Take Me to Church (boyxboyxboy)✅

Chapter 3

Jeremy Sawyer

Yesterday I missed the train after practice and was stuck at the train station until after 9:00. I didn't get home until 10:30 and my dad was on the verge of having a complete meltdown, ready to call the police or something crazy like that, even though I was eighteen. Ever since my older brother, Bobby, died two years ago, my parents were annoying as hell, overbearing and overprotective of me and my two younger sisters and kid brother. They were always calling and texting me if I was only thirty seconds late. I was lucky they let me leave the house at all without one of them with me.

It just so happened that practice lasted longer than usual and it wasn't like I could just say, "Hey, Coach, I gotta leave because the train leaves at 7:45 and my parents are waiting for me because they think I'm still twelve years old." It wasn't my fault I wasn't rich like the rest of the team. Everyone who could drive had their own car. My parents could barely afford the weekly train fare. As far as I knew, I was one of the only students in the school who even commuted by train.

Up until the eighth grade, I went to public school. Like Bobby, I went to Saint Ignatius Academy on a scholarship. If my younger sisters, Natalie and Piper, had been good at any sports, then maybe they could have had the opportunity to go to a fancy college prep school, too. But Natalie, who just turned fourteen, was into drama and dance, not really the sporty type. And Piper...well, she was Little Miss Emo, even at only eleven. She even convinced our mother to dye her hair a deep shade of purple. Anyway, she never played a sport. She was desperate for guitar lessons, though. As for my eight year old brother, Brandon...well, no one really knew what he was into yet. It didn't seem to be sports, though. He tried soccer when he was five, but he quickly gave up. Sports didn't seem to be his thing, either.

Once I left the public school system, I lost all the friends I once had. Even if I had kept them, I would never see them because I was gone from six in the morning until nearly nine o'clock at night everyday. The train ride was forty-five minutes one way. In the off season, I made it home around six, just in time for dinner. During the football season, I ate the bag lunch my mother prepared for me everyday. So, the only friends I had were the ones on the football team and you'd never catch any of them hanging out in my neighborhood. They all lived in fancy houses with their fancy cars and all that. It was pretty obvious I didn't have what everyone else had. I was lucky I had a phone. Even with that I didn't have the latest version.

Some say I was a better wide receiver than Bobby was, but I wasn't so sure and I wasn't one to brag or show off. My dad did that for me. Bobby was everything and I would forever live in his shadow. He was better looking and smarter than me and... well... he was just better at everything. He was also a really great guy, someone who would give the shirt off his back. He wasn't some stuck up stupid jock. He appreciated everyone and everything. No matter how great of a wide receiver I was, I could never live up to him. I didn't do justice to his memory.

I missed him. I missed him everyday. He was my best friend and I knew I'd never be able to replace him.

Bobby was just a well-rounded kind of guy. As for me...well...me...I hated being the center of attention. I was what some would consider shy and quiet, someone who more or less kept to himself. I was even awkward at times; certainly nothing like Bobby.

Bobby was the only one who knew the truth, the truth about me because I trusted him. He was the only person I trusted and that stupid ass drunk driver took his life at only twenty years old.

I promised myself I'd never drink. I hoped I could keep that promise.

In my eyes, my parents had too many kids and not enough money to support them. That was the bottom line. My dad was a cable installer, so if anyone needed a good deal on their cable, my dad was the man. My mother was a home health aide, taking care of sick and old people in their homes. She didn't make a hell of a lot of money. She deserved to make more if you asked me.