Page 75 of Heart Of A Goon II

Prom came and there were no pictures of us on the grand staircase with my parents hugging me. I could picture them both kissing me on the cheek, as my father told me how beautiful I looked.

This wasn’t just my reality. It was our reality. Our parents would never get to witness the life that we had to continue to build without them.

And that fucking hurt.

“I miss them, Maverick,” I wailed.

Years had passed since they had been gone, but the pain was fresh. It was hard to heal and let them rest when life kept happening. All these new experiences happened, and all I could think about is having a parent.

Maverick tried.

He really did.

Maverick was the closest thing we had to a parent. Angie was like a second mother, but she wasn’t my mother. I watched her with Jeffie, and all I wanted was that with my own mom. Kora tried. She was always there. She taught me how to use a tampon, how to keep my hygiene up and do my own makeup.

These were all things our mother got the chance to teach her. Some she had to learn on her own.

Maverick came closer and took my hand into his, kissing the top of my swollen hand. The IV they put in caused my hand to swell. “I miss them, too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. More than anything. Still hear mom’s voice when I left for school that day,” he sniffled.

He didn’t cry.

Ever.

“How do you drown out the noise? It’s so loud and it hurts, Maverick… so much. I just wanted to silence it.”

“By trying to kill yourself?” I looked past him, and Kora was standing in the doorway.

I could tell that she was in pain and felt the same way Maverick felt. “I’m sorry.”

She quickly came over to the other side of the bed. “You’re mine, Zoya Bean… mine.”

Tears fell from all of our faces, as Menace rubbed his face against my hand. “Don’t ever do it again, Bean… promise me. Promise me when it gets too hard, too loud, too tough that you’ll tell me… come to me,” his voice continued to crack.

Kora removed my hair from my face and kissed my entire face. “We’re all we have, Bean… just us four. Please don⁠—”

“Leave us,” Don walked into the room, and stood next to Maverick.

With the way he was growing, he would soon reach Maverick’s height. It was like staring at a younger Maverick. I wonder if he ever felt some way about it. Having to raise the younger him.

“I’m so sorry, Don,” I sobbed.

He rushed over and hugged me tightly. Like he never wanted to let me go. Maverick held onto my hand, never letting it go, while Kora rested her lips on my forehead.

“I’m close to getting that pizzeria… don’t give up on me, okay?” Maverick didn’t like pizza, but he promised that we would always have pizza.

Ever since I was younger, he promised we would always have, and he came through on that. We never had to eat canned food, and Kora didn’t have to make white rice and boiled chicken.

I was starting to believe that the pizzeria was code for something else, but I just nodded and promised him. “I promise.”

“Bean,” he kissed my forehead, something he never did.

Kora put her arm around his neck, as we all huddled together. “No matter how hard life gets, we have each other. This won’t be our story forever.”

“I can become a wrestler?” Don got hopeful.