Despite his inevitable separation from Jack, Ralph was otherwise optimistic about his return to school. He was entering his ninth grade year, his first year of high school. He was still attending Eastern Woodland Academy. The private school catered to students from Kindergarten all the way through senior year. This year, there were plenty of new kids in Ralph's grade as students from private middle schools were directed to ones like Eastern Woodland Academy that offered high school programs.
Ralph made a few new friends by the end of his first week back. Everyday, he had lunch with his friends in the cafeteria and then spent the rest of the break in the fitness room training. It was strange, though, the jump from middle to high school. It meant spending most of his time in completely new corridors. High school, middle school, and elementary school students were almost always separate from each other. Ralph only ever saw the younger students at the entry and dismissal bells each day. Their recess and lunch breaks were also different than that of other divisions.
It didn't take long for Ralph to grow tired of the thirty minute bus rides again. He didn't know anyone on his bus. Several of the students he travelled with were in different grades; most he didn't even recognize. He only ever saw them on the actual ride to and from school just before and after they'd all disappear through different doors of the school.
It was early in the last full week of August. It was brutally hot outside, and even more so as Ralph stepped inside the school bus at the end of a long school day. The bus, thankfully, had air conditioning but only when it was actually running. For the first ten or fifteen minutes he'd sit inside, the bus stayed off while the driver waited for the rest of the students to arrive. Ralph could feel the beads of sweat dripping down the back of his neck as he sat down in an empty seat. He reached his hand up to feel the strands of short hair that hung over his forehead; damp they were. It was an excruciating eleven minutes before the bus was finally turned on (and yes, Ralph was counting). The air conditioning finally flowed through the bus, the cold air pushing Ralph's hair back and off his dripping forehead; sweet, sweet relief.
As Ralph stepped off the bus a mere thirty-two minutes later, he considered begging his mom to start picking him up after school to avoid the heat and noise of the dreadful bus ride until the fall weather hit in mid to late September. He walked the half block from his bus stop to the house, sweating like a sumo wrestler, desperate for the ice cold shower he'd been dreaming about all day.
When he finally got in the door, his dad was there on the phone in the living room, pacing around as he talked. Ralph could tell it was a work call, and waved silently at his father when he noticed him. Jeffery smiled and waved back but quickly diverted his attention back to the call. Ralph hung his backpack up on the coatrack and decided to take advantage of his father being out of his office. Ralph trekked quietly down the hall to then sit down on his dad's spiny chair at his desk in front of the desktop computer. Ralph was just about to open the internet to search up the weekly weather forecast for East Point, Georgia when his eyes scanned the screen in front of him. His dad's email inbox was left open on the screen. Ralph nearly minimized the window just before his eyes found an e-mail that caught his attention. He was surprised to see Bainbridge Military Academy as the sender of the email at the top of Jeffery's list. Ralph thought his dad must've been looking through old emails until he noticed the date in the right hand corner: 08/17/1992; just over a week ago now. The email wasn't bolded in the inbox meaning it had already been opened and read. Ralph glanced out the doorway to see if his father was coming down the hall. All he could hear was the faint sound of Jeffery's voice talking in the living room. Ralph turned back to the computer and reluctantly clicked on the email from his former school.
"Dear Our Bainbridge Military Academy Community,
Here at Bainbridge Military Academy, the hearts of our staff and students are heavy as we approach the two year anniversary of a tragic event that struck our school community, city, state, and country. On September 6th 1990, students of our Unit 8 squadron here at Bainbridge Military Academy were preparing for the two-month International Military Training Program we offer in partnership with top ranking RAF joint military bases in the U.K. Unfortunately, we were devastated to learn that the plane our cadets and captain were on crashed in the North Atlantic Ocean during their flight to England. Of the forty-one passengers on board, only twenty-two survived the accident and were rescued from a nearby island nearly five months later.
On the upcoming two year anniversary of this tragedy that took the lives of eighteen cadets and one of our beloved captains, we are honored to be holding a commemoration ceremony here at Bainbridge Military Academy for all members of our school community. This ceremony will be dedicated to all nineteen lives that were lost and their families. We will be hosting this ceremony of rememberance on the anniversary, September 6th 1992, in our assembly hall starting at 1800 hours EST. All are welcome to attend, including families whose children are no longer enrolled at the academy. We hope that you and your family can join us in honoring, celebrating and remembering the those precious lives we lost nearly two years ago now.
Sincerely,
Head Officer Ronald Bailey &
Bainbridge Military Academy."
Ralph didn't realize there were tears running down his face until he finished reading the email. His hand was shaking atop the computer mouse as his heart rate became sporadic. Ralph suddenly felt like he was suffocating. He couldn't even remember why he was in here, reading his dad's emails, in the first place.
"Ralph? What are you doing in here?" he heard his dad's voice in the doorway behind him.
