The Gatekeepers

by Jen Lancaster

  “Thought that’d be the worst part. No. He doesn’t die. He isn’t killed on impact, just thrown real far.”

  I don’t share what happened next. They don’t need to hear that he was still alive. I ran to him, I fucking dug in and made it up the hill. I held his hand while I dialed 911. I’ll never forget the worst part—the worst part is that he still looked like him. He wasn’t all disfigured. He was just there, regular old handsome Braden, only spread out real weird by the road, like a broken doll. People aren’t supposed to bend that way.

  I need a second, so I take another sip of my Coke and I struggle to get it down.

  “We weren’t tight but I was there in the last minute when he needed a friend the most. I just wish I’d been sooner. I can’t forgive myself for not being there sooner. Working on it but not there yet.”

  Theo’s tears have come. Mallory pulls him into her arms and he weeps like a little boy. He looks and sounds and acts like a man, but as he cries, I realize he’s still just a kid.

  We’re all still just kids.

  “I ride in the ambulance with him and I’m still at the hospital an hour later when his mom finally shows up. He was already gone by then. She said she was having coffee with a friend and didn’t hear her phone at first. She’s in shock. She starts babbling, saying that Braden had been depressed because she and his father are having marital problems. They want the big D but neither one of them is willing to move out of the big house, so they’re just there, fighting all the time, like the War of the Roses.”

  “I had no idea,” Mallory says, more to herself than to anyone else. “I’ve been out of my head about the why. Why couldn’t he have told us? Why didn’t we figure it out?”

  I look around and say to Mr. Gorton. “I think I know why. And I’m glad you cleared the room. People don’t need to know about the DeRochers’ private business.”

  “What was happening?” Mallory demands.

  “She said his dad had a girlfriend. She told me Braden had been depressed about everything and withdrawn at home, but she figured it would pass. Assumed it was a phase and eventually he’d get used to the new reality of his parents dating other people in this fucked-up arrangement at the house, where everyone wanted to make sure they got every penny coming to them. She told me she and Mr. DeRocher were having affairs and that they’d been horrible to each other.”

  Thinking about this now, I’m pissed off. You don’t want to be married anymore? Then don’t be married. But, like, excuse yourself first before you begin this whole new life. Live under a different roof. Don’t drag your kids into your bullshit.

  A torrent of tears roll down Mallory’s face, but it’s like she doesn’t even notice them. Some splash onto my pants.

  Theo looks devastated. “I can’t believe it wasn’t an accident.”

  Mallory hugs him harder. “I’m so sorry, Theo.”

  I say, “I keep going back to that day in the ER, wondering if I should have reacted differently with his mom. I didn’t want to hear whatever else she had to say, but I couldn’t stop her from talking because she seemed like she needed to confess or whatever. I just sat there and listened. Like, maybe that was my penance for not being quicker. She kept saying again and again, ‘We thought it would pass. We thought he’d be okay.’”

  I take another long breath. “It didn’t pass. He wasn’t okay. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I want to be a Gatekeeper. I failed ’cause I wasn’t there for Braden.”

  “No, you didn’t fail,” Mallory insists. “Those of us in his life failed. The signs were there and we didn’t see them.”

  I say, “Then I think you’re with me when I say I’m not about failing again.”

  * * *

  It’s dark by the time we finish our meeting. We covered so much and I’m completely wiped, but hopeful. I feel like it’s possible for us to make a difference, not just here, but everywhere. I’ve been looking for a documentary subject but didn’t have enough passion about any topic before. I do now. I feel real strongly about this, about being a Gatekeeper.

  We’re putting a bunch of strategies in place to help everyone manage and deal. Not just monitoring for red flags, but fun stuff, too. Mr. Gorton gave us these suggestions from this Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky lady on how to be happy, like keeping gratitude journals and savoring positive experiences and connecting with friends.

