Walk Away (maybe), chapter 4

*A week later*

Joel was sitting around listening to music when his phone rang. It was his ex-girlfriend, Abby.

"I need you to take care of Jake for the weekend. Is that ok?"
"Uh, yea. Sure."
"Great. I'll drop him off tomorrow morning."

Jake was Joel and Abby's four-year-old son, who Joel barely ever got to see. When he and Abby broke up she took Jake and Joel didn't see him for almost a year. Now he saw Jake about once a month.

The doorbell rang at 6am the next morning. Joel didn't realize just how early Abby was coming. Luckily though she-like everyone else- rang the doorbell and walked in. so he didn't have to get up.

"Joel?" she yelled when she walked in.
"Sleeping," he yelled back.
"Well here's your son. I'll pick him up on Monday. He's tired so he'll sleep with you for a while," she yelled up.
"How could he not be tired? It's fuckiin 6 in the morning."
"Ok," he yelled then thought for a second."Hey. How did you get in? The door was locked."
"Spare key," she yelled.
"What is this mystical spare key to my house that everyone talks about and why didn't I know about it?" he thought.

Downstairs Abby hugged Jake good bye. "Go find daddy and sleep for a while. I'll pick you up in two days. K?"
"Ok," Jake said and hugged her back. Then he ran upstairs into Joel's room, where Joel had already fallen back to sleep, got into the bed and fell asleep next his dad.

Joel woke up at noon and sat up in his bed, which caused Jake to wake up. He sat up and scooted over next to Joel.

Joel looked over at his son for a minute. He hadn't seen Jake in a while and the last time they talk was on the phone a little while ago. Joel had had to tell Jake what happened to Benji. The room was silent for a few minutes but Jake broke it.
"Daddy, what's on your arms?"

Joel forgot, he had gone to sleep in just boxers and a beater. So his arms were exposed. "Damn" he thought.

"Um...well, buddy uh." He was trying to think of how to explain it without making it seem too bad. "Ya know when I told you that your uncle Benji died and it hurt me."
"Yeah."

"Well this is, kinda, how I show that it hurt me."
"Oh." Jake thought about it trying to understand. "But doesn't it hurt you to make the marks daddy?"
"Every time," Joel whispered. "But its ok. I'm ok. Its no big deal Jake, really."
"I don't want you to hurt daddy."
"Me neither buddy. But some things, you just can't help. Sometimes you just have to hurt. Sometimes you just have to accept the pain."
"But-" Jake stopped himself.
"What?"
"Maybe, maybe you do have to get hurt. But you don't have to cause the hurt. Do you?"
Joel didn't know what to say to that. 'Uh...not, not always. But-um... I-I don't know."
"Daddy?"
"Yeah?"
"Mommy cries."
Joel gave him a questioning look. "What?"

"Do you cry daddy? Mommy cries a lot. I see her. She says she cries...for you. And me. And life. She says sometimes it's too hard. And sometimes it's not fair. But God has a reason for everything he does. Is that true daddy?"

"...uh..." he didn't know what to say to that.
"Mommy says you're hurt...on the inside. But if you hurt on the inside why do you hurt your outside too? Its just more hurt. Why do you cry daddy?"
"Damn I have a smart ass kid."
"Well...sometimes the inside hurt gets really bad. And so, the outside hurt, takes my mind off of the hurt inside. So it's not bad."
"Oh...Daddy? Do you cry because of Uncle Benji?"
"Uh-huh. He was, like, my best friend"
they both sat quietly for a minute, thinking. "Daddy? Could I be, your new best friend?"
Joel couldn't help but smile. "Of course you can buddy."
"Daddy. God took Uncle Benji for a reason."
Joel didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say.
"Maybe they needed better music in heaven." Jake said, remembering how much he loved listening to his uncle sing and play guitar for him.

They both started laughing at Jake's idea. Joel loved Jake. He was a lot like Benji. He was always there when Joel needed him. And he could cheer up anyone without even meaning to. Joel grabbed Jake and hugged him. "I love you. I've really missed you a lot."

"I love you too daddy. And I missed you too."

The next day Jake was sitting in the TV room watching cartoons when Joel walked in. "Hey kid. So, whatcha wanna do today?"
"um...can we go to the zoo?" he asked excitedly.
"Sure. 'Course we can."

They got in the car and were about half way to the zoo when Joel saw a car swerving towards them. He tried to turn around the corner so the car would miss them. But he couldn't turn fast enough so his car was only starting to turn when the other car hit them head-on.

