Jake Undone (14 page)

“What…what the hell is going on, Nina?”

I covered my face to hide the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

Jake had been at the desk but moved over to where I was sitting on the bed and turned to me. “Nina?”

I wiped my eyes and looked over at him. “It’s my brother. Those dice…for some reason, they triggered

a memory for me. My brother and I used to play the game Yahtzee to pass the time, while he—”

“What?” He blinked in confusion.

“It was one of the few things we were able to do together…before he died.”

Jake looked at me silently, his eyes blinking rapidly in an attempt to absorb the bombshell I had just

dropped.

“Nina…God…I am so sorry. This is the brother in that picture in Ryan’s room?”

I nodded and sniffled. “Yeah. Jimmy was my only brother, my only sibling.”

“What happened?”

“He had leukemia.”

He looked down at the floor and sighed. “I had no idea. You never said anything. I just assumed—”

“I know. Ryan and I don’t really talk about him anymore. It’s just too painful sometimes for both of us.

It surprised me that Ryan even had that picture displayed, because I know he gets really broken up over it.”

He closed his eyes briefly looking off to side then back at me again. I had stopped crying but was still

shaken by the memories of my brother’s last days. Those were images I tried hard to fight on a daily basis,

and two little dice managed to completely unravel everything I worked so hard to bury.

Jake startled me when he put his hand on my knee. “Why don’t you want to think about him?”

It was hard to admit the true reason that it was so difficult to think about Jimmy, and I never talked

about it. Never. But I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell Jake because I trusted him, and he had always

made me feel like he wouldn’t judge me for my faults.

He kept his hand on my knee, and I used the dragon tattoo on his forearm as a focal point to gather my

thoughts. “Toward the very end of my brother’s life, I couldn’t bear to watch him waste away. It was just

too painful. He was only a year and a half older than me. We were so close. He was nineteen when he died.

I was a senior in high school.”

When I started to tear up again, he squeezed my leg harder and said, “It’s okay. Take your time.”

I moved my gaze from the dragon back up to Jake’s eyes and could see my own reflection in them.

“We tried everything. They took my bone marrow because I was a match.”

Jake shut his eyes as if it pained him to hear me say that.

“He had a stem cell transplant, but it wasn’t successful. At first, we had so much hope. Then, it was

destroyed and there was just nothing left. He was sick for about two full years before we lost him.”

Silently willing me to continue, he squeezed my knee again.

“When he was in the hospital, we would play that game, Yahtzee. That was during the period about six

months before he died. The last month or so, he had gotten so sick, so emaciated; I couldn’t bear to watch

it…couldn’t handle seeing him like that.” I paused to catch my breath. “I stopped seeing him, Jake. I just

stopped visiting my brother. I wasn’t even there when he died.” The tears started to pour out again as I

recalled the most painful time of my life, no longer able to speak coherently.

He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me into him. I closed my eyes and sunk my head into the heat

of his chest as I cried.

He spoke softly into my ear. “He knows you loved him, Nina. You loved him so much that you couldn’t

bear to see him in pain. He knows. If he didn’t know then, wherever he is—wherever it is that we go—he

knows now.”

I looked up at him. “You believe that?”

“Yes, I do. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t believe it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can’t be 100-percent sure, but you have to have blind faith. You have to believe it in your gut. The

fact is, it’s more likely than not that there is a purpose to this fucked up thing we call life. Your brother…he had a purpose. He just fulfilled it faster than you or me.”

“I want to believe that,” I said.

He let go of me suddenly and walked over to his closet, taking out the sketchpads I had looked through

the night I snuck into his room. Flipping to one of the pictures of the man on the motorcycle, he sat back

down on the bed next to me and stared at it for a bit before speaking.

“That’s my Dad,” he said with his eyes still focused on the drawing.

It blew me away that the haunting image that stuck out at me the most amongst his sketches was actually

of his father. He had an impassioned look in his eyes as he continued to stare at the image without saying

anything.

“That one was my favorite. The one of him looking back,” I said.

After another long pause, he finally spoke. “This was the last memory I have of him. He died that night

in a motorcycle accident. I was only five, but I remember this moment in the drawing very clearly. He was

going out to meet some friends. He told me to be a good boy for my mother and that he would take me out

to my favorite diner for breakfast the next morning. For some reason, he looked back at me one last time

before he took off, and it always stuck with me.”

This was breaking my heart.

“I don’t know which is worse: never getting to say goodbye to someone or watching them suffer first,”

I said.

He put the sketch aside and turned to me. “Both scenarios suck. My point is, as painful as it was to lose

my father that way, I never want to forget him. Ever. I do everything in my power to remember him, to

remember the little things he taught me, even at that age.”

I took a deep breath in and nodded, thinking about what he said as it related to Jimmy. I had been trying

so hard to push away thoughts of my brother’s illness, that all of the good memories were getting pushed

away too, so there was nothing left of him.

Some random funny memories came to mind suddenly because I allowed them in. “My brother was

such a jokester. Kind of like you.”

He smiled. “Yeah?”

“Jimmy was shameless. Once, he brought a whoopee cushion to church and put it under this old lady in

the pew in front of us. My parents grounded him for like three weeks after that.” I shook my head

remembering that day. “Whenever we got into fights, and I tried to stay mad at him, he would hold me

down and tickle my feet until I begged his forgiveness. He knew that drove me crazy. Sometimes, he would

get Ryan to grab the other foot. They would gang up on me.”

Jake raised his brow. “Ticklish feet, huh? I’ll have to remember that the next time you zone out on me

during a math lesson.”

“No, you don’t!”

