“Hey you,” Lacey greeted me, shrugging off her coat and taking the seat across from me, “You ready for today?”
The two of us, along with Quinn, were seated at a table in the back corner of Starbucks, using the hour before the drug presentation to catch up on things. The Carr siblings had spent the last two days with their family, writing their speeches and sifting through pictures to use for the presentation, leaving hardly any time for the three of us to talk.
I shrugged and glanced down at my coffee cup, very carefully avoiding Lacey's searching stare. The coffee's barely warm anymore when I take a sip, making it difficult to gulp down. I drink it anyways, though, needing to wake up before the presentation. Then again, maybe not. Maybe drifting through the day only half conscious was the only way to get through everything.
“I guess. It's going to be tough.” I told her, running a hand through my hair. Over her shoulder, I could see my reflection in the rain-splattered glass, and boy was that unpleasant. I hadn't slept last night, and it was obvious. Black circles rimmed my eyes, and my skin was red and blotchy, as if I'd been crying. I had been, though, so I guess it made sense.
“Yeah. Tell me about it, we were a mess last night.” Quinn murmured, looking down at the table top as if it contained all the secrets to the universe. Beside him, Lacey fell silent too, turning an unhealthy shade of gray.
“I need to go to the bathroom, excuse me.” she muttered, nearly knocking over her chair in her rush to get around the corner.
“What's her problem?” I asked, watching her as she disappeared behind the door, her long hair swishing behind her.
“Uh, she has the flu.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and he blushed, looking away anxiously. He was lying, and we both knew that I could tell.
“Quinton, I have know you for 15 years, and I know that you're lying to me right now. What's really going on?”
“I cant tell you, she'll shoot me.”
“I'll shoot you too if you don't tell me.”
Quinn, apparently realizing that he was screwed no matter what, looked nervously at the bathroom door before swinging his gaze back to me. Chewing on his thumbnail, he looked up at me through his eyelashes and said, “Lacey thinks she's pregnant.”
“What?!” I exploded, standing up so fast that my chair toppled over, hitting the ground with a crash that caused more than a few people to glower in my general direction.
“No, no, no! Sit down! Jesus, Hart, she's going to hear you and come out. Sit.”
I did as he said, collapsing onto the chair, still not fully believing what he'd just told me.
“Who? How? What? She's still dating Dallas though. Unless....oh my god.” I cried, my eyes widening in horror, “She wouldn't.”
“Ah, but she did. You know Gunner, our bassist? Yeah. They're dating now. Have been for a while.”
“That is so shady, what about Dallas? What's she going to do when he wakes up? She didn't even break up with him.”
“C'mon, Hartley. She couldn't break up with him anyways, he's in a coma. The doctor said it himself, even he doesn't think that Dallas will ever wake up. Was she just supposed to pass up every guy she meets because he's in a coma? She'd be alone for the rest of her life, bud.”
“Yeah, but still.” I muttered, feeling the need to get angry on behalf of Dallas, since he couldn't do it himself.
“What're you guys talking about?” Lacey asked suspiciously, returning to her seat. I looked away, figuring Quinn could man up and answer that one himself.
“Oh boy. Yeah, uhm. She knows.”
Lacey looked horrified, and also a little guilty, which brought me some satisfaction.
“Hartley, you need to understand... I was torn up when Dallas got in that crash, and Gunner was always around and... well, he made things better. Then one thing lead to another, and just... I'm sorry. You know I'd never purposely hurt Dallas, right? I mean, I love him. We all do. Right?”
“Right.” I muttered, just as the bell over the door rang.
I glanced up just as Mickey strolled in, a dark red scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Quinn and Lacey flinched, just like they always did when Mickey was around. They had a hard time looking at someone who looked exactly like Dallas, but wasn't Dallas. It was probably especially hard for Lacey now, seeing someone who looked like her comatose ex-boyfriend hanging around all the time.