  What’s most important is that Mr. Gorton’s talking to the school board this week to see about reducing the academic pressures, maybe decreasing our workloads, cutting down on homework. We can’t keep up this pace. It’s not possible. We’ve gotta relax the standards. Lessen everyone’s burdens, help us all chill a little bit. If we lower the bar across the board, we all benefit. The group feels like if everyone has less of a boot on our necks, the whole student body would change for the better.

  We figure maybe we can tell everyone they can stop trying to be so excellent.

  Maybe we can settle for just being real good.

  I exit the building via the door to the student parking lot, which is ringed in halogen lights. There’s only a couple of cars left in this massive parking area. Theo and Mallory are a few paces behind me.

  “Hey, this might be weird,” I say, trotting back to them. “I feel like we’re not done talking to each other, you know? Do you guys wanna, I don’t know, come to my house for dinner? Tonight’s pizza night, nothing fancy, but we’re getting Lou Malnati’s. We could order a salad for you, Mallory.”

  “Um, no,” she replies.

  “Cool. I’ll just see you guys at the next meeting.”

  I thought maybe we could all try being friends again despite our parents’ feud, but I guess not.

  Mallory stops me by tugging my sleeve. “Wait, I’m so sorry, Owen, please. I meant, no, you don’t have to order a salad for me. Theo and I absolutely want to come. I’d love to see your folks and pizza sounds freaking amazing.”

  Theo stands there with his mouth hanging open.

  To him, she says, “What? I’m starving. Let’s roll.”

  33

  SIMONE

  “Yo, Chastain in the Membrane, we need to talk.”

  I’m sorting through the books in my locker when Jasper sidles up to me. Huh, that’s odd. While he and I often chat in study hall, it’s always breezy. Sometimes we compare notes on favorite places or bands, but we’ve never covered anything that might cause him to say We need to talk, as though we’re confidantes, as though this is our norm.

  What would we even discuss?

  His ability to bend his arms while wearing four shirts concurrently, each one with its collar flipped just so?

  Sure, I’ve attended his parties and he’s driven Liam and me home in his Navigator a couple of times, but that’s hardly the basis for a private convo.

  “Um, okay. What’s the story?” I ask.

  He looks first over his left shoulder and then his right. “Not here. Follow me.” He pulls me into an empty chemistry lab. “We gotta talk about L-Money.”

  I’m suddenly regretting my curiosity.

  “What about Liam?” I ask.

  “I’m worried.”

  “Worried how? Worried in what respect?”

  “Worried about all the pills he’s taking,” Jasper says.

  I let out a whoosh of breath that turns into an inadvertent laugh. “You? You’re worried about Liam and medicinal anti-inflammatories? Jasper, I watched you carve a bong out of a butternut squash last month.”

  “And?”

  “Are you serious? You’re like the Stephen Hawking of getting high. You have a PhD in being shithoused. I can name five different illegal substances I’ve watched you ingest. You’re hardly one to judge, Jasper, no offense.”

  Why is it that everything about Jasper smacks of an ’80s film? From his smarmy,
ironic bow ties to his stupid nicknames to his penchant for loud pants. I’m half expecting this conversation to be a ruse because he’s secretly crushing on me, like how James Spader’s character was actually into Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink. Cordy says this kind of thing happens all the time. Nobody fancies you and then you get a boyfriend, and, wham! Suddenly you’re a hot property because you’re off the market. She suspects it’s the sex pheromones.

  While I’m flattered by Jasper’s attention, I’m not interested. I’m delighted to be LiMone. Liam’s everything I could ever want and then some.

  “Okay, number one, big difference between a couple of disco biscuits at a party and what our boy’s doing.” When he points at me, I notice his enormous gold signet ring that looks to be an antique. I’d tell him that was perfect for him, except I don’t like his attitude.

  He continues, “Number two, this is not about me—this is about L-Money. Number three, I’m telling you, he’s in deep. He’s in so deep that I had to cut him off a few weeks ago. His usage is seriously out of hand. Here’s the thing—I know him. I know him way better than you, in fact.”

  This comment rubs me entirely the wrong way. “Jealous much?”

