Your Friend, Jordan

Ten

Present..

Something was different today. I felt it the moment I woke up. Things just had, changed, in some way. I couldn't explain how, or why it felt this way, it just did. Did I have some type of weird dream that I couldn't remember? Was that why everything felt off?

Trying to ignore the weird feeling I received this morning, I ran my fingers through my hair, as I stepped down the stairs and tried to style my bedhead. I wasn't having a great day with it, as random pieces of my usually dark, straight hair spiked out in different directions, although I didn't care too much.

I was already in a rush to get out the door, for I overslept again. But I couldn't help it, I couldn't sleep at all the night earlier. My mind running in all different directions, constantly awake as I thought back to the conversation the other day. The conversation with the police, when they had showed up to my house. Their questions continuously popping up in my head, ones surrounding the idea that Jordan could have in fact hurt himself, and was injured somewhere else. The faint memories sliding into my head as well, ones from weeks and months earlier. He couldn't have been that depressed, right? He couldn't have been hurting that much to kill himself, right? I'm his best friend—or was—shouldn't I have seen that?

By the time I had finally fallen asleep, I had to be up in an hour anyways. But I didn't care, I fell asleep anyways, and was woken up by my mother. I must have completely missed my alarmed, or maybe I hadn't set one the night before at all. I wasn't sure. But at this point, I didn't really care if I was late, or if I showed up at all. It seemed I didn't care about a lot of things lately. Things just didn't seem as important as they used to be. To me, at least.

Turning the corner, my parents stood up from their chairs instantly, and I was taken aback. Even though my parents had been off work for a few weeks, it still caught me off guard to walk into the kitchen or anywhere in the house and see them here. Just figuring I had the house to myself, I was stunned for only a second when I saw them first thing in the morning, but then the realization soon came to me.

  They both stared at me with concern, and with hurt as their faces frowned. I had never seen them this upset before, they looked more worried and sad than the past few days. I couldn't read what was on their minds, although I would have rather been able to do that, so we could skip the whole conversation where they told me what was wrong. I slowed right down as I stepped into the kitchen, walking towards the pantry in a slow manner as well, grabbing a few granola bars and stuffing them in my bag. The entire time I could still feel their stares tingle on the side of my face.

"What?" I asked finally, raising my eyebrows as I headed towards the door, beginning to get my shoes on as I knew I couldn't take the car today, my parents would probably want it. I was stuck walking.

My parents both didn't say anything, only staring at me with upset eyes as they seemed grieving.

"James, are you sure you want to go to school today? You could just stay home," my mom said, and instantly I was taken back again, giving the two of them confused looks. What? Why would I stay home? What's going on with them?

"Why? Why would I stay home? It's school, you guys don't like it when I skip anyways. What's going on?" I asked, although they remained silent for a bit, as if they didn't know what to say. But I knew they did, I could see it on their face that they were hiding something from me, but they didn't want to tell me.

"Son, haven't you heard the news?" my dad asked suddenly, and I stared straight ahead at him. I felt my eyes narrow more in confusion, as I shook my head a bit, and this type of nervous energy formed inside me.