A Second Chance

Jack

There was screaming. Choked cries for help. Blood caking his hands, feet; smothering his face. There's a horn blaring in front of him. Emergency lights blinding him from every direction. Blue and red and white and red. He's covered in red. There's black and yellow too. On the road that he is laying on. There's also pink. He doesn't like pink. It looked too squishy, too...
There was light now. It was as if he was in Heaven. But Heaven didn't smell like needles, shouldn't have. It shouldn't smell like medicine. It shouldn't smell like death.

They are gone.

Jack doesn't panic or flinch when he awakes. He doesn't do anything. He just opens his eyes, and lets everything come to him. The ceiling, the purple walls, the three bottles of Smirnoff sitting at his bed stand. Dee playing pretend in the living room. Why react? Nothing's changed since their parents passed away.

Jack sluggishly rolls to his right side, and looks at the alarm.

11:00 am

Damn, 11? Shit, he must've had a rough night last night.

He drags one of the Smirnoff bottles and takes a swig. Strong, bitter liquid inflamed his tongue, the pain waking him briefly.

"Need a quick sip of Joe to start the day right". He thinks to himself sardonically.

Jack gently places his feet onto the floor and slowly raises himself off his bed, taking a few moments to steady himself, before exiting the room.

Dee was playing one of her pretend games in front of the tv. On the floor next to her was an abandoned bowl of half-eaten cereal, lost in the wayside of her adventure. Jack feels a wave of guilt come on him. He'd left Dee to feed herself again.

"Good morning big bro".

Dee smiles as she looks up from her toys, looking the epitome of happiness. This lessons Jack's guilt, just a little.

"Morning, sis". Jack saunters to the coach and turns on the tv, the noise accompanying the buzz in his head. He slowly swivels his head around the apartment, checking for any other signs of his "mood" last night. Thankfully, the walls still seemed the same shade of tan as ever (with no stains) and the kitchen didn't seem any worse for wear. He turns his head back to the television, and is welcomed with a wave of dizziness. God, he feels like shit. Jack glanced over at Dee's toys, already forcefully reminding himself of his guilt.

"I'm sorry I didn't get up earlier Dee". He apologized. Dee looks up from her toys, her eyebrows quirked quizzically.

"It's okay big bro. You seemed sad last night, so I thought I'd let you sleep." She blabbers.

"Sad?" Jack sighs.

Dee's eyes shifted away from him, looking embarrassed: "You were drinking again", she sighed honestly.

Well now Jack felt terrible. He hunched over and buried his face in his hands, briefly wishing that he could bury himself. Jesus, talk about being caretaker of the year. How's he supposed to take care of Dee if he's doing this shit.

"Hey, you have your interview today, don't you?" Dee pipes up.

Jack looks back up at her. She's right, it is today. At noon. He pinches his nose, hoping to knock back a minute amount of the stress he was feeling. A large part of him honestly didn't want to go, because it's been harder for him to care lately, but since Dee mentioned it, he might as well. He'd skipped out on one interview earlier at the Bullseye in town. He wasn't upset about it, he hadn't really wanted that job anyways. But, he needs to take care of Dee. They can't live off of the small life insurance that they'd gotten when their parents passed. No, they need to survive. The least he can do for her is get off his ass and get a job.