There are themes of abortion and anger management. Thus the rating of PG-13

Homecoming

Six a.m day after Christmas

I throw some clothes on in the dark

The smell of cold

Car seat is freezing

The world is sleeping and I am

Numb.

In the dark, he groped for his keys on his cluttered desk and grabbed his leather jacket from the over utilized clothes rack just next to his door. Cursing silently, he sent the Spiderman figurine which was left forgotten on the floor skidding across his room with just one kick. Served Spidey right for jabbing his toe.

Quietly, he tiptoed passed his brother's door, knowing his brother's sleep was as light as a feather drifting in a helium atmosphere. It was so cold that January and it seemed like the snow won't be thawing for a very long time, at least not for him. His parents were sleeping soundly in the master bedroom at the end of the hallway, oblivious to his intentions.

Only he alone was awake. The quietness was threatening to burst his eardrums. Insects went into hibernation under a blanket of mocking stars. The indifferent, yawning moon lazily tolerated its watch over this part of the world, raising no alarm to his movements. He left the house, opened up the front gates and stepped inside the black van. The heater was acting up and he shivered against the wintry air biting at his nose and fingertips.

The van rolled out of the compound after a waiting spell because the driver was grappling with indecision for a prolonged moment. He drove slowly because some street lights were not working and the roads were slippery- almost treacherous. His heart pounded so hard against his chest and he could hear his damning thoughts screaming in the hollow chamber of his mind, reverberating off the walls with increasing momentum.

His lips trembled but not from the outwardly cold. It was more than he could bear- the worst decision of his life. Worst.

Up the stairs to her apartment

She is balled up on the couch

Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte

They're not home to find us out.

Her house which was renovated from an old farm was only about half an hour's drive from his. However, the journey was exceptionally long at that ghastly time and for a moment, he felt like he had been driving forever. Still under the cloak of the night, he pulled up outside her gates, climbed his way into their driveway and unlatched the side gate from the inside for later. With heavy footfalls made more burdened by his perfidious emotions which intensified when he really wanted them to be numbed like his fingertips, he made his way to the wooden door of her mother's home office which used to be a barn and separated from the main house.

Using the key she had given him, he unlocked the door and pushed it open to find her huddling up against the wall in a corner, bathed under the dimmed lighting which illuminated her fragile, shaking beauty. The computer was switched on- a digitalized caricature of him surfed across the concave screen, staring blankly at nothing with bloodshot eyes. Dark circles under her dulled grey orbs were mirrored from those under his eyes and her pale cheeks were mutely shining with sticky tears. Wordlessly, he embraced her with as much tenderness as he could muster and she nodded, indicating that she was ready. They left the barn for his van with his arm draped across her quavering shoulders the entire time.

It was turning into a blustery winter night when they made their way to Porter's Bay, a smaller town just next to their city, Bayport. The clinic in Porter's Bay was opened twenty four hours a day.

And we drive

Now that I have found someone

I'm feeling more alone

Than I ever have before

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly.

He knew he would always remember the cold, detached clinic. He would always be able to picture the nurse behind the registration counter with her beak nose and impassive eyes, listlessly reiterating the different fields of the forms they have to fill. Probably the hardened woman used to be able to feel a heady confusion of emotions for those desperate teenagers like them but as years passed, so they too were numbed.

They were the first couple there and he would admit he was surprised to find it empty. She held on to his arm the whole time, trembling with the enormity of what she was about to do, no, what they were about to do. With his free hand, being rather ambidextrous, he filled up the forms, led her to a seat, and went over to the vending machine for a cup of hot chocolate for her. When he returned, she refused to take even a sip and he did not pressure her. On a rack drilled high up on the wall supported a television showing flashing horrific images of the deed. He was transfixed with a sense of morbidity and so was she. She gripped his arm tighter still, her knuckles bleeding white. Absentmindedly, he patted her hand, while he was already drowning in his own guilt.

He wanted to tell her that they could not do this- they never should. It ran contrary to all that he fought for though he wondered if he was still worthy of his morals and beliefs.

They called her name at seven-thirty

I pace around the parking lot

Then I walk down to buy her flowers

And sell some gifts that I got

Can't you see?

It's not me you're dying for

Now she's feeling more alone

Than she ever has before

She was called into the doctor's office for the mandatory counseling the clinic made compulsory. He had no idea about the exact chronicle of procedures but most likely, it would all end up in the same conclusion. Should he barge in and stop her? Stop them? But she said it was her body.

Yes. It was her body. It was their mistake. But it was not their life. Who were they to make the decision for another who had never harmed them in anyway? They were nobody. He felt selfish for wanting to extricate himself out of this mess via the operating theater. He felt selfish laying a death sentence on someone created partly out of him.

