Your Friend, Jordan

Three

The walk home at the end of the day was silent, only the noise of the four of us scraping and dragging our feet could be heard while our sneakers made harsh contact with the cement. It was as if we were in a daze, like I was that morning, and we didn't know what to say. No words came to my mind at least, none that I wanted to share while the others kept their thoughts to themselves as well.

"You know, he's probably not missing. Maybe they are just making this into a bigger deal than it actually is. I mean, it's Jordan. He's probably still hungover from the party last night, and hanging out at another friend's place or something," Daniel said as he broke the silence, putting his two cents in as we listened, and the others seemed to agree with that.

"Yeah. Hasn't he done this before? Remember last year when we had that crazy party after our exams? He was gone for a few days, and suddenly he showed back up as if nothing had happened at all."

"Oh yeah, I remember that. It turned out he was crashing at his friend Billy's place, the guy from Hillridge. He came back a few days later asking what the big fuss was all about. That was pretty good." Ethan laughed slightly as he thought back to that time the year before, while the memory jumped back into my head as well.

"What a guy. Only he would disappear for a few days and then show up like he was never gone. That's probably what happened this time. He probably didn't want his old man to give him shit for drinking again, so he's just hanging out at Billy's, or that guy Steve's place for a few days, until he gets over his hangover. I'm assuming if he did show up to the party last night, he got pretty damn drunk." The three guys laughed as they brought up moments from the past, and I tried to crack a smile too while I thought back to the years before.

Yep, that was Jordan for you. He was the wildest one in our group; always the one partying the hardest, seemed to have the most friends that didn't go to our school, always ended up with the most chicks falling for him, and he seemed to always do the dumbest things ever. He could be reckless sometimes, just plain stupid, but we loved him for it. Well, I guess the other guys loved him for it, and I used to as well, but not so much anymore.

Although, as much as Jordan was rather wild and crazy at times, he hadn't always been like that. He wasn't like that so much when it used to be just me and him, before we met the three other guys. And he wasn't the wild child before when his mother was around either, it seemed she was the anchor that kept him steady and calm. But that all changed when she got struck by that drunk driver years ago, when we were in the eighth grade, and that had seemed to be his breaking point. I had never seen Jordan so upset, so heartbroken or completely destroyed as he was at that moment, those were very dark months for him following her death. Of course, like any best friend, I was there for him during those times; and I had to admit even for me, his dark times had become mine as well. I could feel his pain, his anger, his hurt and guilt for the whole situation. It hurt me to see my friend, my brother like that, I wished at those moments I could take that pain away from him. But I felt hopeless and lost, for I knew there was nothing I could do besides be there for him, and let my shoulder be his to cry on. Yeah, those were hard times, although it was the hard times that made me realize how close we really were, how loyal and how much we cared for one another. It seemed as if I would have never understood our close friendship if we didn't go through those times together, and they seemed to only make us stronger.

"Hey James, you're being awful quiet. What do you thinks going on with him?" Ethan asked after a long pause of silence took over our group again, and I was shot back into the moment right now in the present. I felt my heart speed up the moment that question was asked for some reason, although the question wasn't anything bad or scary, it wasn't like they asked about the thing that happened weeks earlier. Swallowing hard, I shrugged as the three guys stared at me, waiting for my answer as I tried to waste time kicking rocks on the cemented ground.