“Stop…’m sorry…don’t want to fight.”

I woke up to Wes mumbling in his sleep again. He did this nearly every night. I told Dad, and he would just tell me to wake him up and if I felt up to it to try and ask him about his dream. I’ve done that each time, but he’s very closed up and tight-lipped. I never got anything out of him. It’s not that I minded waking up to his nightmares, I just felt bad the guy had nightmares almost every night.

Wes was attending the same school as me, and we’re becoming good friends. I just had a few months left before I graduated but Wes was only in his freshman year. He was having a hard time with some class subjects, but I had been helping him.

After being the baby brother to Kyler and Mason, I’d always been on the receiving end of someone looking after me. They’d always been good to me, and now I had the opportunity to do that for someone.

I sat with Wes out by the creek behind our house after school, helping him with his essay. The paper was a mess and had eraser marks everywhere, and he was getting frustrated with it.

“I hate writing,” he said under his breath.

“Relax, mate. It’s just a paper and not the end of the world. You’re doing okay,” I encouraged.

Wes’s problem was writing sentences. Sometimes it seemed like a chore to him to just hold a pencil, and his handwriting was awful. I had enough of watching him scribble across the paper and then wipe his eyes with the back of his hand as he erased and tried to re-write it. He knew what he wanted to write, it’s just the act of writing it that was hard for him.

“Wes, stop, mate.”

I took the pencil out of his hand and held it in mine as if I were getting ready to write.

“See? Hold it like this, okay? It’ll help your handwriting, and you won’t be erasing so much.”

I handed him back the pencil and watched as he tried to emulate how I held it.

“Show me again,” he held the pencil toward me. “Please.”

I took hold of the pencil in my hand and wrote my full name on the back of my math paper. I repeated it a few times slowly so he could focus on my hand holding the pencil. I handed the pencil back to him and turned my paper around for him to try. Using the form I just showed him, he wrote his name a few times. His name was about twice as big as mine, but I think he had more control with the pencil.

“That’s better, Wes.”

He smiled and looked up at me and then continued to write his name. Wes held the pencil in the position I showed him and held it up.

“This feels a lot better in my hand than the other way,” he said.

“Good, mate. Where the fuck did you learn how to hold a pencil like that anyhow?” I innocently joked.

“From some older kids while I lived on the docks,” he answered me quietly.

I didn’t know what went on there, but Wes had been messed up over it. I’d heard my dad talking to Uncle Dean about it. They talked in hushed tones about the place, and whenever I appear, they stop talking about it. I’d been so damn curious about it and had asked around at school to see if anyone had heard of the docks. No one had though.

“What schools did you go to?” I asked him.

He just shook his head and continued to write slowly.

“The docks had school.”

“Like home school or something?”

“Yes.”

“My Uncle Bram used to say that anyone can learn just about anything, it all depends on the teacher.” I missed Uncle Bram. “You would have gotten along well with him, Wes. He was really laid back and knew how to have fun.”

Since Wes was talking to me a little bit about the docks, I decided to see if he’d talk a little more to me. I knew my dad was trying to get Wes to talk more about the docks, but he’s so quiet about it.

“Wes, what were you dreaming about last night?” I cautiously asked as I looked at him. His hand stopped moving on the paper, but he didn’t look up at me. “You were saying that you didn’t want to fight.” I paused, hoping he’d say something without me prompting him again. “Who were you going to fight?”

Wes was quiet, and then we were called in for dinner. He quickly gathered his books and papers and bolted for the house. I sighed and picked up my books before heading inside. Eventually, he’d talk.

* * *

I woke up again in the middle of the night to Wes mumbling about fighting. I sat up and listened to his broken murmurs for a while and went back to sleep when he calmed down. When it was just my dad in the kitchen and me, I told him about it again.

“Martin, please be patient with him, son.”

“I will. But they seem like really intense nightmares.” I cleared the table and looked at my dad. “What’s the docks, Dad?”

“I’m working on that, Martin.”

“What does it even matter?” Mason asked. “Why are you spending so much time with him, Martin?”

“He’s been on the streets, Mason. He’s trying to transition to school. He needs support and friends.”

Mason rolled his eyes as he left the room.

“Ignore Mason, son. I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately. I think it’s wonderful you have become friends with Wesley,” Dad said as he gave my shoulder a pat before refilling his coffee.

I went outside and found Wes by the creek. He had a bunch of rocks in his hands and was skipping rocks, or trying to at least.

“Hey, mate,” I said as I approached.

Wes turned and greeted me by holding his throwing hand up. I watched him for a few minutes and then picked up a few rocks and showed him how to do it.

“It’s in the wrist, mate.” I chucked a rock, and it glided and bounced beautifully over the water. “Kind of like a good wank,” I joked. “You know what I’m talking about, mate,” I teased.

Wes laughed really hard at that. Laughter from Wes was hard to come by so I decided to take advantage of his light-hearted mood. I pulled out my cell phone and stood close to him.

“Here…turn around, mate.”

I tugged on the sleeve of his shirt and guided him to turn so his back was to the creek. I put my arm around his shoulders and told him to look up at the cell phone that I held at a distance. I took our picture and then pulled the cell phone between us and showed him what I captured. He smiled at it and then looked up at me.

“Why’d you take a picture?” he asked.

“Because. We’re brothers and friends, mate.” I looked down at the picture. It was a great picture with the creek and trees in the background. Plus, we were both smiling. I could tell that he was still confused. “Wes, it’s what friends and family do. They take pictures of things. Things to remember.”

He smiled and turned to look at the creek behind him. Wes was considering what I was saying, but I think he was still lost on the idea.

“You want to remember me by the creek?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I shook my head at him and went inside. I uploaded my picture to my laptop and then printed two small copies of it and one regular sized 4x6. I wrote “Martin and Wes 2007 brothers” on the back of one of the small pictures, and then pinned the 4x6 on the wall above our dresser.

When Wes came into the room, I handed him one of the small pictures. He stopped and had a dead serious look on his face.

“What’s this?”

“Your memory is shit, mate.” He wouldn’t look up at me. “You didn’t have any pictures. Here’s your first. I wrote on the back.”

Wes flipped it over and raised his eyebrows as he read it.

“Brothers,” he whispered.

The guy looked like he was going to cry, so I tried to lighten the mood. I held out my hand to show him that I had one too.

“See, I have the same one. But I need you to write on the back of mine.” He stared at me, not comprehending. “I wrote on yours, and I want you to write on mine. We’ll have these forever and can look back on them and remember laughing by the creek and skipping rocks. Here, mate,” I handed Wes the pen.

He took it to our desk and flipped the photo over and set the pen on the paper.

“Wait, you should write it. Your handwriting is way better.”

“Wes, I want your handwriting on it.”

“Mine?”

I nodded, and he turned his head to look at the back of the picture. Finally, he began to write. I watched as his large handwriting revealed “Martin and Wes 2007,” and then he stopped and set the pen down before turning the picture over again. I reached around him and put the pen back in his hand then flipped the picture over that I gave to him with my writing on it as a sample.

“Brothers, Wes. You have to add that part. Your picture says ‘brothers’ and I want mine to also say that.”

He wrote brothers and handed me the picture, and then he watched me put it in my wallet. Wes stood and put his picture in his wallet too, and I smiled at him. I showed him the picture that I pinned to the wall above the dresser. This seemed to be a really big deal to him, and I was glad that I did it. Who knows, maybe he’d start to feel comfortable enough to talk to me about the docks.