Dare

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  He drinks some of the water. He lets the tears roll down his cheeks without bothering to hide them. My uncle and my dad are the two toughest men I know, and they’re not afraid to expose themselves. It makes them fearless. It makes me idolize them.

  “Before we barely had a chance to process what had happened, the bank sold off our land, our home and all our belongings, until there was nothing left. Then they sent Cade and me to two separate foster homes. After that, everything became a fight—fighting for survival, fighting other kids, fighting adults and the system they forced us into. First few months, we spent a lot of time in detention for constantly running away, trying to find each other. But see, Colt was almost eighteen when our parents died and they threatened him with adult charges—like kidnapping. When he came of age, he tried to get custody of me, but because we’d been labeled delinquents, the courts didn’t think he’d be fit as a guardian. So they kept moving me from boys’ homes to detention to in-home foster care and back through the circuit again. My brother tried to keep in contact by calling and writing letters, but with them always moving me and records not being public information, we lost each other completely.”

  Debra reaches up and holds his hand. The gesture pulls me from the fear that had kept me in the doorway. All I want now is to be close to Sophie, to feel her strength and her love. I sit next to her on the loveseat. She wipes her eyes, and we hold each other’s hands. Her realness brings me peace.

  “It would be five long years before we’d be reunited.”

  Most of the kids make an audible expression of disgust or surprise or both.

  “He’d found work in North Dakota as a ranch hand training horses and was already building his own herd. He’d gotten married to his high school sweetheart, who had stuck through it all with him, even when things got more than messy. He was building a life for himself.” Cade shook his head.

  He continued, “I hated horses—never wanted to see another one as long as I lived. But over the years, I’d watched every Bruce Lee movie ever made … probably a million times over. They were the only thing that gave me some sanity, some control. I began copying what I saw and learning his moves on my own.

  “When I turned eighteen, I walked out of that fucked up system and began seriously training in every discipline of the martial arts I could. I also became a firefighter. I hadn’t been able to save my parents, but I could sure as hell save others. I spent years replaying that day in my mind, wondering what would have happened if Colt and I hadn’t gone swimming, if we hadn’t been messing around. Would things have turned out different? Would we have been able to save our parents? I blamed myself for a long time.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this. I telling you because every so often a group of kids comes through that needs to know—what happens isn’t always your fault, and even when it is, or you make the wrong choices based on what’s happening in your world, that does not define who you are or what you can become. There is redemption for all of us, but you have to dig deep for the courage and move on from where you are.”

  Uncle Cade stood up. “I expect to see all of you up bright and early to work at Core. My nephew, the light heavyweight UFC champion, will be there to work with each of you.” Our bloodshot eyes meet as he looks directly at me and holds my gaze. “I’m proud of you.”

  In that moment I know—the story, his words, it had all been for me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Josh

  “Cade’s story is so powerful.” Sophie stares out into the night at the lights of the twin cities. We’ve just made love and she’s wrapped in a thick blanket with her hands around a steaming cup of tea.

  The clock reads 10:23. I watch her, knowing what has to happen, but I steal myself away for just one more moment—one more moment where I’m not tainted in her eyes.

  “It’s obvious the two of you are very close, and that he’s had an incredible impact on your life. The similarities … you must have idolized him as a kid. What an amazing hero to look up to—daring firefighter, MMA trainer—you even look like him, you know. And when did he and his wife decide to start up the group home?”

  “Slow down there, scrapper. That’s an interrogation.” I pinch the bridge of my nose by the corners of my eyes and run my fingers down my face. “Aren’t you tired of stories for one night?”

  She turns toward me, all seriousness. “Why would I tire of hearing about your life or what’s made you who you are?” She comes and sits on the bed next to me.

  “Truth is …”—I take a deep breath and leap—“you may not like me much after you hear it. It’s not a pretty tale.”

  She studies my face and then says, “Try me.”

  “The press doesn’t know—the records were sealed because I was a juvenile, and my family never talks about it.”

  “Josh, I’m sorry.” Her eyes are full of concern.

  “It’s awful to remember, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t. And I’ve never told another soul, and I’m scared as fuck to tell you.”

  She nods in understanding. “You have my heart, Josh.”

  “Yeah, well you may just want to take it back after you hear what I have to say.”

  “Trust me.” Her soft hand strokes my face.

  I pull back from her touch and sit up, facing away from her. I can’t watch her expressions.

  “I’m sorry.” She sounds hurt, like I’ve struck her.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I promise. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, like when I knew I was falling in love with you. It would’ve been honorable to let you know, to give you a choice before you fell in love with me, but I was selfish. I didn’t want to let you go.”

  “Josh, you’re torturing yourself. I wouldn’t change the relationship we’ve had for anything.”

  I only hope that’s true. And that hope is sketchy at best.

  I get up and go over to the desk where my laptop case is. With trembling hands, I take out the scrapbook I brought to share with Sophie and hand it to her.

