Slammed (Slammed #1)(51)

"This isn't a joke," he says. "This is a big deal." He reaches over and takes something out of his drawer and swiftly walks to where we're sitting in the back of the room. He smacks a picture down on the crack where the edges of our desks meet and flips it over. It's a picture of Caulder.

He points his finger to the picture as he says, "This boy. This boy is a big deal."

He backs up a step and grabs a desk and turns it around to face us as he sits down.

"I don't think we're following you, Will," I say as I look at Eddie. She shakes her head in agreement. "What's Caulder got to do with what Eddie knows?"

He takes a deep breath as he leans across his desk and picks the picture back up. I can tell by the look in his eyes that his recollection is unpleasant. He lays the picture down on the desk and leans back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest.

"He was with them…when it happened. He watched them die."

I suck in a breath. Eddie and I give him respectful silence as we wait for him to continue. I'm beginning to feel this big.

"They said it was a miracle he survived. The car was totaled. When the first person came on the scene, Caulder was still buckled up in what was left of the backseat. He was screaming my mom's name, trying to get her to turn around. For five minutes he had to sit there alone and watch as they died."

Will clears his throat. Eddie reaches under the table and grabs my hand and squeezes it. Neither of us says a word.

"I sat in the hospital with him while he recovered for six days. Never left his side-not even for their funeral. When my grandparents came to pick him up and take him home with them, he cried. He didn't want to go. He wanted to stay with me. He begged me to take him back to campus with me. I didn't have a job, I didn't have insurance. I was nineteen. I didn't know the first thing about raising a kid…so I let them take him."

Will stands up and walks to the window. He doesn't say anything for a while as he watches the parking lot slowly empty. His hand goes to his face and it looks like he’s wiping at his eyes. If Eddie wasn't in here right now, I would hug him.

He eventually turns to face us again. "Caulder hated me. He was so mad at me he wouldn't return my calls for days. It was in the middle of a football game when I started to question the choice I made. I was studying the football in my hands, running my fingers over the pigskin, across the letters of the brand name printed on the side. This elongated spheroid shaped ball that didn't even weigh a whole pound. I was choosing this ridiculous ball of leather in my hands over my own flesh and blood. I was putting myself, my girlfriend, my scholarship-I was putting everything before this little boy that I loved more than anything in the world.

"I dropped the football and walked right off the field. I got to my grandparent's house at two in the morning and grabbed Caulder right out of bed. I brought him home that night. They begged me not to do it. Said it would be too hard on me and that I wouldn't be able to give him what he needed. I knew they were wrong. I knew all Caulder really needed-was me."

He turns and slowly walks back to the desk in front of us and places his hands on the back of it. He looks at both of us, tears streaming down our faces.

"I've spent the last two years of my life trying to convince myself that I made the right decision for him. So my job? My career? This life I'm trying to build for this little boy? It is a big deal. It's a very big deal to me."

He calmly returns the desk to its place in the aisle and walks back to the front of his room, grabs his things and leaves.

Eddie gets up and walks to Will's desk and grabs a box of tissues. She brings the box and slumps back down in her seat. I pull out a tissue as we both wipe at our eyes.

"God, Layken. How do you do it?" she says.

She blows her nose and grabs another tissue out of the box.

"How do I do what?" I sniff as I continue to wipe the tears from my eyes.

"How do you not fall in love with him?"

The tears begin flowing just as quickly as they were ceasing. I grab yet another tissue. "I don't not fall in love with him. I don't not fall in love with him a lot!"

She laughs and squeezes my hand as we willingly sit out our much deserved detentions.

14.

“And I know you need me in the next room over

But I am stuck in here all paralyzed.”

-The Avett Brothers, 10,000 words

Chapter Fourteen

I've never had sex before. I came really close once, but chickened out at the last minute. My longest relationship was with a boy I met right before I turned seventeen.

Kerris had a brother who was in college and he brought a friend home with him during Spring Break two summers ago. His name was Seth and he was eighteen. I thought I loved him. I think I really just loved having a boyfriend. He attended the University of Texas, which was a good four hour drive away.

We had been together for about six months. We talked on the phone and online a lot. I was seventeen at this point and we had discussed it plenty, so I decided I was ready to have sex with him. I had a midnight curfew that night so he rented a hotel room and we told my mother we were going to the movie theater.

When we got to the hotel, my hands were shaking. I knew I had changed my mind but was too scared to tell him. He had put so much effort into everything. He even brought his own sheets and blankets from home so it would feel more intimate.