The Perfect Kid

Part 9

"So I was talking to this girl," Seth threw himself down onto his seat, "and she was like, really into me. I think. Yeah, TOTALLY into me." Sandra took a large chomp of her pizza from next to me as a way to mask her snickers, while I laughed openly. "Oh shove it you two. So I was talking to her at Katie's party, and she was wearing this adorable skirt. Like, I would wear that skirt if I flew that way. Seriously. So I told her what I thought of it, and it was going really well and-"

Seth was cut off by a sudden rush of people coming into the cafeteria, probably let out of a class late or something.

"So it was going really well and-" our little, four seater lunch table was engulfed by the roar of the crowd, people flowing around us on every side. Arms and hips and purses brushed against us as they passed.

"SO IT WAS GOING REALLY WELL AND-"

Someone's hand brushed along my shoulder and skimmed my chest. My jaw and torso tightened up. My mind was pure static, and my vision was a blur of Red, yellow, blue, yellow, green. Red, yellow, blue, yellow, green. Red yellow, blue, yellow, green. RED, YELLOW BLUE YELLOW GREEN. REDYELLOWBLUEYELLOWGREEN.

    When I resurfaced, I was panting. Some sleek haired, blood drenched senior I had never met was pinned under, me, and I realized with horror that I was the one holding him down. But for some reason, I couldn't force myself to get off of him. My fist was raised above my head in preparation to come down. I pulled it down slowly and examined this stranger hand attached to my arm; it was covered in blood from the guy's nose. My face was streaked in tears that I let lie there.

     I slowly closed the mouth that I had no memory of opening. I rolled off of him and sat on the cafeteria floor. I was shaking harder than I ever had before, the tremors rocking my body in consistent waves. People all around were staring at my with open mouths and undisguised panic. Even Sandra and Seth were glaring at me as if I were a monster.

     Silence engulfed us as the bloody senior ran off. Finally, Seth approached me and dropped down on his knees next to me.

“h-h-how you doing, man?” he shook.

I gasped for air and shook my head. “I-I beat him up? I did that to that guy?”

“Er...yeah?” Seth said, dumbfounded.

“I...I don’t remember it.” It was true, the last few minutes were nothing but blackness in my mind. After a brief pause, I tried wearily to make sense of things. “Do- do you know why my voice hurts.”

Seth went pale. “You don’t know? You were….well, screaming.”

“What was I saying?”

Seth looked over his shoulder at Sandra.

“Er...you were…” you could see the discomfort in his twitching face.

“‘Never again, stop it, I fucking told you, STOP’. Just those same words, again and again.” Sandra said coldly. As if things couldn't get more confusing for me, she whirled around and stalked off angrily.

     Then, the forever-slow faculty finally came to haul me off. On my way to the principal’s office, I caught sight of Caleb out of the corner of my eye. He was glaring at me, slowly shaking his head. I felt a pit drop into my stomach. Not him too.

I wound up with two weeks suspension, which was fairly good, considering I almost gave him a concussion. My parents, however, were not so kind. I was grounded for three months, no leaving the house other than school and practice.

     The two weeks off were actually quite nice. I didn’t have to do anything, which was a welcome relief. I could just sit in bed all day, and my parents weren’t even around to yell at me for it. The hard part was going back to school. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was glaring at me as I walked down the halls. I felt like an alien. Even Sandra and Seth refused to talk to me. I didn’t know about Caleb though, he was nowhere to be seen.

     Until one day, he was. I was jogging to get my books, already ten minutes late to class. He was sitting at the base of my locker, knees curled into his chest, shaking. He was ghostly pale, and his eyes looked hollow. He was drenched in sweat, and he refused to look up at me.I threw myself down onto my knees next to him.

“Oh god Caleb, what happened? What’s wrong?”

“I...I...I’m so sorry Dec.” whispered between convulsions.

“What?! For what?” I urged.

“I didn’t want you to do this on your own….I...wanted to be...there for you.” he was starting to fade in and out.

“Do what on my own, what are you talking about?”

He smiled faintly. “Did you know that it only takes two bottles of Tylenol to do the trick?” he promptly vomited and slumped over.

   I panicked. Nonononono. This couldn’t be happening. Caleb was my one tie to sanity. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him to no avail.

“CALEB!” I felt the tears spring to my eyes. I looked around and saw no one to notify. I took a deep breath and started to shriek. “HEEEEEEEEELP!!! SOMEONE! PLEASE, HE’S GOING TO DIE!!!”

     Classroom doors all around me started bolting open like wildfire students and teachers alike pouring into the hallway to see what was going on. Their eyes grew wide all at once as the took in the scene, Caleb and his sweat drenched clothes, the vomit, me; now racked with sobs. Mr. Juarez, the agriculture teacher, was the first to get to us.

“Declan, what happened?”

“He-Caleb-overdose-suicide-two bottles of Tylenol-” I gasped between sobs. Mr. Juarez started tending to Caleb, and I looked up one last time. Big mistake. The entire student body was staring at me with such a look of pity, it was overwhelming.

     I hid my face in my hands, unable to bare it. I let the sounds wash over me, not really taking them in. I purposely failed to register anything and everything that was happening around me. Thoughts kept running through my head like electrical shocks. Caleb’s going to die/suicide/all alone/nobody else gets it/redyellowblueyellowgreen.

     I was wrenched out of it be the feeling of someone’s arm slowly wrapping around me. I instantly tightened up, terrified. How in the world has He found out already?! Why is He here?! I looked up slowly, and almost cried out with relief to see that it was Seth.

     He looked deeply uncomfortable and at a loss for what to do, but I could see that he was trying. Unlike the rest of the students, it wasn’t pity in his eyes, but sympathy. His arm tightened and then loosened, Seth’s version of an awkward guy hug.

“I-er, I get that you guys are close. I’m so so sorry.” was all he could manage to say.

I felt the sobs bubbling up within me again, and I bit my lip and held my breath in an attempt to keep them down. Seth just looked at me.

“Declan, it’s okay. You can cry.”

That’s all it took for me to lose it. The sobs started back up again, worse this time than before. Seth just sat there and held me, keeping me in check. He let me burry me face in his shoulder, and I’m sure I must have gotten his shirt disgustingly tear stained and messed up. But he really didn’t seem to mind, and that, his actions right there, said everything that he could not.