BROKEN AND SCREWED(Broken_Part One)(74)

Despite all the other girls, the game was exhilarating to watch.
Jesse was in his prime. I understood why he’d been dubbed the Golden Boy. When he got the ball, he made the shot almost every time. After he sunk his sixth three-pointer in a row, the crowd was on their feet in hysteria.
Angie nudged me and bent down. She had to yell in my ear, “Your boy’s gotten better.”
I nodded with a foolish smile on my face. I couldn’t wipe it off. I didn’t want to. I was proud of him. He’d been unstoppable at our school, but she was right. He’d doubled his training and it paid off. That was when I realized why his father was making such a big deal out of him. Jesse was going places. A person would have to be a fool not to realize that; it was no wonder his father wanted everyone to remember whose son he was. More than once, the camera had zoomed in on Malcolm Hunt in the first row, sitting beside my parents. I heard the commentary and knew they were discussing what it meant to have the prestigious movie producer in the building and what kind of career that might mean for Grant West’s Golden Boy. One of the commentators remarked they only hoped to hold on to the Golden Boy until the inevitable professionals would take him away. He hoped that wouldn’t happen until Jesse finished college, but it rarely happened for an athlete of his caliber to remain until getting a degree.
As I watched the rest of the game, it was bittersweet. I had the same hopes as everyone else in the stands. They loved Jesse and they wanted him to stay with the team. And I knew Ethan would’ve wanted the same. He would’ve pushed Jesse to finish college, so because of that, I knew there was a strong probability that Jesse would last until the end of his four years.
I enjoyed the game, or I did until halftime. After the dance team did their show, the lights went back to normal and everyone left for the restroom or concessions. It was then that I looked up to the video screen and saw Ethan staring back at me.
I froze.
His eyes seemed to penetrate me as he smiled. Then the picture was replaced with another of him and Jesse together. Their arms were thrown around each other’s shoulders. They wore the same basketball uniform and both looked so happy. Then a third picture came over the screen, this one was of Ethan and his prom date. He was tall and proud in a black tuxedo as she gave the camera a forced smile in her green dress. Then it was him at graduation. He wore his black robe, with his cap and gown in hand. He had flipped the camera off with his middle finger. A few people laughed at that image.
Another was of him and our parents, but more and more pictures showed him and Jesse together. As the slideshow continued, a haunting melody came across the speakers. Then the stadium quieted as so many were pulled into the slideshow.
Angie’s hand found mine and gripped tight.
I tasted something wet on my lips and realized there were tears on my cheeks. I’d been crying and I hadn’t known it.
The images never seemed to stop. There were so many. Ethan, Ethan and Jesse, Ethan and their other friends, more of Ethan and our parents, Ethan and his girlfriend. I gasped when there was one with me. I couldn’t believe my parents had considered that image, but it felt right to see it. More tears burst forth from me. The picture was my last morning with him. It was my birthday, his graduation day, and he had smeared my birthday cake all over me. I was trying to pull away from him as his hand reached past my arms with more cake.
A whimper left me and I looked down. I couldn’t see anymore, but a force that wasn’t mine led my eyes back. I couldn’t look away now. Image after image. All of them were of Ethan and the life he had led. He looked happy in every photograph. He looked content.
Oh god. Why did he die? Why was it him?
Torment and agony sliced through me, back and forth, back and forth. It was as if someone took a butcher knife to me. Each picture, each memory, was another stab deep to my gut. I wanted to bowl over. I wanted to cry until I had nothing left in me. It was too much pain. I couldn’t handle any more.