Gerard seems to be personally offended that Ray would even consider running.
"God dammit!" he shouts once it sinks in that Ray's gone. "What's his problem anyway?"
"I don't know..." I slur. We scoped out the entire long drive way, finding nothing but footprints that disappear once we get to paved road.
"Ugh. What are we gonna do now?" he asks me. What are we gonna do?
"Well... I guess we just lay low until we can get out of North Carolina at least. Maybe even farther." I say. Gerard just stares at his boots, thinking. We're wandering aimlessly through Josephs forest. I look up at the canopy of the tall trees.
Everything seems so far away. Nothing seems real anymore. It's just me and Gerard wandering through this world with no real direction, just floating. The sun creates patterns and shapes on the ground, but nothing really matters anymore. And it seems that anything could be said in this new empty world, and will be forgotten in the next.
I sit down at the wide base of one of the trees.
"Tell me about Mikey." I interrupt Gerard talking to himself. He looks up at me, startled.
"What?" he asks. "Mikey?"
"Tell about me Mikey." I repeat.
Gerard sits down next to me.
"Um well, what do you want to know?"
"Just talk." I say.
"Okay, well..." he says as he wonders what to tell me. "He was just the perfect little brother, he always wanted to help me, or to be like me. He was a really sweet kid. A really good kid." he says in a happy tone. "It's too bad he wasted his entire life trying to be like me." he adds sadly. I rest my head on his shoulder.
"Vietnam was too much for him. I sheltered and protected him his whole life, so when he got to 'Nam he couldn't handle it. I had to protect him there too. When I got sent home he was forced to fend for himself." I don't wanna hear sad Gerard.
"Talk about good stuff." I say. Gerard sighs.
"Um... Well, there was," he chuckles.
I sit up a little more. "What?"
"One thing that he couldn't let go of was this little girl he saved in one of the villages. It was burned to rubble, but under a collapsed roof he found a tiny Vietnamese girl. She was so scared, but when Mikey picker her up se stopped crying at once. We gave her some water, some food to eat, and took her back to camp. Eventually we had to give her up, but she was a character." he says, reminiscing.
"What was she like?" I ask, I wanna hear happy Gerard.
"Well, I was the only one that could speak any Vietnamese, and it turned out that her name was Chau, she was six, and her favorite color was yellow. She taught Bob how to-"
"Bob?" I ask. Gerard nods. "Bob? Like the guy we met up with in New Jersey?" he nods again.
"I just kinda thought you knew that was how we met." he shrugs.
"How would I just know that?" he shrugs again.
"Anyway, she taught Bob how to play a Vietnamese style hopscotch. It was hilarious to watch." I picture Bob jumping around in a game of hopscotch and giggle. "Where we were was bombed to twigs, but she still had to make Mikey and I a bouquet of sticks. She tied it together with blades of unburned grass." he smiles.
"I still have mine in that second suitcase that we never use and probably never will. I made sure Mikey was buried with his though." Oh.
"How come?" I ask.
"Saving that girl was the one thing he was really proud of in his life. He spent so much time trying to be like me he never had anything to himself. So that's why I made sure he was buried with it." I nod.
"Can I see yours when we go back up to the house?" I ask.
"Yeah." he says softly. I listen to the heartbeat of the forest like I did in that first diner, it seems forever ago. This heartbeat is like the heartbeat of a sleeping baby. We slip into the scenery so silently that soon small little critters walk right past us without fear.
That's when it hits me, Gerard's got problems. His life sucked. I'm just some kid who got bored with his pizza job, but Gerard's life was awful. I tell this to Gerard,
"No you didn't. No one with eyes like that have had an easy life." he says simply, ending discussion.


After a long time we walk back up to the house, and just as I thought, as we entered this real world everything in the last was forgotten. Or at least, was folded up, and put under some dirty 10 room motel bed to be visited another day.

Notes

Thank you for reading! :) I hope you like the chapter as much as I do.