by Ashey, Katie
Without a word between us, I got up and led her out of the auditorium. Alex followed close on my heels. We stood out into the hallway. Mr. Elliot saw the state Avery was in. He motioned us inside the counseling suite across the hall.
Presley Patterson was already inside with several of her friends. Presley was Avery’s rival in everything from popularity to, most importantly, Jake. But it wasn’t her personality that necessarily made her popular or notorious at Creekview. It was the fact she slept around.
Through her tears, Avery shot Presley one of her icy stares. In retaliation, Presley jerked her chin up and wiped the tears from her blue eyes.
I steered Avery over to one of the chairs. The minute she sat down she buried her head on the table and began sobbing uncontrollably. Her tiny frame shook so hard I was afraid she might break under the strain. It wasn’t long before an eerie and unnerving chorus of wailing echoed off the walls of the room. As the lone guys in the room, Alex and I glanced at each other. Neither one of us really knew what to do.
We stared helplessly at Mr. Santos, the head counselor, but he was useless. He’d spent years immersed in the business side of high school counseling. Where Little Johnny was going to college and what Little Susie needed on her SAT to get into Brown. I think the man was dried up of any shred of psychobabble spin. He did manage to pat Avery on the back and say, “There, there, honey.”
Geez, what an asshat!
At that moment, the most random memory I could fathom wormed its way into my mind, cloaking me with its intensity. When I was ten, I’d gone on a camping trip with Jake and his family. We’d picnicked by some waterfalls, and after lunch, we started messing around in the water. Somehow I managed to step in a mammoth hole in the rocks. Within seconds, I got tangled up in some willowy weeds, and I couldn’t break free of their viselike grip.
When I realized I was trapped and would likely drown, panic crept from my chest up through my throat. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I could see sunlight breaking through the surface of the water as I flailed and jerked around.
Suddenly, an arm grabbed hold of my t-shirt and pulled me forward. Coughing and sputtering, I tried clearing my eyes to see my savior while expecting nothing short of miraculous like Jesus himself standing there with arms outstretched.
But it was just Jake.
He was ashen and trembling worse than me. As I sputtered and vomited up water, he did something so unexpected I almost fell back in the water.
He hugged me. Not just a quick, “Hey, man, you okay?” kinda hug. It was a full on bear hug that took my breath. “Jake,” I’d wheezed. “Can’t breathe!”
When he’d released me, there were tears in his eyes. “I-I thought you were dead.” He shook his head wildly back and forth. “Don’t you EVER do that to me again!”
I was so taken back by his emotion that I could only nod my head. At the sound of voices behind us, he quickly wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. “If you tell anyone I was crying, I’ll beat the shit outta you!” he’d warned.
Since I knew Jake would do it, I’d kept silent all these years. I’d never told anyone.
But now closed in that tiny room with the girls all sobbing around me, I felt the same panic of impending death. I was under the surface of the water again, and I couldn’t breathe. Even when I tried sucking in air, my chest constricted, and I felt like I was slowly suffocating. My eyes honed in on the door—my one escape from the churning sea of grief and loss enveloping me.
Without another thought, I bolted from my seat. I ignored my name being called over and over as I sprinted out the office and then burst through the double doors leading out of the school. I didn’t stop until I ran around the side of the building. I gulped in the air the same way as if I were breaking the surface of water. I bent double, trying to calm myself of the emotions coursing through me. My hands on my knees trembled against my jeans, and I realized then my entire boy was jerking all over. Jesus, Noah would you get a grip? I could almost hear Jake’s voice echoing through my head. “Dude, quit acting like a total pussy!”
As I stood there trying desperately to steady myself, a realization washed over me. This time I didn’t bother fighting the bile rising in my throat. Instead, I heaved the entire contents of the cafeteria’s shitty lunch onto the emerald grass. Over and over again, I threw up as if I were trying to purge myself of the dark feelings overtaking me.
Jake is dead.