  He scoffs at that. “Um, hardly. I’ve known him all my life and this isn’t who he is. The in too deep part is legit. If we’re all about being Gatekeepers, we’re supposed to be hypervigilant. This is me, going the full Batman and looking out for him.”

  Pfft. Batman. More like Bateman, as in Patrick Bateman, the preppy murderer from American Psycho.

  “Jasper, I need to go to class. Pardon me.” I try to ease myself out the door, but he steps in the way, putting up his arm to stop me.

  “Chastity Belt, you gotta listen to me.”

  “Chastity Belt? How about Simone?”

  “Whatever, I mean, Simone. He’s not taking his own script, Simone. You know that, right, Simone? When he tweaked his ACL this fall, I gave him some Vicodin. I deal mostly in herb and Adderall, but I have other sources. Okay, full disclosure, I mean my mom’s medicine cabinet. So, he and I talked about it and we figured if he went to the athletic trainers with his injury, he’d be benched. Didn’t want to risk it in case he ends up needing that soccer scholarship at University of Florida. They have a kick-ass program and he’d rock it down there.”

  I interrupt, “He says he’s not playing next year. Why would he even need a soccer scholarship?”

  “’Cause his dad’s a frigging psychopath who could pull his financial support at any time. On a scholarship, he can be his own man. Anyway, I figured he’d eventually see a doctor. When he didn’t, I scored some more, enough to get him through State. That was like, six or seven weeks ago. After the season ended, I stopped supplying him and he snuck into my parents’ room and cleaned out my mom’s whole stash.”

  First my parents and now Jasper? This is too much. I do not have time for this nonsense. “Please. You have parties all the time. How do you know it was him? There’s a hundred kids at your place on any given weekend. Could have been anyone.”

  “Because Storey-time Harper said after Liam was at his house last week, his dad’s script went missing. Same thing happened when he showed up at Finn Stapleton’s place on Thursday. Liam took all the hydrocodone the Stapler had left over when he had his wisdom teeth removed. Our boy has a problem, Simone. He has a problem and we need to help. I mean, his whole personality has changed and that is no bueno. We’ve got to, like, gatekeep him.”

  I truly don’t want to be in the middle of this, especially when it’s such a nonissue. Liam is fine. I know he’s fine. He’s fantastic, in fact. He’s not some bum, staggering around skid row, aching for a fix. My God, he’s a tenth of a grade point away from being the valedictorian! I wish everyone could just see that any changes in his personality or behavior are because he says he’s so much happier since we’re together, now that he has the dual burdens of Mallory and Princeton off his back.

  I don’t want to encourage Jasper, but I hate to argue, so I say, “Then maybe you should talk to him.”

  “Yeah, I did and now he’s not speaking to me. A couple of us held a mini-intervention with him over the weekend and he’s icing us all out.” Could that be true? We haven’t been sitting with that squad at lunch. “He’s ignoring Storey-time, he’s blowing off the Stapler, he’s off the grid for all of Wild, Wild Weston’s texts. No, wait, he replied to one of them, all User Not Found. C’mon man, oldest trick in the book.”

  “I’m sure he’s just busy—we’ve been spending loads of time together.”

  Jasper won’t be dissuaded. “At the Gatekeepers dealio last week, the Gorton Fisherman kept saying how drug use and suicidal behaviors were, like, interconnected. That doesn’t worry you?”

  Jasper’s stretching now. I counter, “You sell drugs, for Christ’s sake! If you cared so much, you’d stop dealing.”

  “I did. I’ve retired.”

  I roll my eyes. “Congratulations, did you get your gold watch?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He glances down at his Rolex. “I wear a Submariner. Gold is, like, no.”

  “When a person retires after so many years on the job, they receive a—never mind. My point is, if he had a problem, he’d talk to me.” I mean, we’re practically enmeshed. We’re LiMone. We’re one, in every sense. “And why is everyone up poor Liam’s arse anyway? Christ on a bike, he’s been in agony. Cut him a small break! Do you realize how hard it’s been for him to accomplish everything he’s done this year while in constant, throbbing pain? He says he’s managing his medicine and I believe him. He wouldn’t lie to me. Not now.”

