Forgive me Danny... - The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #108.

• Hey George, two very strange things happened this day.

That was the last sentence my younger brother Danny said to me, just before he was hit by a car....

My brother and I were very close, he was 17 years old, and I was 21, in spite of those few years of difference we got along very well. Danny was a good boy, excellent student, cheerful, funny and he didn't give any problem.

I, on the other hand, was the opposite of him, misbehaved, a bad student and no fun at all, I had a reputation for being somewhat obnoxious to everyone, as well as selfish... I guess it's true. Today I wish I hadn't been like that.

Danny was run over because of me. I remember that day very clearly.

My brother and I were on our way to the mall to meet my friends, Danny didn't want to go with me, but I practically forced him.

He had been trying to strike up a conversation with me the whole way, but with my rude personality, I simply ignored him. As I was crossing the street I could hear him addressing me saying:

• Hey George, two very strange things happened this day...
• Shut up, Danny, I just want to get there fast.

Right after that, I heard the screeching of car tires and a very loud, almost sickening thump.

I turned around to look for my brother, but I didn't see him, at that moment I felt that my heart was going to jump out of my chest and my stomach turned over making me nauseous.

https://pixabay.com/es/photos/la-carretera-velocidad-autopista-259815/

As I looked down the street, I noticed a body about 15 meters away. I started walking towards it, when I was close enough I felt like the world was coming at me.

I could recognize the body... it was Danny.

My little brother was unrecognizable because of the accident. At that moment, I was in such a state of shock that I still can't understand how we got to the hospital.

Since that moment, my life has not been the same.

Now it has been 3 years since the accident and not a day goes by that I don't feel guilt. Danny is in coma, he has been all this time unconscious in this hospital because of me.

Every day I regret because I always remember that day, and how Danny wanted to tell me what had happened to him.

He told our mother, and days later she told me. The strange things that happened to him that day was that while he was taking a nap he had a dream, or a "vision" as he told my mom, where he clearly saw that he was offered a college basketball scholarship at school. The other strange thing was that our dog had woken him up from his nap because he sat on his face.

What nobody counted with was that hours after the accident, his school emailed him where they effectively granted him the basketball scholarship.

But Danny could never go to college, he wasn't going to play basketball anymore, he wasn't going to be the happy kid he always was, he wasn't going to do any of those things because of me. If only I hadn't ignored him, if only I was a better brother.

Now here I was, three years later, sitting in the hospital at my brother's bedside, listening to the doctor tell my mother that he had no more choice, that he had to be disconnected.

Sobbing, I held Danny's hand as tightly as I could.

My brother, my little brother who had so much life ahead of him and so much love to give.

The next thing I saw was the doctor turning off the machine that was keeping him alive.

He was gone.

Forgive me Danny...
.

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The image comes from Pixabay.
I hope you can appreciate my story.