Risen (4 page)

©
2012, All Rights Reserved.

UNO (1)

My best friend is dying in the woods.

He’s lying there on the ground, surrounded by a dark red patch of dirt and leaves.

His face is waxen and pale, as if he were never alive in the first place.

A gust of wind rocks the trees and ruffles my hair. I look around and see only trees and bushes, dirt and leaves. But no movement, not even a bird stirs in the branches, as if Jay’s death has scared every living thing from this place.

It’s all very Miller’s Crossing. Jay didn’t like Miller’s Crossing as much as he liked Goodfellas or Scarface, or the mother of them all, The Godfather. He studied those films the way history nerds study famous battles. He made us study them, too. We discussed and dissected scenes, dialogue, attitude. Learned to emulate the characters we admired.

To the north, in the distance, I can just make out our school, the flagpole, the baseball diamond. Barett field, where the football games are played. Jay will never walk across that field again, because he died in this clearing. He’ll never put on another helmet, never make another dig at someone else’s expense, or throw his arm around me and tell me I did good. This is real.

I kneel down and check his pulse. The carotid artery in the neck. I remember from health class, that’s the proper place to check. There’s nothing, not even a glimmer.

Jay’s eyes are glassy, shriveled somehow, like overripe grapes. His jaw is slack, teeth protruding unnaturally from his mouth in a kind of grimace.

I remember his car. And my laptop he stole. The laptop might be in his car or even in his house. Either way, I need those keys. I bend down and rifle through his pockets.

His wallet feels warm in my hand and I open it, realizing that this particular wallet will never have anything else put into it again. Jay will never throw a few dollars in there or put a picture of his kid sister inside that little plastic flap.

I take everything and shove it in my own pockets where it mingles with my stuff.

Somehow that seems right.

Suddenly Jay’s voice is in my head, like he’s standing next to me, commenting on everything as it happens.

“That’s what I love about you, Richardson, you’re always thinking and planning.

Like Merlin to my King Arthur.”

I smile, half-wishing it were true. How long before people start to look for him?

A day or two?

I think he was in trouble
, I picture myself telling a couple of grizzled detectives.
I
think maybe he took off for Mexico or something—he mentioned some bad people were
after him.

And this is completely true. Bad people were after him and he knew it. In fact, he welcomed it.

The wind is blowing again and my ears feel frozen, like two blocks of ice on the sides of my head. I cross my arms and shiver in the chill air, staring down at him, desperately trying to make sense of it all.

Whatever Jay was, this empty shell lying there on the hard, cold ground no longer has any power. I seem to remember that not very long ago he’d terrified me, made me want to be like him, but now that all seems so silly. Now he’s just this harmless, unmoving heap on the ground in front of me. He’s gone away. Gone away and never to return.

But his eyes are what will haunt me.

Those deflated, gray eyes are staring at me. Accusing me. This is all your fault, those eyes tell me.

And what about Candice? Doesn‘t she also take some of the blame?

But I won’t allow myself to be distracted by thoughts of Candice right now.

I look back at Jay again, surprised to find my eyes filled with tears.

It’s funny, but I still don’t hate him. He ruined my life in these last few months because he didn’t care enough about his own, but in the end, it wasn’t really personal.

DUE (2)

The day that Jay Stevens saves me from certain humiliation, I’m running late to computer lab. The halls are mostly empty as I jog through C Wing to make it to the stairs that lead up to the third floor of Middlebury high school.

My forehead is sweaty and my backpack bounces against my shoulder as my legs pump, sneakers squeaking on the floor. Running through the hallway with sweat pouring down your face isn’t something a cool kid would do. Cool kids stroll around without a care in the world. If they’re late, they’re late. They laugh when the teacher lectures them and docks them points on attendance.

Obviously I’m not one of the cool kids.

And then there are the kids who don’t even bother showing up to class at all.

Kids like Nate Diaz.

I see Nate arguing with his girlfriend just outside my computer class. I come to a stop a few feet away from them, torn between trying to walk past them into the classroom or maybe just turning around and coming back in a few minutes when hopefully they’ll be gone.