My best friend is dead.
I was never going to drink beers with him around a bonfire down by the lake or scope out chicks at the mall. We weren’t going to share a dorm room together at Georgia Tech like we’d planned or rush the fraternity that his brother and some of my uncles had been in.
Not only was he dead, but he’d been blown up on his grandfather’s tractor. I mean, what the hell? Car accidents, accidental shootings, illness—I could get that, but to be blown up on your grandfather’s tractor? My mind just couldn’t comprehend that. I shook my head as I thought of what Jake would’ve said about the situation. “Hey man, you know I always meant to go out in a blaze of glory! And damn if I really didn’t!”
No, no, no. This couldn’t be real. It all had to be just a bad dream. Pinching my arm, I willed myself to wake up and to start the day all over again. But it didn’t work. In another act of desperation, I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket and began furiously texting.
Jake?
Come on, Jake! Answer me you sorry fucker!
Tell me you being dead is just a joke you’re pulling to keep from getting in trouble for skipping out today.
Please Jake…
When no reply came, I sank to my knees on the grass. Oh God, it was really true. Jake was dead. He was gone and never, ever coming back again. Before I realized it, I was crying. Not just silent tears streaking down my cheek, but sobbing hysterically. Gut wrenching sobs that caused my body to spasm. The harder I tried to stop, the harder the sobs came. It was a crazy, manic feeling not to be able to control my emotions. I hadn’t cried in years—at least not when I was sober. When I was drunk, I usually cried about old girlfriends. The last time I’d cried like this was when I was fifteen and my grandfather, who had been a father to me, died.
Suck it up, dickweed! A voice repeated over and over in my head. In a snot-filled finish, I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and shook my head. Quickly, I threw a panicked glance over my shoulder, hoping I was safe where no one could see me.
I was wrong.
Cold fear washed over me as Avery came striding out the double doors. Dammit, I couldn’t let her see me like this—a blubbering pansy with tear streaked cheeks down on his knees in the grass. Men were supposed to control their emotions—be strong and comfort chicks when they were upset.
In a fluid movement, I pulled myself to my feet and sprinted around the side of the building. I could hear Avery calling my voice, but once again, I ignored her. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I knew it was Alex or one of the other guys asking where the fuck I was. But I didn’t care. I had to get away. I was no good to myself or anyone else at that moment.
Unless I was with Jake, I usually played by all the rules. But now that he was gone, I just didn’t give a shit, so I bypassed the front office and headed straight for the parking lot. When I slid across the scorching seats of my Jeep, I tried stilling my erratic breaths.
Jake is dead. Jake is dead. Jake is dead. Jake is dead….
As that thought played over and over in my mind, I brought a shaky hand to the steering ignition and cranked up. Squealing out of my parking spot, all I could think of was getting away. Where I was going, I didn’t know or where I could go to let go of the suffocating pain, I didn’t know.
I just knew I had to try.
Chapter Two
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking in the thicket of woods behind my house. I didn’t want anyone seeing me in my manic state. I cried, I screamed, I kicked down a dead tree, and I laughed as old random memories flickered through
my mind. I don’t know why I thought I could escape to the woods and leave my grief behind as easily as stripping off my clothes of something like that. Suffocating and somber, it hung around me—a silent specter taunting and goading me. It draped over me like a heavy coat, weighing me down. The usually easy trek up the small hills felt like trudging through thick mud. My chest constricted so tightly every breath was agonizing. While over and over in my mind, the words echoed Jake is dead. Jake is dead. Jake is dead.
When I finally swept through the back door shortly before six, I found my mom pacing around in the kitchen. She was out of her usual blue or green scrubs along with her pristine white doctor’s coat. Instead, she wore one of her dark and somber “funeral dresses”. With her long, dark hair swept back in a twist, it made her blue eyes, which were sparkling with tears, stand out. I’d barely made it two more steps before she leapt at me, wrapping her arms around me. Her wet cheeks dampened my shirt, and I knew then she had been crying for a long time. “Oh Noah, when I heard, all I could think about was what if it had been you. Just the thought of losing you…” her voice choked off with her sobs.