And he was feeling very guilty- with each tick of the clock, the guilt grew heavier.

There was a florist just next to the clinic. He went in and bought her a bunch of white lilies. White lilies too symbolized death. He was now baffled about whom he was buying the flowers for. Anger took the place of helplessness and frustration. He stormed the lilies into the dirty snow and kicked the side of his van repeatedly.

It was not too late.

He dashed into the clinic, ignoring the nurse's frown at the squeaks caused by rubber soles skidding across tiled ground. The sun was rising behind him and she was trying to stop him with yells but he was too fast. Before he could intrude into the doctor's office though, the door opened and there she was at the entrance with wet eyes glimmering sadness.

"No… don't do this…" He gripped her hands tightly. Another nurse appeared from nowhere with a dark green gown for her. "It's our mistake but let's not make it pay… Ness… please… I beg you… please…"

She burst into tears and he drew her close to him, crying along with her. The nurse with the gown exchanged glances with the doctor behind his girlfriend before shrugging as she turned away. They would not need her assistance, she must have gathered. If he had bionic ears, he might hear her heart sighing with relief.

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

The van made its way in muted daylight back to Bayport. Again in silence he drove. She stared blankly out of her side of the window, thinking of the uncertain future probably. He had to be strong for the both of them now though he was scared to death. But he knew they made the right decision. He knew they did.

As the weeks went by

It showed that she was not fine

They told me, "Son, it's time to tell the truth."

She broke down, and I broke down

Cause I was tired of lying

And so they tried to hide it until they were ready. She wore looser clothes while he took on more part-time jobs. His brother was getting worried, thinking he was saving up for a new car or college and tried to talk to him but he was atypically reticent. He was exhausted at the end of the day, his grades were tumbling, and he was alienating friends and family. She quarreled with him often; but he was not without blame for, owing to exhaustion unrelieved by sleep, he held a chest load of anger at everybody and most of all, at himself. He was furious that he could not provide for her, that she had to hide her tummy with those baggy t-shirts of his. She had started a trend in school, that of girlfriends sauntering to-and-fro the hallways of the campus in their boyfriend's clothes, but instead of having her head held up high, she kept hers low, stressed by the lack of support they were too afraid to seek.

However, despite the strain of their frequent tiffs, they always made up. She grew more attached to the baby and the most beautiful moments they had, the moments when love dictated their actions, was when she lay on his taut stomach as they tried to think of names for their baby which, they knew by then, was a girl.

He drew strength from the love he had already for his unborn child. He hoped, with all his heart, that she would be as lovely as her mother but with a head of light golden hair.

Finally, her stomach was starting to show blatantly but he hadn't earned enough. One night, when he returned home from the petrol kiosk, she was in the living room with her mother. His parents were there and so was his concerned brother.

She was trembling badly and so was he. Their parents had the most strenuous discussion but he could not remember the exact words that had exchanged. Her mother blamed him and told them that she was transferred to another school in another state far away from him. When she had given birth, the baby would be adopted by her childless cousin and her husband. She would go to college in England and start anew. He kept silent, trying to make eye contact with her. She kept silent, keeping her eyes trained on the table. His brother kept silent, feeling uncomfortable and worried for him. Only his parents and her mother were talking. His parents kept apologizing for him. That much he remembered.

Driving home to her apartment

For a moment we're alone

Yeah she's alone

I'm alone

Now I know it

When the guests left, his parents dragged him into the kitchen. His father's angry eyes, bubbling with silent temper, stabbed daggers into his palpitating heart. His mother ranted at him and as tension rose, terrible words of rage were hurled like hailing curses. He remembered shouting back at them and making his mother cry with so much unspeakable wrath. His father then slapped him hard- his father never slapped him before. The loud crack of a punishing palm against unmarked cheek echoed throughout the house.

He turned and ran away before the brimming tears could fall. As he dashed up the stairs to his room, his father hollered furiously at him to apologize to his mother. His brother tried to halt his escape by grabbing his hand but the grip was weak and he shook it away easily.

He leaned against the door he had slammed shut and breathed heavily. Spidey, which he almost tripped over on his way to her house that terrible night, was still where he kicked it. His room was messier because he had no time to clean it up. He stared at his collection of Star Wars, GI Joe and Marvel Heroes figurines on the shelves above his bed and his treasured set of comic books and sports magazines collecting dust in his bookshelf. For the life of him, he could not remember anything beyond that trip to the clinic. His mother was still shouting at him from the outside to face the music and his brother was speaking calmly to reason with her. Wasn't he facing the consequences the right way he knew he should? Weakened knees crumbled under him and he sobbed silently. He was doing his best.

