Chained To Your Heart (IN EDITING)

Chapter 2 - Jake Reynolds

I groggily walk zombie-like to get ready. And I thought it was hard to wake up on the first day of school.

"Jake!" My mother calls when I make my way downstairs. "Give me a kiss and a hug goodbye!"

"Mom, no," I plead. But she looks so disappointed so I wrap my arms around her frail frame anyways.

"Bye sweetie! Have fun on your last second day of high school!" She blows me kisses as I drive away in my old 1992 Camry. Yesterday, she wished me luck on my last first day of high school. I hope she doesn’t do this every day.

 When I arrive at the parking lot, I'm careful to avoid the peachy-pink convertible I dented yesterday.

"Hey Jake!" My friend Will greets me. He brushes his shaggy brown hair out of his face.

"Hey." I say back. I lock my car (not that there’s anything valuable in there to take anyways) and walk over to him.

"So how was detention yesterday?" Will jokes.

"Boring. But I don't want to tell my mom. She'd probably go into hysterics." We both laugh as we walk into Thomas Jefferson High School. Will has known my mom for a long time and knows how high strung she is.

“I didn’t even do anything, though." I continue. "I was just telling Kelly Parker to stop texting her belligerent boyfriend and I get detention! Mrs. Camble should have thanked me." I rant.

"Don’t to the crime if you can’t do the time." Will says. I roll my eyes and we both go our separate ways to our classes. I'm lucky the only class I have with Kelly is basic foods. All my real classes are AP and it’s not like Kelly would ever be expected to show up in any of those kinds of classes. Just then, Kelly and Chase walk in together hand in hand. She’s glued to his side. Soon Mrs. Camble comes and orders us to our seats. Kelly looks annoyed as she takes her place next to me.

"I'm not too thrilled to have to sit next to you either but you don't have to look so annoyed." I whisper to her. It's the truth too. If I had a choice of where I sat it definitely wouldn’t be next to her. None of my friends like her. Everyone knows how mean she and Jessica Gray are. Kelly ignores me. So I return to listening intently to Mrs. Camble. I don’t really know why I signed up for this class. I kind of thought it would be more about food and cooking. But so far, all we’ve done is listened to Mrs. Camble lecture us about safety rules and stuff like that. I notice Kelly is texting again. Only, this time I have enough sense to leave her alone. After the hour is over, I find Will and we walk to calculus together.

"Hey," Will says, falling into step next to me.

"What's up?" I ask him. He's a little unfocused so I know something's up.

"What do you think of Jordan Montero?" He says, out of the blue. I shrug. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting him to say.

"You mean Rainey’s little sister?" I ask. He nods. Rainy sits at our table at lunch. She's a friend of one of Will and my friends so I don't know her or her sister very well.

"I don't know. She's kind of cute I guess." I say. Will nods in agreement. "Why?" I ask.

"I don't know. Nothing really." He says and I drop it. Despite us being best friends, we both tend to ignore any real topics.

All during calculus, I can't focus. I barely got any sleep last night. I had piles upon piles of homework.

"Jake?" Mr. Zikes calls on me. I look up from my blank notebook. On the board is a problem he probably expects me to solve.

"Um, yes?" I say to buy myself time. I stare at the problem on the board and try and do it in my head before he replies.

"The answer, Mr. Reynolds?" Mr. Zikes looks impatient as he strokes his dark brown go-t. 

"Ah, I don't know." I admit. Mr. Zikes looks unimpressed as he moves on and calls on another student. I take a deep breath and force myself to work hard for the next hour. And the next. And the next. All throughout to the end of the day. Then, I’m on my way to the hospital. The nurses know me and say hello as I walk through the halls.

“Hey Lisa. How are you today?” I ask one of the nurses. The old lady smiles sweetly and replies, “Wonderful.” I turn a corner and find my dad’s room.

"Jake," My father smiles as he greets me. I smile too. My mom says I look like him. I remember how much I used to take pride in that.

"How's school going, son?" He says, looking genuinely interested in my schoolwork. It makes me want to laugh. Even at a time like this, he can make small talk.

"It's going pretty good." I tell him. I don't bring up the detention. He's got enough to worry about. He probably wouldn’t believe me anyways.

"That's wonderful! Any cute girls?" He asks, joking. I laugh, but behind the laugh I think, Will my dad even live to be at my wedding? Will he even get to see his grandchildren?

"Um, no girlfriend yet, dad." I say, laughing for my dad’s sake.

"Alright. So what else is new? How's your mother?" he says. I pull a chair up to his bed.

"Busy as ever." I say. Dad sighs. I can tell he worries about her.

"Tell her she doesn't have to work so much,” He says. I nod. We both know that she’s only working double shifts at the office to pay his medical bills. His cancer isn’t just killing him. I can tell it’s killing my mom too. She’s always working so hard and seeing him like this, I can tell a little part of her dies with him.

"Will do," I say avoiding eye contact. A nurse comes in to bring him a dinner of mashed potatoes, chicken, water, and Jell-O. "Hey, you got blue Jell-O this time!" I announce to lighten the mood. He laughs. 

"Yesterday I got orange." He says, wrinkling his nose. He's not a fan of citrus. I look away as he starts coughing.

"Sorry I couldn't come. It's just that-" I start but he stops me.

"I understand. It was the first day of school. You need to focus on-" He’s interrupted himself with another fit of coughing. “-schoolwork!" He smiles. I watch him scoop up a spoonful of blue Jell-O. He doesn’t touch any of his other foods. After his meal, his eyes start to droop. I hadn't noticed before but the dark circles under his eyes have gotten worse. 

"So, how's Lenny?" He asks about our lazy yellow lab. He's so old he mostly sleeps all day. My father yawns and fights to keep his eyes open.

"Lenny's the same as ever. But you need to sleep. It's only making you feel worse, I can tell." I say getting up. He sighs, knowing I'm right. He lies back down on his bed and I pull the tray away and onto the side table. I can't tell if is he's asleep yet but I'm sure to keep quiet anyways. 

I whisper, "Goodbye, dad. See you tomorrow." Then I slowly close the door and head home.