“I know,” I croaked, although I wasn’t sure I did. Patting her back absentmindedly, I tried in my own fumbling way to comfort her.
“Thank God, you’re all right.” She then began rubbing comforting circles over my back just like she had done my entire life when I was hurt physically or emotionally. “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she murmured over and over in my ear.
I pushed myself away from her, giving her skeptical look. “Oh, come on, Mom. You know you hated Jake.”
“That’s not true!” she protested.
I cocked one eyebrow at her. “Really?”
“Okay, maybe I disliked what he became later in life, but I never hated him,” she admitted.
I knew that was probably closer to the truth. She hated that Jake was a manwhoring player because it hit too close to home with her when it came to my father.
Mom exhaled a sad, defeated sigh. “I like to think of Jake when he was younger—that mischievous little boy with the crooked grin.” A hesitant smile played on the corners of her lips. “Remember when you guys were little how he always acted like Eddie Haskell from those old Leave it to Beaver reruns whenever he was around me?”
I couldn’t help laughing. Before he hit puberty, Jake was forever helping her carry in groceries, straightening up the kitchen, or telling her she looked pretty or smelled nice. Basically, he hung on to her every word like a lovesick puppy.
But then the way my mother felt about Jake began to change when we got to high school. It was then that that Jake informed me my mom was a MILF. I was well acquainted with the term from the movie American Pie. The moment the words left his lips I almost punched his face in. So what if it’s a well-known fact my mother is beautiful? She’s a dead ringer for the late Elizabeth Taylor. So much so, that all her friends nicknamed her Liz, which wasn’t too far off since her middle name was Elizabeth. Growing up, I never got the analogy since my only frame of reference was the old chick in the really airbrushed White Diamonds perfume commercials. My mom’s mom, or Grammy as I call her, swears when I was three, I saw one of Elizabeth’s earliest movies, National Velvet, on TV and cried, “Mommy!”
It wouldn’t have mattered to me if she looked just like Angelina Jolie cause no self-respecting male wants to acknowledge the fact their mom is hot. It’s freakin’ sick and warped.
Mom snapped me out of my thoughts. “Did you hear me, Noah?”
“Huh?”
“I spoke with Jake’s mom earlier while you were gone to the woods. She wanted you to come over tonight.”
Shit. That explained Mom’s mourning attire. Damn, the last thing on earth I wanted to do was go over to Jake’s house and face his parents.
Mom noticed my hesitation. She ran her hand over my cheek. “It would mean a lot to Mrs. Nelson, Noah.”
I nodded. “I’ll go change.”
“When you get done, come help me load the car, okay?” She motioned towards the table that was loaded down with food for the Nelson’s.
“Whatever,” I replied, and then pounded up the stairs.
I knew that deep down my mom hated Jake because he reminded her too much of my father. Though I guess sperm donor would be a better way of describing my dear old dad. You see, my mom got pregnant with me when she was seventeen. It was a major shock to everyone considering my mom was the angel of the family. As the only girl with five brothers what the hell could you possibly get away with anyway?
My uncles were legendary at Creekview High School. They were known as the Mighty M Sullivan’s because of their athletic ability. There wasn’t a sport there they didn’t dominate, and surprisingly, they each had one that was their specialty. Mark was a Golden Glove in baseball, Mike was the quarterback of the football team, Matt was an all-state guard in basketball, Mitch was a wrestler, and Mason was lighting in track.
By the time my mom entered high school, their reputation was enough to steer every horny asshole away from her. Once any panty chaser found out she was Maggie Sullivan, they ran the other way with their tail between their legs. But it really didn’t matter to my mom because she was the ultimate goody girl, Straight A’s, National Honors Society, Academic Team—any brainiac thing, she did it because she had her eye set on medical school and becoming a doctor.