  Jasper snorts. “No offense, Simone, but it sounds like you’re the only one who isn’t trying to help him.”

  I duck under his arm and scoot out the door before he can grab me.

  “Good bye, Jasper. This conversation is over.”

  “No, Simone,” he replies as I retreat. “It’s really not.”

  Owen

  1:17 PM

  yo, kent, we still on for ltr?

  34

  KENT

  “We’re rolling in five, four, three, two...”

  Owen’s been counting down, and on the one, he points to me. I open my mouth to say something, but I’m not sure what. From his spot behind the lens, he nods encouragingly. Nice, but not particularly useful as I’m still at a loss for words.

  “Sorry, Owen, I don’t know where to start,” I explain.

  “No worries, it’s not like we’re wasting tape, right?” He gestures toward his new Panasonic DVX 200 camera and grins at me. “Digital.”

  “Can you remind me of some of the questions again? Wait, is it okay for me to ask you stuff or will that ruin your take?”

  “That’s what editing’s for, bro. We’re cool.”

  I’m at Owen’s house, being interviewed for his documentary about us forming the Gatekeepers. Or, I would be giving an interview if I could wrap my mind around something to say. “This is harder than I thought,” I explain.

  “I hear that, totally feel you. With me, after Braden? I shut down hardcore. Had trouble getting out more than a word or two. I could not deal. The idea of having a whole conversation would just knock the wind out of me, so I retreated into myself. I was an island. Like, I know Simone wanted to talk, but I just couldn’t so I pushed her away. Pushed everyone away. I wanted to be inside my head where it was quiet. Wasn’t until the folks brought me to therapy that I even started having conversations again.”

  While Owen didn’t lose his best friend, we’ve both experienced a high level of trauma, so I ask him, “Does the guilt go away? Will it get better?”

  He considers my question and answers, “Yes and no. Mostly, it’ll get different. For now, you hold on to that, okay?”

  I nod. Because I feel like I should be saying
something, I tell him, “Your room isn’t what I remember. Like, your books are alphabetized and sorted by type. Don’t remember you being Mr. Dewey Decimal system. Didn’t we used to joke about using hip-waders to plow through all your mess?”

  I was shocked to see how neat and precise everything in here is, with each of his old medals and trophies arranged just so, and different quadrants of the room earmarked for every hobby/interest. We’re sitting in the filmmaking portion, but there are also separate areas for playing music, for doing homework, for reading, and for gaming. I somehow remember him living like a bear, with empty pizza boxes for end tables and stacks upon stacks of dirty clothes, but that’s not the case at all.

  “‘A place for everything and everything in its place.’ Or, ‘For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned,’” he replies. “That’s some Ben Franklin realness for you. I wasn’t always tidy like this. Sorta used to live like a bear.”

  I laugh. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Yeah, it was full-blown chaos up in here. But after Braden, I needed to feel like I had some measure of control, like I could look at one thing in my life and go, ‘Uh-huh, that’s exactly how it should be,’ so I started with my room. Felt like if I could get my surroundings straightened out, then maybe there was hope the rest of my life would follow suit. Honestly? I kinda let this place be a wreck for so long because I wanted my folks to pay attention.”

  I’m awed by Owen’s ability to be so open, so free about how he feels. I envy him. I now understand why Stephen used to fume about him in his speech class, not because Owen did anything wrong, but because I bet he showed the kind of confidence in his convictions that we lacked.

  I make a tentative stab at opening up. “Opposite problem over here. If you recall, mine are real focused on me, especially my mom. That’s where Stephen and I bonded. He and I used to tell these jokes...” I trail off, suddenly feeling like I’ve taken a cannonball to the gut when I realize this is one more thing he and I will never do together again. Dad was right. Here I was, feeling okay, and now I’m overtaken with another tsunami of grief.