Wished Away: A Broken Fairy Tale by S.P. Cervantes Read Free Book Online

again.
    “Jess, you don’t have to sign this now. You can talk with Missy and Tom, his parents may be able to help.” Holden reaches over and grabs my hand. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do right now, Jess.”
    I look up at my friends. “I have to sign it Holden. But I swear if they use that order, I can’t be responsible for what I do.” They all smile through their sadness. “Thanks for being here guys. I don’t…” my voice breaks, “I don’t know what I will do if he doesn’t make it.”
    “Dave is the strongest of us all Jess. He’ll fight with everything he’s got for you and Charlotte.” Joey pulls us all in closely and begins to pray. “He’s a fighter.”

Dave
    “I’ ll be waiting for you,” she says quietly, and then I feel her hand leave mine.
    I would do anything to let her know I’m not in pain, to know that I’m ok, but I can’t. I can’t speak or move my body, and know that it’s not a good sign. The ride to the hospital is a faint memory. All I can think of is Joey talking to me, telling me a story about Jess and the group of us back in college. He knows it’s always one my favorites to tell, especially after I’ve had a few.
    People are talking around me, but I can’t make any sense of what they’re saying. I feel something in my mouth, and know I have IV’s in my arms, but I can’t feel them at all. My head begins to feel hazy, and I realize I’m probably back in the operating room, and that there’s most likely some type of anesthesia being administered so that they can fix me up. I try and focus on Jess and Charlotte as I feel myself fading into a blissful slumber. The last thing I hear is someone whisper, “Fight for her. She needs you to fight,” before I dose into my dream.

    I was running down the beach at full speed towards Holden who had a football securely snuggled to his bare chest, making his judgment on which way to go. Holden and I became fast friends when he moved to Mantoloking. I remember Joey and I were so pumped that finally another dude moved to town. Mantoloking wasn’t a town filled with kids our age, and when he moved in, our street had become the best the town’s ever seen. Back then, we didn’t care about girls, and certainly not about Jess or Cam that way…yet. But that day on the beach when we were all together for the summer, running towards Holden, wanting nothing more than to rip his head off, was the first night Jess and I made love.
    All of us were home from college; the guys from Yale and Jess and Cam from NYU, and life seemed perfect. It was the day before the 4 th , and we had a group of friends with us at Barnagate Beach, drinking beers and playing a testosterone filled game of football while the girls cheered us on. Holden was the star tight-end in high school, and could have played at any college he wanted, but that wasn’t Holden. He didn’t want to be tied down going to practice every holiday, he wanted to be with his friends, he wanted to party. I remember the huff my parents were in when they learned he turned down a scholarship to Penn State. My god, the dinner table that night had me teeming with envy, because if I ever had the opportunities Holden had, I would’ve eaten them up. I was a good athlete, always one of the best, but never the best like Holden.
    I lunged at Holden, perfectly clasping my hands around the ball in his hands. It was like a slow motion action movie when I remember the smirk on Holden’s face when he said, “Oh shit,” and I ripped the ball away, springing to my feet and running in the other direction while Joey made a few key blocks. Running in the sand is hard, but when I saw Jess, in her red string bikini with curves that should be illegal, screaming at the top of her lungs for me to score, nothing was going to stop me from getting to my prize. Jess had no idea how hot she was and that was always obvious. Jess always had a slew of guy friends, and was also completely