  “My best friend was a boy named Taylor. We became friends in eighth grade, after he and his mom moved to Williston from Minot. We bonded over Batman comics. He was a talented artist; his dream was to work at DC or Marvel. That first photo is of me and him at Comic Con.” Standing behind her, I peer over her shoulder at the picture. “He was funny and full of life—he never hurt anyone.” I flip the page, and my eyes follow the lines of our homemade comic strips. “We created comic books together. I’d make up the stories and he’d draw the pictures. I kept them all.”

  I watch as her fingers turn the pages I haven’t looked at in years. As she turns them, I see the potential that will never be realized. I mourn it as I breathe in, and with my exhale, I release it into the universe.

  “The kids in school picked on him—about shit like his ears and his face, telling him he was so ugly no one would ever love him and that’s why his dad left him. Sometimes the words turned into fists. When my brother Jake and I were around, no one dared—and the two of us got into more than a few fights, shutting some of those assholes up and reminding them not to touch him.

  “For a while it worked, especially when my high school aged brothers intervened. But by the time Taylor and I reached our sophomore year, the bullies had changed their tactics. They’d whisper at him in the hallways. In the classrooms, when he walked by them, they’d scrawl taunts on paper and stuff it through the grates of his locker—queer, gay, faggot, you shouldn’t even be allowed to live. How does anyone say that to somebody else?”

  I feel it again, the helpless rage. “He tried talking me into ignoring his bullies; he told me that’s what he did.” I reach out and touch his photo. “But they didn’t stop, and without me intervening it got worse.”

  “Fucking kid was just trying to figure his shit out. His mom drank too much, his dad had abandoned them, he didn’t get good grades and he didn’t get girls … he didn’t try either. He was unsure of h
is sexual orientation. So fucking what? Who the fuck cares? He didn’t fucking bother anybody!”

  I can’t look at the next page, but I turn it for Sophie. It’s his suicide note. I know it by heart, it’s scarred into me.

  “The bullies caught up with him on a Wednesday after school when I had football practice. They beat the hell out of him. When he made it home, he put a bullet through his head with his mom’s shotgun. October 17th.” I’m whispering, forcing the words out. “I’m the one who found him.”

  “Oh, Josh.” I hear Sophie, but her voice sounds so far away.

  “The blood was … everywhere … all over his bed, his wall, the floor.” I try to center my breathing to get through this, but the hurt is pressing the air from my lungs. “The note was on his desk.”

  It simply reads, I can’t take it anymore. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, Josh.

  “At that moment, I turned into someone else. Something else. The first person I went after was the leader of the group of bullies, Eric. He was tough and fought back, but I beat him badly. I knew when I’d broken his nose—I enjoyed seeing his blood running down his face and into his mouth. He deserved every hit I delivered … every hit except for the last one.”

  *****

  Josh

  2005

  I’m covered in Taylor’s blood. It’s on my arms, my face, my clothes … my hands. If only I’d kept up my vigilance against his haters, this wouldn’t have happened. The note on his desk flashes through my mind as I pull his body up off the floor and out of the pool of blood he’s soaked in to look at him. But it’s grisly—his head is destroyed. Only tattered portions remain intact. The rest of it is in pieces on the floor and wall behind him. I scream his name, but he has no ears that could hear me and no face to look into.

  But because of his shirt I know it’s Tay—Spiderman fighting Doc Ock—he’d drawn the picture himself and his mom had it made into a shirt. One of a kind.

  I did this. I didn’t take care of him. I hadn’t protected him like I should have.

  I want to shout and wake him up. I want to go back—rewind everything just a few hours. That’s all I need to fix this. A few fucking hours!

  Eric.

  It doesn’t feel real as I stumble out the door and run, full-out, the three blocks to Eric’s house. His mom and dad will still be at work. I want to hurt him.

  I’m going to fucking hurt him … bad.

  He and three of his asshole friends are smoking cigarettes on his front porch when I tear up the lawn. I don’t say a word. I grab him by his shirt and throw him to the ground.

  “What the fuck, North?” Eric growls. “If you came for a fight …” He stands back up and puts up his fists, ready, then takes a good look at me. “What the hell is all over you?”

  “What did you do to him!?” I shout.

  “Aww, Taylor?” He looks behind him to his friends, who start laughing. “Queer-boy needed to be taught that you don’t fuck around with other people’s shit.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He tripped over a jack in auto shop and thought it’d be a good idea to reach out and touch my car so he didn’t fall.” Eric laughs. “He should have let himself fall.”

  They’re all laughing. Tay’s dead. I’m covered in his blood.

  “I don’t know why you hang out with that ugly fucking faggot anyway.” He reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a small white stone. He holds it out for me to see.

  It isn’t a stone.

  “Here. This is Taylor’s tooth. I knocked it out of his face this afternoon. Want to give it back to him for me?” he laughs.

  I hit him hard. I watch the tooth fall to the grass and stare at it. I know I have to remember to pick it up after.

  When he hits me back, it’s like I wake up. I start pounding the shit out of him. He moves, and I follow relentlessly. Eric’s friends come off the porch for a better look. They yell shit to taunt and threaten me while they’re cheering him on, especially when he gets a couple punches in to my ribs. I think about how they must have cheered him on when he was beating Taylor … how they would’ve ganged up and all got their hits in.