Like Jake, Joe Preston was a major player A real smooth operator who weaseled himself into the good graces of all my uncles and my grandparents and made the entire family believe he walked on water. He was my Uncle Mark’s best friend all through high school, and then they both ended up at the University of Georgia with a full ride in baseball.
By senior year, Joe and my Uncle Mike were both being scouted by major league teams. Because his family wasn’t the lovey dovey type that my mom’s was, Joe spent occasional holidays at the house—a Thanksgiving, an Easter, an odd weekend here or there. But this time, he spent the entire month of August at my grandparents’ cabin in the mountains.
Now my mother’s never told me any of this. All my information has come from my uncles or older cousins over the years. The way they told the story read like some NC-17 rated fairy tale: oversexed wolf charms innocent lamb resulting in an unexpected pregnancy.
I guess it goes without saying that at twenty-one with a major league career ahead of him filled with money, fast cars, parties and women my dad wasn’t ready to settle down. He bolted, and basically he’s never looked back.
Sometimes I personally think it’s easier for some kids to have a dead-beat dad. Yeah, the pain is there, but you can push it to the backburner cause you don’t see the asshole much. For me, my douchebag dad was shoved in my face constantly. The worst was April through October—the months of the major league baseball season. I had to see and hear my father’s stats constantly. Even now at thirty-eight, he’s still one of the most sought after pitchers in the National League. He’s currently playing for the San Diego Padres, but he’s been with some of the biggies all over the country.
So for a while my mom was the black sheep of the family. A kind of conspicuous black sheep who had been the Salutatorian of her graduating class and was slated to start medical school. But she didn’t remain that way for long for two reasons. One was that my Uncle Matt went on a mission trip to Brazil, met a girl, and got married all within eight weeks. To my very Southern, old-school family, marrying a foreigner was some pretty heavy shit. But just like my mom, they got over it. That’s where my cousin, Alex, comes in, or I guess I should say Alejandro Matthew Sullivan. Seriously, there’s nothing like a Brazilian Irishman! Of course, Alex has always been more of a brother to me than just a cousin. We didn’t go to the same elementary or middle schools, but luckily by the time high school rolled around, we were back together. Jake took an instant liking to Alex, and during the summers, we were a lot like the Three Musketeers hanging out together.
The other reason was my mom worked her ass off to make her dream of becomi
ng a doctor a reality. Fortunately for her, one of the best medical schools in the country, Emory University, was practically in her backyard. Because of her love of babies, she became an OB/GYN, and she was now part of one of the biggest practices in town.
My eyes rolled towards the ceiling as I thought about how Jake always found Mom’s profession fascinating. Whenever I would shrug my shoulders and be like, “So?”
“Dude,” he’d say. “Don’t you get the beauty of it? She looks at tits and ass all day long!”
Yeah, that was Jake.
At the thought of him, the burning ache I was growing accustomed to seared its way through my chest like bad heartburn after an all-night beer and pizza binge. He wouldn’t be making any more pervy comments about my mom being a MILF or that she specialized in looking at vaginas.
Because he was dead.
I shook my head wildly back and forth so fast I thought I might get whiplash. No, I couldn’t start with the bullshit emotions again. I had to keep it together, especially now that Mom was dragging me over to Jake’s house. Just the thought of being over there without Jake sent a shiver down my spine. There hadn’t been a single time in my life that I’d been there without him.
With a heavy sigh, I dragged myself over to the closet. Swinging open the door, I stepped inside and scanned the racks. I knew Mom wanted me looking nice and respectable, so I grabbed a pair of khaki pants and a nice blue button down shirt. After I slicked my usually out-of-control dark hair back, I hurried back downstairs and met my mom in the kitchen.
Rolling a silver tube of lipstick across her lips, she nodded in approval at the sight of me. “You always look so handsome in blue,” she mused. “It brings out those beautiful blue eyes.”