Ralph turned the chair around to meet his father's eyes. Ralph's were bloodshot and swollen, his face stained with tears that continued to steadily flow. Jeffery's face went hollow with shock as he stared from the boy to the screen behind him.
"Ralph" his dad said in a small, sad voice. He approached him in the chair and bent down in front of him so they were eye level. "We were going to talk to you about this. We don't have to go, kiddo. It's okay if you just want to put all this behind you, we understand. There's nothing wrong with that. We'd never force you to do anything you don't want to do, okay?"
Ralph stared into his dad's eyes, tears flowing unnoticed down his own face. He took a moment to consider what Jeffery said. "I wanna go" Ralph decided, his voice croaky from a mix of both puberty and agony.
"Are you sure?" his father questioned his decision. "Don't feel like you have to go out of obligation or anything like that. Nobody expects you to be there, Ralph. Not us, not your friends, not the school, nobody. Everyone is going to understand what choice you and every other kid you were rescued with makes about this."
"Jack" Ralph's eyes went wide as he realized that Jack's family must've gotten the email too.
"You don't have to do what Jack does" Jeffery assured him. "Even if he decides to go, that doesn't mean you have to. And even if he decides not to, that doesn't mean you can't go" he pointed out under the assumption that Ralph could very easily decide to base this decision solely on the boy he'd spent the last year building his life around.
"It's not that" Ralph responded softly. "I'm just worried about him. If he knows about this, maybe he's not doing okay. I should call 'im" Ralph thought out as he urgently attempted to stand up from the chair. Jeffery stopped him before he could stand, holding him back until he plopped back down, a confused look on his face.
"Ralph, take a bit of time to sit with this before you decide, okay? You can call Jack later" Jeffery declared in an effort to prevent Ralph from making a decision right away, or based on that Jack Merridew might make.
"But—"
"No, Ralph. You are not calling Jack right now. That's my final decision, don't ask me to change my mind. I'll let you know when you can call him, alright?" his dad said firmly.
"Fine" Ralph accepted with defeat. He sighed heavily as his dad moved to let him stand up. Ralph was evidently upset with him; it was made clear in the passive-aggressive way he stormed out of the room.
A few minutes later, Laurie entered the office shortly after Jeffery got back to working.
"Jeff, hon, what's going on with Ralph?" she asked with dire concern.
"He read the email" Jeffery spun around in the chair to face his worried wife.
"The one from the academy?"
Jeffery nodded in confirmation as his wife let out a heavy sigh. She took a minute to think before she spoke again.
"So he doesn't want to go, I'm guessing?" Laurie assumed as she tried to figure out what had set her angered son off.
"No, actually, he said he does want to go. He's mad because I didn't let him call Jack to talk to him about it. I didn't want him making a decision based on whatever Jack might decide to do. I told him to take some time to think it over on his own and make up his own mind before discussing it with Jack" Jeffery explained. His wife could tell that he was both tired and frustrated.
"Good, I agree with you on that" Laurie said as she approached him. She sat down on his knee and Jeffery wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder as she leaned her head against his.
"I'm glad you think so" Jeffery smiled. "I was worried you might get mad at me too."
"Why would you think that?" she asked defensively.
"We tend to disagree about a lot of things when it comes to Ralph and all the island-recovery stuff. I thought you might rip me a new one for upsetting our precious little boy" Jeffery admitted lightly.
"Well of course I'm not happy to see him so upset but I don't want him doing something just because Jack is or isn't. And considering how much time he spends with, and even just talking about Jack, I'm sure it'd be easy for him to let Jack decide for the both of them. I've seen it happen before" Laurie observed.
"Jack does tend to wear the pants in that relationship" Jeffery joked lightheartedly.
"Don't ever say that in front of Ralph" Laurie defensively warned him.
"I wouldn't" Jeffery defended. "Of course I wouldn't" he added when Laurie raised her eyebrows at him.
The couple both smiled knowingly at each other, consumed with both love and affliction for their struggling son and for each other.
"I hope he does decide to go" Laurie said after a few moments of comfortable silence. "I think it might help him find some closure from this whole thing. It might help him to move past it; aid in his recovery. I think he really holds onto it at times. He lost at least one or two friends during it; his roommate, the Bennett boy, and at least one other, I think. I worry that he keeps himself trapped in the tragedy of it all in order to hold onto them."
"Has he ever said anything like that to you?" Jeffery wondered how she came to that conclusion.
"No, he's hardly said anything to me about it at all" his wife answered honestly. "And that's part of the problem. It's been two years since it first happened, a year and a half since they were rescued. Don't you think it's time he starts to work through it?"
"He's always been trying to work through it, Laur. It may not be in a way we understand. I hate that he hasn't included us in it, doesn't want to talk to us about it. But that doesn't mean he hasn't been trying to work through it. It's all he's been doing for the past year and a half. Working through it just might not look the way we expect it to."
"Well, I hope you're right" she admitted, much to Jeffery's surprise. "For Ralph's sake, I really do hope you're right."