  Eric steps off the curb and into the street when I land an angry fist to his chin. His feet come out from under him and he falls backward, his head slamming hard against the heavy iron bars of the storm grate. His eyes roll back and he goes utterly still before his body starts to shake and jerk around, his head slamming repeatedly against the iron.

  I just stand there and watch him. I’ve seen this on a TV show—he’s having a seizure. I hadn’t known the drain was there, but I don’t care. If he dies from it, I don’t care. He deserves it for what he did to Taylor.

  “Holy fuck!” one of his friends shouts as he fumbles for his phone.

  The other guy grabs Eric by the shirt and lugs him up onto the grass. He yells that he doesn’t know what to do and then starts shouting for help.

  I have no sympathy, no remorse. I feel nothing but a hollow, empty sort of rage. I walk over to the grass and find the tooth.

  “I’m coming back for each of you for what you did to Taylor,” I warn and walk away.

  *****

  Josh

  Present

  “No one could talk to me after that.” I walk away to the window. “I pounded the shit out of each of those boys. And I didn’t stop there. I kept fighting. My parents grounded me and made me see a psychologist, but my rage burned so hot I couldn’t stop it. Even when my parents told me Eric had been diagnosed with epilepsy because of the injury to his head and had to go on seizure medications, it didn’t stop me. In fact, I got worse. I got expelled and began hanging out with a rough crowd who’d go around starting fights with kids from other schools, at parties, anywhere. That led me to getting into trouble with the law.

  My dad sat me down and told me all the shit I was doing wasn’t going to bring Taylor back, and that it was time for me to get away for a while, because by staying right there, where it had all happened … I wasn’t going to get better. That’s when my uncle Cade came and got me.”

  Sophie is crying softly. She lifts her hand to stop me from going on as she makes her way to the bathroom. I hear her blow her nose and run the water. When she comes back out, she’s patting her face with the towel. She goes to the mini fridge, opens a bottle of water and hands it to me.

  She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t want her to. I don’t want her judgment or her pity. Now that I’m in it, I just need to finish it.

  “I lived here at the group home with my uncle for almost two years. I made a lot more mistakes, got in more fights, had some arrests—but no matter what I did or how far I went, I couldn’t drown out Tay’s voice, or his face, or his drawings, or what his horrific death looked like or the despair he must have felt that made him pull that trigger.”

  I’m crying now. Fuck!

  “I feel responsible for his death, Sophie. And on top of it, I hurt Eric so bad, he’ll have epilepsy for the rest of his life. I did that.” I poke my finger into my chest. “And even though I didn’t physically pull the trigger on Tay and I didn’t purposely bash Eric’s head into a storm grate, my actions and inaction created a horrible mess.

  My uncle Cade taught me to control myself, focus the pain and fear and use it to strengthen myself. He taught me how to release the rage and to give it up, to accept my part in what I’d done and to let go of what wasn’t in my control or power to change. He did this through what worked for him—martial arts.”

  Exhausted, I fall into the sofa. “I haven’t fought off the mats since.”

  Then I add, “After I had my shit together, Uncle Cade showed me the ropes of firefighting and how I could pour that raw energy into saving people’s lives.”

  I can’t look at her. I don’t want to see what she’s thinking—can’t stand the thought that she might look at me differently now, without the love in her eyes. Instead, I say simply, “There, that’s my story, Sophie. It’s the ugly truth and yo
u’re going to do with it what you want. If you walk out of here and out of my life, I’d understand that.”

  “Remember. Redemption. 10/17,” she says. “The tats on your lower abdomen. Remember for Taylor, and Redemption for you.”

  My nose and eyes sting, and I can’t say a word, not a fucking word.

  Sophie comes and sits beside me, and her fingers lace between mine. I still can’t bring myself to meet her eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” It comes out like a whimper.

  “Josh, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I have a very unstable peace agreement with forgiveness, and it’s even harder to believe anyone else would forgive me.”

  “You don’t need to be forgiven anymore, Josh—not by me, not by them, not anyone. You’re the best man I’ve ever known and you’ve reached redemption many times over because of the way you live your life.” She’s beside me and that unstable peace feels more secure, more solid. “I know now why Cade told his own story, and more importantly, why he told you he was proud of you. I know I am. In fact, somehow I love you more.”

  I finally look up into her eyes, and see the sincerity there. Those eyes tell me everything I need to know.

  I cry, no holds barred. It’s been a long time since I opened the dam, and the rush of emotions doesn’t stop for a while. She holds me and I let her.

  I feel like it’s a great moment of weakness.

  She tells me she has never seen me stronger.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sophie

  My plight weighs heavily on my mind. I’m holding a bad hand of cards in a game where the stakes are way too high.

  I think of scenarios that have no point, no value, since they aren’t even based in reality. What if I’d never met Jim? What if, instead, I’d ended up in Williston earlier in my life? Josh and I could have fallen in love, and then he would have been Charlie’s father. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t help it. The reality crashes in soon enough—Charlie wouldn’t be Charlie without Jim. Because of that, I’m grateful. He hadn’t meant to give me a gift, but nonetheless she is the single greatest gift of my existence. I wouldn’t change a thing.