things were simpler."

Jesse continued. "I keep having the same dream, my regrets when my parents were still alive."

"You, of all people, having regrets?" Asked a disbelief Petra. "You're like the definition of a well-behaved child."

"I know, hard to believe." Jesse managed to smile from his bad joke. "I stayed out of trouble, but I wasn't perfect. I have regrets, Petra, and I was too scared back then to apologize."

"...Do you want to talk about it?" Hesitantly asked Petra, moving her hand to pat her friend on the back. "I'm here for you Jesse, just like you have been for all of us. You don't have to hold in your emotions." 'Don't be like your sister.' Thought Petra.

Jesse didn't say anything, only to rearrange where he sat on the bed so he faced away from Petra. Staring at the cold wall as he is still unsure.

"...When I was younger, when my stepmom was dying, she gave my sister a heart-shaped pendent. I didn't get anything."

Petra nodded. Jesse cares about his parents, but his sister could care even more.

"But when I saw that... I felt jealously." He admitted shamefully. "I was envious of my sister. I wanted something too, and threw a stupid tantrum like the idiot I was. So, after my tantrum, my stepmother gave me her pocket watch."

"When I finally got that watch, I didn't feel accomplished. I felt ashamed." He continued. "I yelled and acted like a brat towards my stepmom, my dying stepmom who loved me like her own child, just because my sister got something and I didn't."

"It must have been a good pocket watch." Petra commented.

"It is." Jesse agreed. "Before my stepmom got sick, I would always play with it while she watched me as I did. I was really clingy, I never let Jess go near it, and I would always get in trouble for purposely never letting her near it."

Guess everyone bullied Jess somewhere in his, or her, lives, even her own brother.

Jesse continued. "...It's a black pocket watch that had five white eyes on the lid, with smooth markings on the side." He explained, using hand gestures before he formed a small smile from a memory. "My stepmom would place it on a shelf; make the eyes face Jess and me, saying she's watching us."

"You had to rotate the lid in specific directions to open it," Jesse gestured with his hands again, as if holding an invisible replica of that pocket watch. "You had to listen for the right sounds to confirm that you did it right, and when you did there would be this music that would play."

"A pocket watch did that?" Asked an amazed Petra.

"It did so much more." Sighed Jesse. "If you moved the hands of the watch in a specific order, three-dimensional balls of light would float out of it like bubbles."

"What happened to the watch?" Asked Petra. If Jesse cared about it that much, then why doesn't he have it on him now?

"I got rid of it." Jesse dismissed with his hand, shaking his head. "When my stepmom passed away, I placed the watch she gave me back in her dead hands before they closed the lid of her coffin."