“But see, it makes you smile to think about those things. You need to just remember the good times with

him. Your brother’s last days don’t define who he was. You can choose to remember him however you

want, like I choose to remember my Dad on his bike…just going out for a ride. It’s why I draw. It’s therapy

for me and helps me etch the things I want to remember in stone.”

He folded up the sketchpad and returned it to the closet. I was kind of disappointed that he didn’t go

through some of the other drawings. They all had to be meaningful to him in some way. I would take what

I could get, though. This was the most information that Jake had ever offered me about his life. I wasn’t

complaining, except for the fact that he returned to the chair by the desk, instead of sitting back down next

to me.

As he logged off of his computer, he clapped his hands and said, “You know what you need tonight,

Nina?

Interesting question and you could guess where my mind was heading.

“What do I need, Jake?”

“You need to get shitfaced,” he said getting up and putting on his black jacket. “Come on, enough

studying for tonight.”

I followed him out to the hallway before stopping in my room to freshen up and grab a coat.

“Where are we going?” I said as he stood in my doorway waiting.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll like it. Trust me.” The questionable smirk on his face told me that maybe I

shouldn’t.

***

After a seven-block walk to Brooklyn Avenue, we stopped at a building with a bright pink neon sign

that flashed:
Kung Pao Karaoke.

“We’re doing karaoke?” I shouted through the sudden onslaught of noise as he held the door for me.

“Well, mostly we’re having a scorpion bowl or two, but if you get drunk enough, yeah, maybe.”

The place was crowded and the smell of grease and booze filled the air. A clearly drunk woman with

curly dark hair and a butterfly tattoo was belting out Bon Jovi’s
Living on a Prayer
while the patrons went wild. She couldn’t sing to save her life, but clearly, that didn’t matter here.

“So, whaddya think?” Jake asked as we were seated into a small booth in the corner, thankfully, furthest

away from the stage.

“It’s cool. I have never been to a Chinese karaoke bar. You’ve been here before?”

“Once, with the guys from work. I was too drunk to remember much.”

“Ah. Do you usually eat or just drink here?”

“That depends on what you’re hungry for.”

Something about the way he looked at me and licked his lip ring when he said that seemed flirtatious.

“I am hungry.”

“Okay. We’ll get a Poo Poo platter of appetizers and a scorpion bowl. Sound good?”

“Great.”

After the waiter came by and took our order, Jake startled me when he nudged my leg with his under

the table. “No more talking about sad stuff tonight, okay? I want you to have fun.”

“You’re not going to make me get up there are you?”

His mouth turned slowly upwards. There were the dimples that had been hiding out up until now. “You

know that I don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Good, because I would need a lot of alcohol in me to get up and do that.”

A woman came by and set the humungous scorpion bowl down on the table. It looked more like a

portable sink with two straws.

“Speaking of the devil,” he said.

“I think
you’re
the devil tonight, Jake. What are you trying to kill me? Look at the size of this thing.”

“I have…heard that before,” he said winking.

Lordy. I set myself up for that one.

I responded to the mental images that conjured up by taking a huge sip out of the bowl. This concoction

was way stronger than it looked, and I coughed from the impact of it down my throat.

Oh, goodness. There were those images again.

Jake pulled the bowl toward him. “Whoa…slow down there, lush.”

I coughed again. “That is some strong stuff. It’s deceiving! It looks like fruit punch and tastes like

rubbing alcohol.”

“After a while, you won’t notice.”

“It’s a good thing we’re walking home,” I said.

He lifted his brow. “You mean, I’m
carrying
you home.”

“Possibly.”

“In all seriousness, Nina, I can tell you’re a lightweight, so you should pace yourself. I don’t want you

to get sick.” He paused. “Oh, speaking of lightweight, what was your date’s name again the other night?

How did that go?”

“Haha, very funny. His name was Alistair. It was okay. I won’t be going out with him again, though.”

“Any particular reason why?”

You.

“He just turned out to be kind of a loser.”

“Well, I could have told you that. He was wearing fucking boat shoes. What is he, seventy?” He

laughed.

“Yeah, I don’t really have the best luck with men. My last boyfriend, Spencer, was king of the losers,

actually.”

Jake sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “
Spencer
…he just sounds like a pretentious prick.”

“He was…a prick…and a cheater.”

Jake nodded silently and looked around the room then his eyes met mine. “Well, I don’t even know the

guy, but if he cheated on
you
…he’s a fucking idiot.”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that, but every nerve in my body immediately did. Thankfully,

our Poo Poo platter came and I didn’t have to say anything at all. We started digging into the chicken wings,

eggrolls, spareribs and teriyaki beef sticks. It was one of those comfortable silences where neither of us felt

like we had to talk. We just pigged out on the appetizers, taking turns sipping out of the bowl, enjoying each

other’s company.

When we finished eating, all that remained were the flames in the center of the platter. He moved it to

the side, throwing a packet of hand wipes at me and caught me off guard when he continued where our

previous conversation left off.

“So…Spencer…was he your last boyfriend?”

“Yeah. We broke up a little over a year ago. In retrospect, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Besides the fact that I found out he cheated on me, he did nothing but criticize me.”

He scrunched his eyebrows into an angry look. “What do you mean
criticize
? What kinds of things did

he say to you?”

Was this conversation really going there?

I shrugged. “Let’s see…what
didn’t
he say? For one, he had no tolerance at all for my anxiety issues. He would just make fun of me instead of trying to understand the condition. And he criticized my body any

chance he got.”

“He criticized
your
body,” Jake said, more like a statement than a question.

“Yeah…all the time.”

“Really…”

“Yes. He told me I wasn’t athletic-looking enough, that I could stand to lose ten pounds and that my ass