Don't Hate the Player...Hate the Game(3)

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 pu**y!”

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.