Young and Reckless (A Guns N' Roses Fan-fiction)

5. Remembering a Day

1979

It was nothing I expected-- going back in pain and in tears as I dragged my old, busted bicycle with me. The shock was still there but one thing I couldn't forget was the fact that the kids around only stared or laughed.

"Let's see how bad you scratched your knee," My older brother Juancho came running with a cotton and peroxide in hand.

"Don't!" I hissed, moving over the couch. "And I didn't scratch my knee, kuya! I was just biking and some idiot in a skateboard crashed on me and I fell!" I took a look at my knee and cried. "That loco didn't even bother to apologize and this boy came and helped him! Ha! Lucky bastard!"

"Ah! You just said a bad word, ate! I'm telling Mama!" Miguel, my then 7-year-old brother chided.

I rolled my eyes,"Shut up!"

"You're not helping, you know!" I scolded my two brothers. "You're supposed to help me, comfort me or something!"

Juancho shook his head. "Just let me clean your injuries, neneng." He said.

"Stop calling me "neneng", I'm not a child anymore."

"Then start acting like a real 14-year-old."

I bit my lip and held still while my big brother treated my wounded knee. Juancho likes to act like a boss, whenever Papa is away, tending the furniture business in Pasadena where Papa's relatives/business partners and their shop are. Mama stays with us but she worked as a cook in a canteen years before she was diagnosed with diabetes in '84. So most of the time, during my school days, it was just Juancho, myself and Miguel.

Now my knee had a bandage on it but it still hurt when I tried moving. What a great way to spend Spring Break! Yeah, there was no school for a couple of weeks but it wouldn't be nice to be stuck in the house doing nothing either.

"Hey Totoy!" I called Miguel who was busy drawing his super heroes. "Can you get me milk from the fridge, please."

"We're out of milk, ate," Miguel replied, his eyes and hands never leaving his sketchbook.

Juancho came rushing down the stairs, zipping up his jacket.

"Going somewhere, kuya?" I asked.

"Yeah. I promised lil' bro I would buy him new comic books today," said Juancho. Miguel leaped for joy as he rushed to his room to get something to wear. "I need my bonnet, Emilia."

"Okay."

"You had it. I lend it to you remember? Come on, I'm gonna wear it today."

I remembered wearing the bonnet when I left the house this morning. And I went back without it.

"I think I lost it after the incident," I confessed. "Sorry."

Juancho looked a wee bit disappointed. He scratched the back of his head, "Darn that was the last of my bonnets. I'm gonna go tell Mama what happened when she gets home. Enjoy being grounded for a week."

Before I could talk back the doorbell rang. "Looks like Mama's home early," Juancho said as he opened the door.

"Can I help you?"

"Good afternoon. Does Emilia Reyes live here?"

So it wasn't our mother. I peeped through the window. Outside stood the boy with a cool Afro hair and behind him a blond boy with a nervous face.