Regardless though, I liked having Mickey around, and had asked him to come with me not only for moral support, but to scope out the place to see if Sammy would show up. I'd asked him to tell Sammy to come, hoping that maybe it would bring him some closure, and Mickey had said he would. One of the perks of having a friend who could see dead people, I guess.
“You guy ready to go? It starts soon.” he told us, picking up my almost empty cup of coffee and taking a swig. He made a face but swallowed it, dropping it into a near by garbage can immediately after.
“I'm ready if you guys are.” Lacey said after a few beats of silence, and with that, we filed out of the door, heading towards the parking lot.
*************************
“On the night of September second, Samuel Thistlethwaite attended a party, wanting to end the summer with a bang. During this party, a young man named Chad who had previously bullied Sammy came up to him and offered him a drink, apologizing for everything he'd done during their high school career. Samuel, being a very forgiving individual, accepted this drink. He was so thrilled to finally be let off the hook, that he didn't stop to think about what his former enemy could have done to his drink. Unfortunately for Sammy, his night ended in the morgue. Here you have a kid who never even eats sugar because its bad for him, suddenly overdosing on a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol. His life was cut short just shy of his 17th birthday, and so now we call upon his friends to come forward and carry on his legacy. Give it up for our first speaker, Hartley Wolf.” the officer announced, clapping in an attempt to start of a round of applause. The gymnasium was silent, except for a few sniffles here and there.
“Hi, uhm. I'm Hartley, and I was the last person to see Sammy alive. During the party, he mentioned to me that he felt funny, and that he was going to go take a nap. I went upstairs a little while later to check on him, but when I got there, he was very still, and very pale. I searched and searched for his pulse, but I didn't find it. The doctor later told me that he was dead on arrival and there was nothing I could have done anyways, but still. I felt responsible, you know? He's my best friend.” I took a deep breath and searched the crowd for Mickey, who nodded at me and shot me a thumbs up.
Is he here? I mouthed to him, and Mickey paused for a moment, looking at lot like Raven Simone when she has a vision, before a grin spread across his face slowly, and he nodded.
“Sammy was one of the best friends you could have asked for. He always knew when you were sad, and he knew when to prod and when to leave you alone. He'd do anything for anyone, no matter what. I still think about him every single day, because there's always traces of him. They're everywhere. Like, yesterday I was rearranging my room, and I took down one of my posters. Behind it was the hole I punched in my wall on the night he died.”
I paused for a minute, taking in a shaky breath and trying to calm myself. My eyes scanned the audience, hoping that maybe I'd get a glimpse of Sammy somewhere, but instead realized that someone in the back row had their hand up.
“Uhm, yeah, you in the back?” I asked, and a tall muscular guy stood up, tears streaming down his face.
“I was at that party. My girlfriend and I were looking for somewhere to hook up, and we went into that room. The last thing I heard him say was, 'Hart, are you still here?', but then my girlfriend dragged me out to go find somewhere more private. I didn't hear him say anything else on the way out, so I think those were his last words. I just thought you'd like to know that, that he was thinking of you before he died.”
I bit my lip, trying my hardest not to cry, and nodded at him, sending him what I hoped was a grateful look. One of the officers took this as their cue to introduce Quinn and Lacey for their speech, escorting me off to a folding chair at the edge of the gymnasium.
I tried my hardest to listen to them as they talked about the dangers of mixing drugs and alcohol, and how people needed to watch their drinks, and then finally about how much they loved Sammy, but I was too distracted. Sammy had asked for me, and I'd let him down. I could have saved him, but I wasn't there.
I felt sick to my stomach.
Finally, an eternity later, Lacey and Quinn returned to their seats beside me, and the officer took the microphone back. Lacey slid her hand into mine, and squeezed, tears streaming down her face.
“Finally,” the officer boomed, pausing for dramatic effect as he gazed around the gym, “Please welcome our last friend of Sammy's who will be presenting today, Tristan Wilks.”