Boys cry. Men don't. He blinked away the tears and wiped at his nose with a sleeve. As time passed, so the voices ghosted away. The lights went out. Tomorrow would be another day.

She called him in the middle of the night. She did not want to give their baby up for adoption. They had decided to keep it out of love and responsibility. She kept crying and his thoughts kept swirling around him, strangling him. After he put down the phone with whispered words of love, he pulled out his haversack from the top shelf of his wardrobe. It was seasoned from frequent trips of backpacking which he had excitedly gone on with his friends ever since he was barely fifteen. That was two-years ago- that was an eternity away.

His brother opened the door on the side of his room of their adjoined bathroom to see him stuffing clothes hurriedly into the hardy backpack. There was no judgment in those enigmatic deep brown eyes which he could always borrowed strength and hope from. Whatever clothes he packed into the bag, his brother pulled out.

"Don't do this, Frank. I made up my mind."

"Where are you going to? How are you going to provide for your family? There's high school you've yet to finish and college to start…"

"So the tracks derailed but it just means that I'm heading off to a new destination- the best one given the situation…" his voice withered off and he bit down on his lower lips. "Her name's Hallie."

His brother grew quiet and it seemed like time had ceased ticking. Finally, he nodded. "Let me guess, Vegas?"

"Yah. I was thinking of that. I don't know. We aren't even eighteen yet."

"Talk to mom and dad again... they are angry but it doesn't mean they will be angry forever… most likely, they are angry at themselves… not you…"

"Angry at themselves?" He sputtered mockingly. "They don't have to give themselves credit for what I did. Didn't you hear what they said? Didn't you hear what Andrea said? Mom's all ready to disown me in the kitchen and dad… dad is always so afraid I'll screw up my life now he thinks I did! In his eyes I did but I'm trying to make amends! Frank…" His voice took a desperate plea.

"I've made up my mind… I love her. She loves me. We have a lovely girl called Hallie on the way to greet the world. We are going to be fine. We cannot lose Hallie…"

His brother sighed in capitulation, knowing how stubborn he was. Slowly, the leanly muscled brown-haired young man got up and helped him pack. In the darkness again, almost like a replication of that fateful night, his brother drove him to her house but they stopped by Downtown Square on the way. He wondered what his brother was planning but before thoughts could turn into paranoia, Frank returned, shut the van's door tightly and passed him a wad of cash.

"You'll need this; don't reject it for I'll only toss it into the dustbin. There are bills to pay, diapers, rent, food, doctor's fees, milk powder…" Frank's voice droned on but he could hear the concern and heartbreaking farewell behind the monotonous speech.

He burst into tears, hiding his vulnerability behind frozen palms. The knowledge that he was really a child still came crashing down on him- how matured could he be? He had tried to squeeze Spidey into his bursting backpack and in the end, after grueling, futile efforts, shoved it into the roomy side pocket of his cargo pants instead.

But he never regretted his decision. Yes, there were much to pay but his heart was at peace. He did the right thing.

"Don't be gone too long… mom and dad will forgive you soon enough if they hadn't done so already. I don't know if you're doing the right thing by running away now but you know I'll always be here when you need me. Take care of yourself kiddo… no… you're not a kid anymore… you must grow up now and…" Frank's rambles died away into a choking cough. Joe did not know how to response through all the saline tears that was now streaming down his cheeks openly.

Frank breathed in deeply before he lifted the wooden cross he wore around his neck always off his head. Facing him, his brother put it around his neck.

"Take care of yourself. I'll see you soon, brother. And…" Frank reached inside his breast pocket and took out a neatly folded piece of paper. "Printed this out before we left. It's a map that will take you to Vegas via the most direct route. Remember, the Internet has plenty of resources for things like that. Ask people too if you get lost. Don't let your pride unwittingly bring you to Nebraska." Frank patted his shoulders and tried to smile but failed. He pulled Joe into a fierce embrace and Joe knew it was going to be a long time before he would hear Frank nag at him again. He already missed his brother very much.

"Here, brat… we're going to be late." Frank thumped his back reassuringly. "Have to make a move now. She's waiting for you."

He pulled away and smiled grimly. "Yah. Vegas."

"Vegas." Frank chuckled lowly before choking back on his silent tears. "Write, call, email… the storm will pass. Come home soon… I want to drive this van again."

"I will." Joe promised, carving the words into his heart. He felt Spidey against his thigh and then, with a resolved sigh, took it out from his pocket and handed it to Frank. "Keep it for me. I will come back for it."

"You better." Frank took it and ruffled his blond hair. "You better."

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly...

Lyrics from Brick in the album Whatever and ever, amen, Ben Folds Five