It might seem ridiculous to turn around in this situation. But self-preservation is never ridiculous. Nate Diaz is one of the school’s legendary bad-asses. He’s a known druggie who supposedly went to jail last year for breaking someone’s eye socket at a brawl during a school soccer game. It is a known fact that he generally will kick the crap out of anyone who looks at him the wrong way.

“I told you not to talk to that asshole from Target,” Nate tells Amanda Leatherton as she rummages through her purse for something. Her curly brown hair has big poofy bangs and she wears a ton of makeup. She moved to Middlebury from South Boston and has the strongest townie accent I’ve ever heard.

“You’re not my dad,” Amanda says.

“If I was your dad I’d make sure you didn’t talk shit, you can believe that.”

“Oh, you’re really scaring me. Where’s my mirror?”

“You look disgusting. Now you don’t need that stupid mirror.”

“Asshole!” She looks up from her purse and punches his shoulder.

He laughs. “You hit like a little princess. Go ahead and hit me again, princess.”

He grabs her by her arm and yanks her, and she gasps.

“That hurts.”

“Don’t hit me unless you want to get hit back. Got it?” he says.

“Let go of me.”

I know I should just keep my mouth shut, but I’m an idiot. I try to make a joke to break up the domestic abuse. “Personally I’m a fan of nonviolence,” I chirp, and both of them turn to stare at me. “In fact, I think it was Martin Luther King that said an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. He was a smart guy, even though he did end up getting shot and all.” I’m rambling now, as Nate lets go of his girlfriend and glares at me with an expression that lets me know I’m in some trouble. I might as well be a talking turd, that’s what his expression tells me.

“Who the fuck are you?” he says.

“I’m Tim. How’s it going—“

“What’s your last name? Falleasy?”

Confused, I stutter a little as he walks toward me. “No, it’s Richardson.”

“I think it’s Falleasy. As in, when I punch you in the face, you’ll fall easy.”

I can’t believe this is happening. It’s like a nightmare, only usually in nightmares I at least try and run away. “You’re right, I do fall easy,” I tell him. “So you don’t even have to hit me.”

“But hitting you is going to be fun. Maybe you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut next time.”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut. Give me a chance and I’ll prove it.”

“It’ll be easier to keep it closed without your teeth.” He starts moving towards me even faster as I back-peddle.

I hold up my hands, the international sign language of wimps. Go to any country, anywhere in the world and talk trash to a wimp, they’ll hold up their hands just like that.

“He’s got a bratty face,” Amanda says. “You should punch him in the mouth.”

“Thanks for that,” I tell her. Man, she really knows how to show her appreciation for me sticking my neck out on her behalf.

I turn around and start walking away, hoping that maybe I can just teleport out of the situation. If I can’t see it, it’s not really happening.

“Did I tell you to leave?” Nate says and suddenly I feel him slap me in the back of the head.

The slap stings, but more than that, it causes me to panic. I don’t want to get my face broken. Nate grabs the back of my shirt and I suddenly have a vivid flash of me in the hospital on a ventilator in the ICU. I’ll be one of those cautionary tales kids tell each other before starting high school.

Don’t ever mouth off to Nate Diaz or you’ll end up like that Richardson kid who’s
a vegetable now, drinking his meals out of a straw in Middlebury Hospital.

But just as Nate’s about to send me to the ER, someone rounds the corner and sees us. “Let go of him, Diaz,” he says immediately. The voice has all the authority and confidence of a teacher, an adult. Only it isn’t an adult.

Nate lets go of me and I quickly move away from him.

Jay Stevens is standing there in his varsity football jacket and looking pissed off—like some kind of teenage superhero, showing up just when I need him.

Which is ironic, considering he pretty much left me in the dust a few years ago—

just stopped hanging out with me, making me feel like a total friendless loser.

Jay Stevens was my best friend up until fifth grade. But in fifth grade he started avoiding me, and after that year we almost never spent time together anymore. I have my suspicions as to why Jay didn’t want me around, but whatever the case, lately he’s been acting like we’re buddies again.

Sometimes he makes me wish I never knew him, but right now I couldn’t be more grateful for his existence.