When Joel woke up he was in the hospital with Billy standing next to him. "Billy? Where am I?" he started to sit up but Billy pushed him back down.

"Your in the hospital. You were hit by a drunk. You'll be fine, but lay down."
Joel groaned and tried to sit up again, but Billy pushed him down again. "Dude, just lay down for a while. Jeez."

"uh. Wait, where's Jacob?" he demanded sitting up, suddenly remembering his son had been in the car with him.

Billy pushed him down again. "He's, uh, in the next room."
Joel tried sitting up again expecting to get pushed back down, but Billy just put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him. "Joel, wait. Jake, he's uh...he's not ok Joel."

Joel jumped up and walked out of the room. He had to see his son.
He walked into the room next door and saw his son lying in the bed and Abby sitting in the chair next to him. Joel walked over next to the bed and looked down at Jake. "Jake, I am so sorry."

"the doctors say he may not make it." Abby said sadly from behind him.
"Abb. I tried to get us out of the way. I really did. I wasn't fast enough. I'm sorry. This is all my fault."
"No, Joel, its not."
"I made this happen to him. I may as well have just killed him. ... I probably did kill him," he said as though she hadn't said anything.
"Joel you didn't. You tried to save him. You tried." Tears started coming to her eyes. "Listen to me Joel, this isn't your fault. Not at all. You really tried to save him."

"Well it wasn't good enough!" he shouted at her. "I should have been able to save him! But I couldn't!' he paused and looked down at Jake. "I let him down."
"don't listen to those stupid doctors, Jake. You're gonna be fine. I know you will. You have to be. You're my best friend. I wont let you die buddy. I love you. So much." he bent down and kissed Jake on the fourhead. He walked out of the hospital room, down the hall and out of the building. He just kept walking until he got to the graveyard and went over to Benji's grave.

"I really need you bro. Jake's in the hospital and he might die and its all my fault. I should've been able to save him. But I couldn't. He trusted me to never let anything bad happen to him. And I let him down. My whole life is crashing down around me and I cant handle it. Its too much."

Joel shoved his hands into his pockets and suddenly felt something in each. He thought his pockets where empty so he took out what was in them to see what it was. In one had he held his knife. And in the other, a folded up piece of paper. He had no idea what the paper was. He turned it over and written on the other side in sloppy, scribbley handwriting was, "to the greatest daddy ever! I love you." He opened it up and it was a drawing colored with crayons. Two people. One looked like a little boy with short brown hair and dark brown eyes wearing a t-shirt that had "made" written on it. He knew it was Jake. Jake always drew himself like that. The other person was taller, with the same dark brown eyes, and a red Mohawk.

Wearing a black shirt that said "J" and wearing a big red cape. And it looked like the person was fighting a monster...by hitting it with a microphone. On top of the paper it said, "My biggest hero is my daddy. I want to be just like him when I get big. By Jake." Joel remembered that the last time he talked to Abby she was telling him about a project Jake had done in school, he had to draw a picture of his hero and he had chosen Joel. Jake must have slipped the paper into Joel's pocket.
Tears came to Joel's eyes as he looked at the drawing. He shouldn't have been Jake's hero. He didn't deserve to be anyone's hero. Especially not his son's. Why did Jake want to be like him? He was just a fuckin loser. He didn't want Jake to be at all like him. At least not like he had become. He looked back at the paper, then at the knife. Then at his brother's grave. He read what was written on the
gravestone. ---


"Benjamin Levi Madden

You're feeling sad
You're feeling lonely
But no one seems to care
Hold on if you feel like letting go
Hold on it gets better then you know."

Benji wanted that written on his grave. When he and Joel wrote the song "Hold On" he always said it would be cool to have some of the song lyrics written the gravestone if someone committed suicide. But right now Joel felt like Benji was trying to talk to him. Trying to tell him not to kill himself. Not to hurt himself.
Joel looked back at the knife then back to the grave. "Sorry bro. But I just can't hold on. My life has hit its good point already. Now, its never getting better."
He opened the knife, pressed it to his wrist, and at his brother's grave, with his son's drawing held tightly in his hand as if he was holding on to it for dear life, he pressed down hard and quickly pulled the knife across his wrist. He yelled out, and rolled over on the ground pressing his wrist to his chest. Blood staining his t-shirt, seeping through until he could feel his own blood on his chest. Over his heart. And he fell asleep like that. And he never woke up.