“Is there a problem?” Nate says, readying himself for whatever’s coming his way.

He’s much smaller than Jay, but it probably won’t matter if Nate decides to get physical.

Nate’s an equal opportunity abuser and he’ll punch a big dude in the face as easily as a little one.

“Settle down, tough guy,” Jay says. “No problem here. I just told you to leave my friend alone. He’s had enough.”

“You going to do something about it?” Nate says. His eyes dart back and forth and he’s looking like an animal backed into a corner.

Jay motions to me. “C’mere Richardson.”

I maneuver myself so that I’m slightly behind Jay’s left shoulder and out of Nate’s way. Now Jay’s between us. I feel like a little kid hiding behind his daddy. But at least I still have all my teeth and I won’t be drinking my meals out of a straw anytime soon.

“You’re nothing but a punk bitch,” Nate says to Jay. “You’ll probably try and get your football buddies to come after me if I knock your ass out. Fake tough guy.”

Jay takes a step forward. “My football buddies got nothing to do with this, little man.” Jay puts his hands in his pockets, and rolls his shoulders, looking quite relaxed.

“You leave my boy Richardson alone and there’s no problem with you and me. It’s done.”

“You and me do have a problem,” Nate says, but it doesn’t really ring true. His voice is low and raspy, and his girlfriend looks on, suddenly quiet.

“It’s over, buddy. Go crawl back under whatever rock you came out of.” Jay makes a shooing gesture.

“Fuck you.”

Jay suddenly gets serious, pulling his hands out of his pockets and flexing his back. He looks like giant, as if he just grew ten inches. “Okay.” He’s deadly calm and there’s nothing but confidence radiating from him. “Okay then. Let’s do this.”

There’s a tense moment but it doesn’t look like Nate really wants to fight.

Something in his predator radar must have told him that there are easier battles then fighting a six-foot tall, two hundred pound athlete with a bad temper.

Yet Nate hasn’t quite backed down and the two of them are still looking at one another like a couple of dogs that don’t quite like each other’s scent.

“Excuse me. Don’t you all have classes you should be in?”

Ms. Gedwell has come out of the classroom glaring at us with the kind of intimidating expression that only crabby veteran teachers seem to have mastered. That look which says you are and will forever be a cockroach running through these school hallways, and you’d best stay on her good side lest she crush you with one of her black high heels.

“I know at least two of you are coming with me,” she says, pointing at Jay and I.

Nate and his girlfriend quickly walk away—even they know better than to mess with a teacher—and Ms. Gedwell turns all of her unwanted attention onto us.

“That guy started in with Richardson,” Jay explains, “so I told him to back off.”

“I don’t care who started it,” Ms. Gedwell says through lips that barely move.

“What I do know is that anytime there’s trouble in my class, you always seem to have a part in it.”

Jay just smiles innocently at her, which seems to infuriate her further.

“He really is telling the truth,” I say. “It’s my fault.”

“Come on, both of you—inside. Pronto.” She shoos us into the lab. Everyone is already seated and working at their computer stations. Middlebury has a pretty high-tech IT department, they even did a big front page article about it in the Herald one time.

And maybe because of all the hype, Ms. Gedwell seems determined to make us work harder in this class then any other. I don’t mind because I really like computers and computer programming. But for Jay, this class has become his personal hell and Ms.

Gedwell his mortal enemy.

Jay recently went so far as to start a rumor that Gedwell used to be a Playboy Playmate, which is admittedly hard to believe. But Jay claims that his dad has an old copy of the issue in question and he keeps promising to steal it and bring it in some day.

Now kids have taken to calling her “Spreadwell” behind her back. Even I’ve used the nickname a few times, guiltily.

As she looms over us with her disapproving gaze, I’m feeling less bad about the rumors. Doesn’t she get it? I think. Nate Diaz wanted to throttle me and all Jay did was try and help.

“Since Mr. Stevens was so busy causing a ruckus in the hallway and distracting us from our work, perhaps he’d like to start off today’s discussion about his website,” she says, closing the door and striding toward us with folded arms.